Noble intentions – they do snag us all.

Biden; Trump; Obama – these are the three administrations.

Closing down the facilities – when reform can be made; abolition is … probably not wise.

[even as we don’t want the Willowbrooks of the 2020s].

How valuable the custodian is.
Ancillary staff need to know how valued they are too – and the kids of course.

Deinstitutionalisation over the past 30 years has been a mixed bag, hasn’t it been?

Thanks for reading and commenting, Marty!
I’m not hating on math, just the more abstract, high level math especially for those who struggle mightily just to master basic algebra. As you allude to in your second comment, there should be a some sanity in just how far it is taken. I think more people are starting to see this, but it takes time to undo the damage caused by trying to stuff everyone in the same-sized box. The math curriculum has slid at least 2 years and now your middle schoolers are pushed towards standards that used to be taught in 9th grade. So when your 8th graders fall on their face trying to do algebra, they think they aren’t good at math when they might just need some additional maturity. So when they reach high school they eventually get to a point where they say “I’ve had it! I’m done!” Math might be devoid of emotion, but the perseverance necessary to learn it isn’t.

I did need to add a couple of points.

I’ve recently left the math department at our school, but this year “we” finally succeeded in getting Algebra 1 taken completely out of eight grade and moved to 9th grade. Before I left the math department, I finally got precalculus replacement course introduced which is more helpful to students who aren’t going to take precalculus. It’s in its 3rd year. Crossing my fingers on that one. It helps to have the true precalculus students separate.

At one point administrators were asking if they could teach geometry in the 8th grade. To which I started to respond with, “why not teach high school English II in the 8th grade?”

There is this insane keeping up with the Jones’s that exists in Jr. High Math curriculum which makes no sense as it completely dissipates by the time the student reaches high school.

Anyone need to know how government works who doesn’t want to be a politician? Not really. Less than half of people even bother to vote and off year elections are sometimes <10%. And since when did a plumber need to know who the 4th or even 1st president was? When was a math teacher last quizzed on that?

So we need to definitely dump U.S. history and government. What a waste of time!

English?! Are you kidding me? Seems like most people in high school have no problems speaking English. Why are you wasting time teaching something everyone knows? Since when is analyzing a Shakespearean play needed for anything useful? What!? Is a cop going to quote Romeo and Juliet to stop crime?

And we all know, "Only scientists need to know science . . . "

So, now that you're done hating on math, allow me to explain why math education is difficult and important.

If I take some learning disabled children, separate them from society and prevent them ever hearing or seeing language. By the time they hit their teens they will have developed their own language all by themselves. We know this because it has been done. It is completely natural ability of humans to form language and communicate.

Now lets take some people and refuse to teach them any math. Normal, regular homo-sapiens. Nothing special about them. By the time they grow to adult-hood, they can't count past 2. This is also shown to be true. It is not a natural ability for human beings to do math. It takes work, effort, and patience to learn math. It takes the same to teach it.

Math allows you perspective. It adds adds a pattern of thought which is unusual and not based on emotion or feelings.

I see that you have a loss of this perspective. You wrote a blog piece about 80% on IEPs not long ago. You went into quite some detail about how 80% was bad and it should be 100%. And while clever in it's own way, the post completely missed the problem. It doesn't matter what goal you write down – whether 100%; 80%; 80%, 100% of the time; or whatever. Writing the goal does not, in any way, help the kid in reaching the goal. Write it however you want, translate it to Spanish on Sanskrit, it doesn't matter. The real problem is how to get the child there.

So a student is having difficulty with math. The teacher is then told to apply modifications to help the student. They are usually something like

reduce assignment length 30%
Additional time to do assignments – 1 day

This is actually the opposite of what is needed, but is a very common type of modification. How is reducing an assignment length going to help a student having difficulty with math? How is being behind a day in math class going to help a student having difficulty with math? It isn't. It will help a kid get rubber stamped, but nothing else. The teacher will gather "evidence" that the goal was reached and rubber stamp it for you. And as for your goal of "whatever", "Who cares?" Do you? If you did, you'd write the following modification.

One-on-one tutoring with a math teacher twice a week for 45 minutes.

Oh, wait! That would cost money. And you don't want to upset your boss. Even though it would likely completely solve the problem for half of your specific learning disability kids, one on one just costs too much money. Nowadays, if one only has 10 specific learning disability kids in a class, you're lucky.

As a parent, rest assured, your hard work “behind the scenes” is greatly appreciated!