[THEFERMANATOR]

Originally Posted by RWilson2526

I don't think its true that a whole class is brought down to the level of the least abled student. This is my wife's area of expertise as she is a School Pyschologist and is responsible for designing a classified students IEP. (Individualized Education Plan). Special needs children have any combination of aids, in class support, pull out support (go into a separate class room for their studies) and greatly modified curriculum and goals set to suit their needs and abilities. And the severely disabled ones are sent out of district to a school more geared towards special needs children. (at an expense of t) At least here the mainstreaming is more for the social benefits of the child and as far as I can tell the other students don't suffer from the presence of these children. You may be right that that is how it works in Florida but it certainly is not that way here.

And yes the pay scale in NJ is one of the best for teachers although we have never seen a NJ district with a starting salary of 70K it is the norm to be in the low to mid 40's. (all the pay scales are public information and my wife looks them up frequently) But the way I look at it is the problem lies with the states that pay $32000 for a person with 6 years of college like Phatdaddy's daughter.

My wifes cousin will be making $68K starting salary if he gets the job he is trying for next year after he graduates. I know this is on the high end, but even the starting salary in NJ is MUCh higher than waht most seasoned teachers make elsewhere. As for IEP's, my wife has to do them as she works with alot of special needs kids(in Fl the teacher is responsible for doing teh IEP's for kids). She interned with a kid that had asburgers, and it just stuck with her since as she likes helping them. But she does feel bad though as many of them cannot keep up in a classroom envirment as they are so hiper sensitive to the enviroment. They are not challenged as far as doing the work, but they are challenged largely by there social skills(although she has had to deal with kids who just couldn't do the work, and they would get passed as the schools don't get money unless they pass them). As for discipline in the classroom, schools are now penalized(at least down here) for giving a kid a refferral and sending them to the office, so many times the office will tear up the refferral and over ride teh teacher as they don't want it on record just how many kids have discipline problems.

It would seem that every area is differrent, but as a whole our liberal agenda driven views of PC and one society is dividing us in my opinion.