I am taking a class about special education. I didn't know this before but in order to be classified into special ed you have to have a low IQ score in most cases. So I thought I would take an IQ test and find out where I fall. Now the interesting thing about IQ tests is that many people believe they are biased toward white middle class Americans. So, if the test is biased in that way then how do you think low income black kids do? How about children of immigrants? You see where this is going? There is a disproportionate number of non-white kids getting classified into special ed. One might say, "Well that's okay, they'll get better help and be smarter in the long run because they have extra help." But the statistics don't agree with that. Forty percent of special ed students drop out of school. So we are fueling the poverty cycle by misclassifying non white students into special education. Why is special ed placement such a large predictor of career/life success? Because being in special ed is stigmatized and because the curriculum and expectations are much lower than that of the general student population. The whole system is broken. It is fixable, it is very fixable and people that are much smarter than me are advocating for change in the system. Hopefully it will come sooner rather than later.
So I am a white middle class suburban raised person. My IQ score is 116. I am considered above average intelligence, by 3 percentage points, so just barely. What is your IQ? What do you think about this debate?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Contributors
My Favorites
- The Colonel's Journal - Gramper's Blog
- Ichigo Tamago - DocRom's Blog
- Okinawa City, Okinawa (沖縄市) - BigBro's Blog
- Christianfanger
- Pro Simians
- My Best Investments
- Petroville
- Amalah
- Girl's Gone Child
- It's Twinsanity
- Mama Mid(wife) Madness
- Meconium Happens
- MetroDad: Another Funny Dad Blog
- Motherhood Uncensored
- The New Girl
- Poop and Boogies: A Funny Dad Blog
- Championable: A Heart Felt Daddy Blog
- How About Two: Daddy Blog
- Miss Britt
- Cara in Exile
- Belle of the Blog
- kickyboots
- Mama Pop
- Jezebel
2 comments:
I don't know my actual score, I just know its over 135, because that was the cut-off for the magnet school I was invited to attend. My mom knows my score, but she has never told me.
I don't know how to think of the race/class debate, but I went to school in L.A. with many black, latino, asian, jewish, and immigrant children. I think the main difference for most children was parental expectations.
One of the smartest people I have ever known is a black man, Paul, raised by his single mother. He spent the night before the SATs playing D&D, then went in and scored over 1500. But his mom always expected a great deal from him.
Roper has written quite a lot about this sorta stuff.
There's now also an interesting number of papers that discuss "performing whiteness" - meaning they explore what it means for someone when what is considered intelligent, say, is measurable (and thereby knowable) by a set of signs and gestures that are foreign to other orientations.
Not only talking about who knows what vocab words, but also talking about how to display intelligence when biological factors inhibit "normal" expression, such as autism or ADHD (which I'm learning tons about now).
Japan's crazy, love you much!
Post a Comment