Readit NewsThe author spent the byline and first half of the article trying to explain that these universities wouldn't accept people with disabilities because they're just too elite and highly-selective. The recent surge of disabilities is actually perfectly explained, even in the article. The diagnostic criteria for disabilities has changed over time, becoming more "relaxed" as some would put it. If the diagnostic criteria expands to include more people, we are going to see higher rates of disability.
?? many people would think there is something wrong with the definition of disabled if 38% of the population is disabled: more likely to be mislabeled. now, if 38% of the population is not disabled, but 38% of elite universities is, that is also something of note... is how the headline/article should be read.
then, if you live in a society with the ideological divides that many western societies show, where one side campaigns by advocating more social spending and the other advocates that it's being overdone, the suspicion is sure to emerge in some quarters that the metrics for disability might be manipulated in one political direction or the other. also makes a number like 38% interesting.
> one side campaigns by advocating more social spending
Ironically, having more social spending on 4-year universities would actually alleviate this problem if we are following the author's logic. If students weren't the ones footing the bill for their education, there would be less incentive for them to take measures to try and circumvent a system that penalizes low-performance (doubly-so because you both get a bad grade and you still have to pay back the money).
I read the headline/article exactly the way it was supposed to be interpreted. I'm also not reading that far into it, the byline literally states, "If you get into an elite college, you probably don't have a learning disability", which again, is simply not true and is ableist. Disabled people are not incapable of performing certain tasks, but they are hindered, which is why it's called a disability and not an inability.
I don't doubt that many of those students are faking having a disability to game the system in order to benefit themselves, but this article and the discussion around it are anything but intellectual.
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For the middle, it really depends on the material covered. if it's cumulative, then results might not change as much. if it's "learn and forget", then it might be testing the wrong incentives.
The thing I find interesting is that when most people talk about standardised tests, they are talking about assessments that benchmark how much trivial knowledge about a given subject one has, and this has been the standard for most of the history of the American education system. I would argue that this is a flawed way to measure a student's literacy–in any subject for that matter.
I would actually frame "learn and forget" as "learn and adapt" because I would much rather a student forget a piece of trivial knowledge, but still have the ability to figure it out on their own with the right resources than a student who can tell you the colour Benjamin Franklin wore on his 15th birthday, but couldn't explain the effects of imperialism on societies.
For much of history, we have incentivised rote memorisation of trivial knowledge and accidentally de-valued critical thinking and problem solving skills. Do you remember the backlash that schools got from _parents_ when schools started implementing Common Core in an attempt to get students to think more abstractly? While I scoff at them, I genuinely don't blame parents for coming to the conclusion that we should just do math "the way we used to do it", but I can't help but point out that this is leading to the exact decline in general literacy that we have seen in public schools over the years. Now when you start comparing the educational attainment of students in public schools vs. private schools this becomes a who other conversation that cell phones can't even begin to explain.
Why do you think that's more likely?
One of the first things they teach you in educational research is that standardised test scores are significantly impacted based on how the tests are administered and what the test is actually assessing.
It's much more likely that simply changing the way they administer these tests had a more significant impact on test scores than phone bans.