Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

Yesterday’s NYTimes reported on a phenomenon we began to observe well over a decade ago in the New Hampshire School District I led: affluent and knowledgeable parents are seeking and securing additional time for their children to take high stakes standardized tests. How? Through the 504 loophole. Writers Dana Goldstein and Jugal Patel describe it thusly in their opening paragraphs:

The boom began about five years ago, said Kathy Pelzer, a longtime high school counselor in an affluent part of Southern California. More students than ever were securing disability diagnoses, many seeking additional time on class work and tests.

A junior taking three or four Advanced Placement classes, who was stressed out and sleepless. A sophomore whose grades were slipping, causing his parents angst. Efforts to transfer the children to less difficult courses, Ms. Pelzer said, were often a nonstarter for their parents, who instead turned to private practitioners to see whether a diagnosis — of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, perhaps, or anxiety or depression — could explain the problem.

Such psychological assessments can cost thousands of dollars, and are often not covered by insurance. For some families, the ultimate goal was extra time — for classroom quizzes, essays, state achievement tests, A.P. exams and ultimately the SAT and ACT.

“You’ll get what you’re looking for if you pay the $10,000,” Ms. Pelzer said, citing the highest-priced evaluations. “It’s a complicated mess.”

The results of this “complicated mess” are predictable: if you have the money, you can buy the time your child needs. If you don’t have the money, you’re stuck. And while word on this was fairly localized over a decade ago, social media have made it possible for the information to be shared far and wide… and the consequences are that the children of affluent parents are having their presumed needs met and the poor have a steeper hill to climb:

From Weston, Conn., to Mercer Island, Wash., word has spread on parenting message boards and in the stands at home games: A federal disability designation known as a 504 plan can help struggling students improve their grades and test scores. But the plans are not doled out equitably across the United States.

In the country’s richest enclaves, where students already have greater access to private tutors and admissions coaches, the share of high school students with the designation is double the national average. In some communities, more than one in 10 students have one — up to seven times the rate nationwide, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.

Ms. Goldstein and Ms. Patel’s thoroughly researched article describes the genesis of 504 plans and how they became the workaround of choice for parents who could afford to have their child diagnosed by a clinician who specializes in that area. It includes stark data indicating that wealthy districts have twice the percentage of 504 cases as poor districts and blacks are disproportionately lacking in 504 accommodations.

The fix might be easy: eliminate the timing of the tests— or better yet make the stakes of the tests lower. Either way, the playing field will become more level and the importance of test preparation will be diminished… and that would be good for public education.