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Dyslexia needs more attention

Sheikh Hamad Al Mualla, member of the ruling family, went to UK for support with his dyslexia.
Reem Mohammed / The National

Sheikh Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Mualla’s decision to talk publicly about his struggle with dyslexia is a brave step towards shining more light on this much misunderstood condition. When Sheikh Hamad started school, he faced difficulties getting the support he needed from his teachers, who characterised him as “lazy”. He eventually found the encouragement to finish his studies in the UK. By talking about his own struggles, he has helped open up a discussion about the needs of many other students who do not receive the same level of support.

The lack of understanding about dyslexia, which is part of a global problem concerning learning difficulties, helps explain why there is such a stigma associated with the condition. Dyslexic children have been unjustly painted as lazy, unintelligent or unwilling to make the effort to study.
It has been traditionally hard to get a proper diagnosis for dyslexia because of the difficulty in differentiating it from other learning challenges. It’s true that dyslexia is the most common cause of reading difficulties, but students also face challenges in spelling, speech and memorisation.
Ultimately, dyslexia needs champions like Sheikh Hamad who are open and honest about their stories and the challenges they have faced. Our education system should work to increase support for children.
Unfortunately, some teachers are unable to detect the signs of dyslexia and have little experience in dealing with it. And so we need to train our teachers in this area.
Sheikh Hamad has taken a bold step to raise attention about this misunderstood and stigmatised issue. His bravery should be applauded. His decision to speak out will help our society deal with the problem and not be afraid to talk about it.
If even one child or educator learns from Sheikh Hamad’s example and asks for help or learns more about this condition, then we will be on the right path towards helping dyslexic children.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/editorial/dyslexia-needs-more-attention

Toward a Definition of Classical Education

By Amanda Wilson

The Invention of Meaning Through Comparison

"Fifth, classical education has a historic repertoire, and it could be argued, a 5,000-year history— stretching back as far as the Hebrew and Egyptian traditions, and certainly the Greek and Roman."


http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/toward-definition-classical-education

The Brain of the Denisovan Girl

A BOOK BY JOHN HARRIS


"It has been suggested that eidetic imagery is a gift many and perhaps most children have — and then lose as their verbal skills become seated and then dominant. Maybe it is an instance of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny. It does happen. Maybe modern humans, like growing children, lost their strong pictorial gifts when they started talking."

http://www.rewiring-neuroscience.com/348/ 

10th Circuit Rules that District Courts Cannot Delegate the Responsibility to Remedy an IDEA Violation to the IEP Team

May 12, 2016
In M.S. by J.S. v. Utah Schs. for the Deaf and Blind, 116 LRP 19237 (10th Cir. 05/10/16), the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the District Court cannot delegate the responsibility to determine the appropriate placement for a deaf/blind student to the IEP team.
M.S. Had been a student in the residential program at the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind (USDB) since 2004. In 2010 USDB announced it was closing its residential program. M.H.'s parents opposed that decision as did other parents. After intervention by an advocacy group, USDB relented and continued the residential program. However, there remained other disputes regarding M.S.'s placement. Eventually, the case was heard by the Utah federal district court. The case had numerous issued, but, most importantly here, the Court determined USDB and the Provo School District were not appropriate placements for M.S. The parents sought placement at the Perkins School for the Blind, a private program.  Rather than order that placement, the District Court sent the case back to the IEP team to determine the future placement. The case was appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 10th Circuit overruled the district court. The Court noted that a school district employee cannot be a hearing officer under the IDEA. Similarly, since most members of the IEP team were school district employees, the Court determined that the IEP team could not be the entity responsible for determining the remedial placement for the student. The Court stated:
"Allowing the educational agency that failed or refused to provide the covered student with FAPE to determine the remedy for that violation is simply at odds with the review scheme set out at [20 USC 1415(i)(2)(C)]," U.S. Circuit Judge Michael R. Murphy wrote. The panel further noted that such an approach could create an "endless cycle" of litigation, requiring the parent to seek a due process hearing each time she disagreed with the proposed remedy."
 
https://disabilitylawco.org/resources/ability-law-blog/10th-circuit-rules-district-courts-cannot-delegate-responsibility-remedy#.VzVUQ5MGHG-.facebook

Disability Discrimination Accounts for Nearly Half of Civil Rights Complaints to U.S. Dept. of Education in 2015

As the U.S. Department of Education (ED) fielded a record number of civil rights complaints in 2015, the agency said nearly half alleged some form of disability discrimination. ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) received over 4,800 complaints asserting violations of disability laws during the 2015 fiscal year, according to a report released this week. Disability issues accounted for the largest group of complaints logged, representing 46 percent of the record-high 10,392 complaints received by the OCR, which is tasked with ensuring equal access and prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability and age in education programs. While the overall number of disability-related complaints dropped slightly compared to the 4,919 filed in 2014, the Education Department said that reports of inappropriate restraint and seclusion as well as issues related to Web accessibility for students with disabilities were both on the rise. The greatest number of disability-related complaints lodged last year hinged on the right to a free, appropriate public education followed by complaints of retaliation and those centering on exclusion or different treatment. Many complaints crossed over into more than one of the 18 categories of disability discrimination that the office tracks, the report said. Over the course of the year, the OCR said it successfully resolved 4,655 of the disability complaints received. In addition to responding to individual complaints, the ED issued five guidance documents in 2015 addressing disability-rights issues in schools. "OCR’s work over the last year has been absolutely pivotal to advancing the department’s goal to increase equity and opportunity for all students,” said Secretary of Education John King. "Through our guidance, technical assistance, data collection and investigatory work, the department’s message to the public is clear: We are committed to working with and supporting schools to protect students’ civil rights — and we will take action to secure those rights when necessary.”

Senators-spar-over-aid-to-dyslexic-students

The amendment would not mandate that federal funding go towards extra training, but would allow states and local school districts, if they so choose, to use federal funds on training toward identifying dyslexia and other specific learning disabilities. Its critics argued that all disabilities, not just specific learning disabilities, should get the support the amendment called for. For example, autism and attention-deficit disorder do not fall under the category of specific learning disabilities.
"It is about getting children with a specific diagnosis the right services as early as possible," Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said in response to criticism the amendment would create special privileges for dyslexic students. Cassidy was the amendment's sponsor. "Does anyone really think that a child with dyslexia, who struggles to read, write, and spell through no fault of their own, feels privileged? The irony is palpable."

 " Once again Patty Murray shows off her ignorance or special interest obligations and stiff arms dyslexic students."


The committee's ranking member, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., spoke in opposition to the amendment. She listed national groups that opposed the amendment, including the National PTA, National Down Syndrome Society and others. The National Education Association, the largest individual union in the country, also opposed the amendment.
"This amendment actually sends the message that this committee cares more about the education of one group of students with disabilities more than others," Murray said in opposition. "It sets a new precedent of singling out one of the thirteen categories of students with disabilities in providing professional development to our teachers."
Dyslexics are 80 percent of students with learning disabilities, 17.5 percent of the population, and up to half of students reading below grade level, Cassidy said in response. He then listed off several groups in support of the amendment: the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity and Decoding Dyslexia.
"We may decide, 'Heck, I don't care about those families. Somehow we're going to be guided by special interest groups.' I think we should be more motivated about the needs of that child," Cassidy said.







http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senators-spar-over-aid-to-dyslexic-students/article/2563098

Statistics On Dyslexia

• 70-80% of people with poor reading skills, are likely dyslexic.
• One in five students, or 15-20% of the population, has a language based learning disability. Dyslexia is the most common of the language based learning disabilities.
• Nearly the same percentage of males and females have dyslexia.
• Nearly the same percentage of people from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds have dyslexia.
• Percentages of children at risk for reading failure are much higher in high poverty, language-minority populations who attend ineffective schools.
• In minority and high poverty schools, 70-80% of children have inadequate reading skills.
• According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 38% of all fourth grade students are “below basic” reading skills. They are at or below the 40^th percentile for their age group.
• Nationwide 20% of the elementary school population is struggling with reading.
• National Center for Education statistics, 5% of all adults are “non-literate”.
• 20-25% of all adults can only read at the lowest level.
• 62% of non readers dropped out of high school.
• 80% of children with an IEP have reading difficulty and 85% of those are Dyslexic.
• 30% of children with Dyslexia also have at least a mild form of AD/HD.

http://dyslexiacenterofutah.org/dyslexia/statistics/ 

Epistemic Democracy, Self-Interest and The Common Good

par Girard (1er/03/2012)

A just society has to identify and promote the common good. One of the most powerful justifications of democracy that has been provided in the recent decades claims that democracy is legitimate and fair because it more likely than other institutional systems pursues the common good. According to this epistemic justification of democracy however, to achieve this aim citizens do not have to aggregate their preferences by voting or negotiate over their interested proposals, but they have to deliberate. Deliberation should, ideally, be open to all those affected by the decision. The participants should have equal opportunity to influence the process, they should listen to one another and give reasons to one another that they think the others can comprehend and accept. These requirements rule out the exercise of power, propaganda, expression of mere self-interest, and threats (of the sort that characterise bargaining). In this paper I will challenge the traditional contraposition between common good and self-interest and I will argue that an epistemic account of deliberative democracy cannot exclude self-interest and some forms of negotiation from the deliberative sphere. To sustain this claim I will analyse what the common good of a polity means. Firstly, I will distinguish the debate on constitutional essentials from the public policies’ debate and I will argue that though the exclusion of self-interest from the former is acceptable, it does not hold in the latter case. Within the public policy debate, in fact, people cannot identify the common good if they do not take into account their self-interest and demand that the whole polity acknowledges the legitimacy of their interested proposals. To pursue the common good, a democracy has to legitimise some forms of negotiation (democratic bargaining) that could deal with interested claims without undermining fairness. Since an account of democratic bargaining will more likely identify and promote the common good than the traditional account of deliberative democracy, I will conclude that it is not only a legitimate and fair alternative to deliberation but, at least from an epistemic point of view, a better democratic procedure.

Charles Girard : « The Common Good as Equal Promotion of all Individual Interests »
The classical understanding of modern democracy as self-government among equals implies two constitutive democratic principles : the pursuit of political autonomy and the pursuit of the common good. The latter has long been denounced by “minimalist” critics, but also, more recently, by some deliberative democrats. According to the false common good criticism, the common good does not exist : because there are only divergent self-interests that cannot be reconciled, to invoke the common good is to invoke an illusion. According to the moral conversion, while something like the common good might exist, it cannot be reached, because individuals are primarily motivated by their self-interest and cannot agree to put them aside in order to promote the common good. An epistemic conception of deliberative democracy needs to respond to both challenges. This paper argues that i) the common good is best understood as the equal promotion of all individual self-interests ; and that ii) given this definition, both criticisms can be refuted. To do so, it elaborates a conceptual distinction between one’s individual self-interest and one’s specific interests, drawing on Barry’s analysis of interest. It criticizes Barry’s (and Pettit’s) definition of the common good as the set of interests that are shared by all citizens qua citizens. Such a definition implies excluding from the common good particular interests of which the satisfaction is deemed legitimate (for instance certain interests shared only by women, the elderly, etc.). Even if the interests that are shared by all are defined ex ante or ex ignorantia, the Barry/Pettit strategy cannot secure all legitimate particular interests. However, such interests can be included in the perimeter of the common good if it is defined as the equal promotion of all individual (vs. specific) interests. This concept helps to take up the false common good and the moral conversion challenges. On the one hand, to assert that a common good does not exist is to misunderstand the concept, which does not refer to a transcending good, nor to the overlapping of fixed context-independent sets of actions and policies. On the other hand, to assume that public deliberation should realize a moral conversion is to overestimate the separation between the common good and self-interests, and to misinterpret the epistemic task that should be imposed on public deliberation.

José Luis Martí : « Who (and how) knows what’s the right thing to do politically : on the epistemic dimension of deliberative democratic decision-making »
It is common to justify democracy as the system of government most respectful with substantive moral values, such as human dignity, political equality and autonomy. This is not all what we care about, though. The idea of democracy is connected with certain procedures of collective decision-making. If these procedures are intrinsically good because they respect those substantive values, that’s good. But we all have a legitimate interest in having the best decisions possible from the substantive point of view. We want our collective decisions to be democratic, but we also want them to be correct, whatever it means. Deliberative democracy comes to bridge these two central concerns : the intrinsic value of democracy as expression of equal autonomy and basic dignity and its instrumental value as being capable of driving us to make correct political decisions. This paper examines the roots for the epistemic value of deliberative democracy. It clarifies the relevant epistemic questions connected to it : what it is to be known to make correct political decisions ; who is the appropriate knower ; how this knower may come to know what is to be known. The paper intends to show why deliberative democracy may reasonably satisfy our demand for correction in democratic decisions, while resisting the elitist trend. And it ends by clarifying one crucial point that has generated some misguided criticism in the most recent literature : the ideal nature of the epistemic deliberative democracy, which relates to the kind of practical reasons that democratic decisions may generate according to the epistemic argument.

Christian Rostbøll : « Against Incorporating Self-Interest in the Deliberative Ideal »
In the development and refinement of the theory of deliberative democracy over the last two decades, it has become evident that self-interests cannot and should not be excluded from the political process. It is an important aspect of the political process, also as understood by deliberative democrats, that citizens have the opportunity to clarify and express their interests in order that political decisions do not favor the interests of some groups over the interest of other groups. Indeed, one aim of deliberation is to learn what is “in the equal interest of all” (Habermas). But does this mean that self-interest should be included in the deliberative ideal ? In order to answer this question we need to understand that deliberative democracy is a complex theory of democracy that involves four dimensions : A social theoretical dimension, a justificatory dimension, an epistemic dimension, and a procedural dimension. This papers argues that these dimensions of deliberative democracy cannot be as easily maintained as part of deliberative democracy, as is assumed by those theorists – such as Jane Mansbridge – who suggest awarding self-interest intrinsic value and making it part of the regulative ideal of deliberative democracy. The argument for including self-interest in deliberative democracy needs to more fully consider the consequences for the dimensions that make up the complex theory of deliberative democracy. If it cannot be shown that self-interest is compatible with a proper understanding of these dimensions of deliberative democracy, then there are good reasons against incorporating self-interest in the deliberative ideal. The conclusion of the paper is that what we need is not integration of self-interest and deliberative democracy into one unified ideal. Rather, we should maintain an ideal of deliberative democracy that stands apart from the politics of self-interest.


http://www.rationalites-contemporaines.paris-sorbonne.fr/spip.php?article670

Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young - Noam Chomsky