Reply #54: I would suggest that

[LWolf]

anyone who is tired of the "standardization" cancer that has spread and choked the life out of public ed ought to be making more noise about it to their reps.

Republicans aren't the only politicians who have supported legislative/policy efforts to standardize public schools at the local, state, or national level. Plenty of Democrats have helped along the way, and are still helping. Then when you call them on it, they decry the "lack of funding," and call for full funding of their efforts, rather than acknowledging the destructive results of top-down standardization.

How about full funding for individualized curriculum and instruction, designed to meet the needs of individual students, to replace the obsessive/compulsive need to standardize every damned breath we breathe in the classroom? You won't hear many policy setters calling for this, because they don't want to upset the applecart they helped create. When you get this sort of response from your admins, it's probably due to policies set at the district level to comply with mandated "improvement plans" because at least one school in the district didn't make AYP for a few years running. Those plans always call for more standardization.

As for your Aspie, in the current stepford school climate enforced from above, recognizing and honoring individual differences is not a priority, is it? There are differences from state to state and district to district; not all are like this. Those that still make efforts to meet individual needs are those that haven't gone too far down the current NCLB road....yet. I worked with a wonderful Aspie K-5th grade; it was never easy, and I could see that he had needs we just didn't have the structure or resources to meet. I'd be right with any group of parents, citizens, or educators who wanted to make large-scale shifts in the structure and format we use to educate kids in order to meet individual needs. Usually, when I bring it up, it is just not anyone's "priority," what with all the other fashionable crises we've endured the last several years.