Sad, no good, very bad, depressing reality reported by the Houston Chronicle:
Over a decade ago, the officials arbitrarily decided what percentage of students should get special education services — 8.5 percent — and since then they have forced school districts to comply by strictly auditing those serving too many kids.
Their efforts, which started in 2004 but have never been publicly announced or explained, have saved the Texas Education Agency billions of dollars but denied vital supports to children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, epilepsy, mental illnesses, speech impediments, traumatic brain injuries, even blindness and deafness.
Special education rates have fallen to the lowest levels in big cities, where the needs are greatest. Houston ISD and Dallas ISD provide special ed services to just 7.4 percent Tweet this link and 6.9 percent of students, respectively. By comparison, about 19 percent of kids in New York City get services. In all, among the 100 largest school districts in the U.S., only 10 serve fewer than 8.5 percent of their students. All 10 are in Texas.
An embarrassing and frankly sadistic cover up.
When asked about the drop at a 2010 state Senate Education Committee hearing, [special education director Eugene] Lenz did not mention the target.
“We fundamentally believe it has a lot to do with improving general education,” he said.
Fundamental beliefs sound a lot of like lies and crazy talk.
Also, I thought everyone actually involved in teaching children agrees that the increased emphasis on teaching toward standardized tests/metrics in young children while simultaneously cutting budgets for anything remotely enjoyable was making “general education” worse.
5 Comments
Hello,
Recently came across your blog and some of the information is highly valuable. Anyway, i have posted about my question at SDN etc but no help so figure might try this. Sorry for cluttering you page.
Got step 3 results on 9/14/16 and 185 and ERAS went out the next day. Without writing a novel, I’ll try to post quickly here:
Prep:
4 months of dedicated time. About 12 hours a day. Lets make it 7 hours a day of solid studying for 4 months.
UW: First pass: 57% correct. Timed, random. Then incorrect questions. 2nd pass: Reset the qbank. Timed, random 85% correct. Then incorrect questions. Then marked about 600 questions on topic i sucked at. Made blocks out of these. Then marked another 250 questions that i was still struggling with. Then marked another 100qs to make sure i was focusing on weak concepts.
Notes: Made flashcards out of UW and reviewed them on regular basis. Was trying to avoid passive learning. Looked up material from Step up to medicine and or MTB step 2/step 3.
Videos: Used medquest (conrad fischer’s) Step 3 HY course. Watched these videos about twice becasue most of the content was still fresh from step 2.
Audio: My daily commute was 90 minute one way. So converted step 3 HY videos to audio for listening.
Exams: NBME: scored 400 raw score since they don’t give you conversion. NBME was done about 9 weeks before test date. UWSA: Took about 7 weeks before my test and scored 208. From the time i took UWSA to my actual exam: Primarily stuck on uw, and uw flash cards.
CCS: UW 51 cases about 4 times.
Official Usmle CCS: Went through couple of times.
Biostat: Did UW step 1, step 2, step 3 + UW biostat course.
Wk areas: Early on i sucked at acute coronary syndrome, pna, gallstones, cholecystitis, elec trolytes, and some endo. Worked at these. Opened up MTB, wiki, step up to med to make sure i learned it.
Since i need to retake (aiming for 6 weeks- good idea?) Not sure if i should re do UW step 3 or Kaplan step 3 qbank or firstaid step 3 qbank? Or perhaps step 2 uw + CCS.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here’s the link to my performance breakdown
https://s12.postimg.org/afh8nk0jx/Step_3_breakdown.jpg
Seems like you’ve thoroughly exhausted UWorld, I’d switch it up. Don’t know between Kaplan and Rx, have no experience with their Step 3 products. Rx is generally easier/high yield, so I’d probably choose that given your needs.
Can’t see the photo due to a firewall, but suffice to say whatever sections you have below “borderline” will be high yield to go over at length.
Good idea. Thank you. Here’s the link to the photo (SDN).
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/long-time-lurker-first-time-failer.1221969/
Once again, thank you!
So diagnosis based questions are a problem for you in general, with CNS and peds being the most problematic system and ages. But overall you’re borderline throughout so a wide-based approach will be best overall. Do make sure to pay attention to that basic OB and peds.
Thank you!