In Canada, the public education system is in the dark ages. Dyslexia?  What’s that? Canadian parents have no choice but to go to U.S. web sites, for information and knowledge, that has never grace the hallowed halls of the public education system, nor on their web sites.

Following one of the links - “Stark and Cassidy: Dyslexia Is Bipartisan Issue With Solutions
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_136/Pete_Stark_Bill_Cassidy_Dyslexia_Bipartisan_Issue_With_Solutions-214526-1.html

In Canada - it would be a fantasy. Instead, the education stakeholders, (aka unions, education faculties, and the education heavy weights) will used their lobbying influence within the political spectrum to keep the barriers that dyslexics faced in full force. ” As a result, we?ve formed the bipartisan Congressional Dyslexia Caucus to educate other Members of Congress and advance policies to break down barriers faced by dyslexics.”

Would love to wake up one money, to hear a couple of politicians speaking such words in Canada. Instead, last March, the education heavy weights of BC and Ontario, went to the Supreme Court of Canada, to argued, the public education system under the legislation, has given the Moore boy, the opportunities to learn. Ergo no discrimination took place.

The factum: ” The Appellant claims that discrimination can be proved by demonstrating that
the individually tailored supports provided by the Board failed to enable Jeffrey to
achieve a particular outcome,  which the Appellant assumes (but did not prove)  other
students did achieve.  The Province submits that the fact that Jeffrey did not learn to read
by a particular grade level is not proof of discrimination.  It says that proof of
discrimination requires a demonstration that he was not provided with an opportunity to
learn to read that was comparable to that provided to others.”
http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/factums-memoires/34041/FM030_Respondent_Her-Majesty-the-Queen-in-Right-of-the-Province-of-British-Columbia .pdf

http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/case-dossier/cms-sgd/fac-mem-eng.aspx?cas=34041

Put it another way, the biggest barrier for children with disabilities of the invisible kind is the public education system and its stakeholders. Why?  Children are entitled to the desk, a set of books, and equal learning opportunities, that are no less or no more than children without disabilities. BUT what they are not entitled to, are the accommodations to access the books and other learning opportunities.

Back to the article of Stark and Cassidy - “Parents have shared their frustration: They have been told my daughter was too bright to be dyslexic; my child?s school doesn?t believe in dyslexia; I am fighting to have an evaluation for my child. Dyslexics pay a high price for the ignorance surrounding them in our educational system.”

One should add, children with other disabilities also pay a very high price on the ignorance and the lack of knowledge processed by the employees and education leaders of the public education system.

In Canada, more so than in the U.S., and it is an appalling situation in Canada. No matter what invisible disability it is, the Canadian data streams of final outcomes, reveals the truth.  The vast majority have been written off by a public education system, as not being worthy of receiving a quality education to reach their full potential of their abilities and skills.

Systemic discrimination, built into the public education model, weaving in and out through all parts of the operating system, to prevent the accommodations - the tools to access the learning material. Within disability categories and as a collective. And in Canada, no easy way to take the school board to court, compared to the U.S.

For most the Charter of Freedoms and Rights, and human rights legislation, that gives the public education system a way out,  via through the legal legislation of the School Acts. The public education system has only been charged with the legal duty of delivering an education. Quality of education - no. Learning to read well - no. Learning to write well - no. Quality instruction - no.

Just learning opportunities, but not the right to a quality education to reach their full potential of all students. Without disabilities or with disabilities - no student has the right to a quality education.

The Supreme Court of Canada, is taking their time in their ruling. Rightly so, but in the end, I have a feeling they will rule in favour of the Moores, and it be the time to break out the champagne, watching the public education systems across Canada and its stakeholders going into damage control mode, managing all the tremors and mini-earthquakes revealing the fault lines criss-crossing the system, that is based on a model of discrimination, as to who and who will not received a quality education.

Ok Nancy,it`s all true,you speak the truth.

No one understands it,starts at University-the word isn`t allowed in any Canadian school system-there is such an epidemic of incompetence-for academics ,schools,educators,legislation etc..it`s incredible and certainly is educational malpractice.It`s basically a cluster of 6 symptoms,if you were sick with an illness,you`d get a prescription,if you have this,in spite of the breakthroughs in research,you`re basically doomed,unless you walk into someone who knows what they`re doing and can offer the intervention-no,it`s not a laptop or a dumbed down curriculum.
It affects 20 percent of students,1 in 5-
Frankly,even Malkin`s comment about heavy letters shows the lack of understanding-it`s a phonological awareness blindness,the cardinal deficit-the way to intervene has been on the shelf for decades-because educators all do whatever they want whenever they want,they lost the battle to the publishers in the U.S. as well with NCLB.

http://www.reidlyon.com/edpolicy/11-LEARNING-DISABILITIES-AND-EARLY-INTERVENTION-STRATEGIES.pdf

Joanne, from what I understand - There is the reading problems - which is not being corrected in the primary grade, and by grade 4, students become learning disabled.

The big difference between children who have small vocabularies and dyslexic children are the symptoms.

The symptoms that will not be found anywhere within the public education system. Sure, some cherry picked information, but not the information and knowledge found on Friends of Quin, a link from Malkin’s post.

“Learning disabilities are as varied as the people that have them. There are several main types of learning disabilities: Language, Calculation, Motor Skills and Communication Disorders. All of these have different signs and symptoms and can be present in varying degrees. There are, however, a number of common signs of learning disabilities to be aware of.”
http://www.friendsofquinn.com/page/common-signs-of-lds

To go to more comprehensive information - Can only be found in the United States. In Canada, if the web sites and organizations do have information, a large chunk of it and sometimes all of it, is American information, minus the legal information.

Friends of Quinn, represents one of the many U.S. sites, and it is the symptoms. In 2012, if my youngest was 3 years old, the nursery school she attended, would be now informing me my child has dyslexia, and along with the speech pathologists.

In the provincial education systems, the symptoms and if they do have them, are a poor clone to fit whatever the ideologies and who will get special education services. One of the early signs, and should be at the top of the early warning signs is - “Development delays in speaking, using or understanding the spoken language”
http://www.friendsofquinn.com/page/common-signs-of-lds

For the students with the weaker vocabulary, and the students with the dyslexic signs what they both need is quality education, that gives them the firm foundation of the 3 Rs to stand on. What are getting? In Canada, from coast to coast, the exact opposite. There is pockets across Canada, but in the average public school, the barriers is a testament of the children no matter with or without disabilities, will not received the tools to access learning.

As you have stated, instead a laptop is thrown their way, and perhaps an e-reader that looks like a fisher-price toy. And they all learned to memorized words. All happening in the year 2012, but still will not remediate the reading, writing and numeracy problems of anywhere between 40 to 60 percent of the class. The solution, is to dumb down the curriculum and outcomes, to keep behind the curtains of the School Acts, that limits their liability from civil suits.

One of the reasons why they go after the parents such as myself with such force. When parents are spending 2 to 3 hours of home tutoring, or using private tutoring services, for the basic 3 Rs, the parents are increasing the liability of the school and the school board. The parents become a threat, even though suing the school board is not even on their radar.

The pass year, I been studying the legal ramifications. The implications of the education compulsory laws, the legal definitions of a public school education, the equity policies (where parts of it has made its way into the school acts) and rights of parents, students and the taxpayers. Far from a lawyer, but it does start in the beginning at the teachers’ faculties. Legally speaking, discrimination on a grand scale at the expense of the students and their education.

If the Supreme Court of Canada rules in the favour of the Moores, the education faculties will bear the brunt, since they ultimately trained the teachers. Simply put, in the year 2012, there is no reason, no excuse why the schools are not following the science in learning based on the research dating back to the 1950s, in the reading science.

In Canada, the official stat is 1 in 10 for the dyslexic population. It really is higher than that, but until schools start to follow the science, the data will remain in disputed territory. However, the public education do not meet the threshold for one in 10 at the school level, the board level and the provincial level. Unless one is formally identified, students go unidentified.
I suspect there is a few more, but one will never know unless they are assess. And no doubt, fall under the mild to moderate category. Regardless, Joanne, the main problem is phonemic awareness for most children, and any weakness in phonemic awareness, the difficulties lie in decoding unknown words. By grade 9, they all become poor readers of various skills and levels, and some fair readers if they had previous knowledge of the subject content. And than there is the practices, policies and the pedagogy…...............

Nancy and Jo-Anne,  You are both to be commended for the excellent commentary in both framing this profound issue and demonstrating the dumb as a bag of hammers approach which the existing system has applied to systematically resolving the bulk of early identified LD issues. 

It is profoundly sad to see that for all intents, the bulk of LD’s can be readily dealt with during the K-3 period with only a small fraction of students remaining as exceptional.  In particular, it is tragic that successfully validated methodologies are largely ignored and play almost no role in the publicly funded educational process as it stands. 

Guess a next step could be to provide a list of resources which provide parents with the diagnostic tools and remedial methods/strategies to deal with the issue as effectively as it it is done in jurisdictions where the methods are/have been implemented.  This particular blog posting and the commentary is of extraordinary value to any parent confronting this issue.

Thank you to all.

This will help-

http://www.wrightslaw.com/blog/?p=513

Attitudes of those who dwell within the public education system, have always impacted students’ education negatively. Their belief systems, has caused me great trouble in the last 12 years. “No, your child does not have a reading problem, she has a self-esteem problem.” 

Joanne, got me thinking about her link to Wrightslaw Law web site. The site was a saviour when I found it back in 2005.

Doug, writes in the latest Educhatter blog post - “I addressed that in the first post. A lot is being made of a very small problem.

Trying to fight achievement issues with in-school inititives is like trying to put out a house fire with a garden hose. Unless the outside issues are mitigated in a significant way, all ?in-school? efforts will be for naught.”
http://educhatter.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/student-transitions-to-high-school-what-works-to-bridge-the-treacherous-waters/

On the Wrightslaw site - “Schools Say the Darnedest (Craziest, Meanest, Most Ridiculous…) Things!”

http://www.fetaweb.com/humor/schools.say.things.htm

Wouldn’t it be nice, to gather the quotes from parents, coast to coast on what the Canadian schools say the craziest, meanest, most ridiculous….things.

As for Doug’s statement, in my opinion, observations over the year - his statement is typical of the prevailing attitudes at the school board level, the ministry level and it filters down to the bottom levels of the school staff.  Where education services are approved according to the social-economic status of the child and parents. The lower one is on the social-economic status, the odds increases the child with any type of learning issues will be receiving poorer quality, less effective services than the child with parents of professional status.

It is rarely discussed, nor have I seen any studies related to it. But it does exist, under who and who will not received education services beyond the classroom and inside the classroom. Under the law, the Charter of Freedoms and Rights, states we are all equal under the law, and yet within the public education framework, no student is equal to another students in terms of education services. The Moore father thought it was so unfair, and persisted all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Would his story be played out differently, if he was classified as a professional, and not as a plumber? 

What I have noted, observed and experienced, the further one is down the social-economic ladder, the prevailing attitude of the schools, and school boards, education quality and services will be “anything will do, the cheaper the better, since schools cannot fight the community’s SES variables. 

One of my favourite articles on the Wrightslaw site, is entitled - “8 Steps to Better IEP Meetings:
Play Hearts, Not Poker”
http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/iep.bollero.hearts.htm

But keep in mind, or it was in my mind that schools always likes to play the ‘rigged’ poker game of their own making. Playing Hearts throws the ‘rigged’ poker game off the rails. I really paid attention to number 4 - “What if you are right? What if school personnel are flatly incompetent? Do not say it. Show it!”  The first time I did it, silence in the room. A pin could be heard dropping. Since, 2006 a total of 4 more times by showing it, and now I will be in another 5th round, in my child’s senior year.

I never would have anticipated, that I would be in my child’s last year in high school, to “...lay out a “court ready” case at this level, everyone will quickly read the handwriting on the wall…. The facts speak for themselves.”. The facts on my side, irrefutable proof of in-house assessments done by the school’s board’s expertise staff, my 17 has below average reading levels due to poor word decoding. Thinking of using video and presentation software, to save on paper and ink, to present my colourful charts, using their own experts’ words as the background. No need to accuse, and they be eager to signed off granting the accommodation of alternative setting for the public exams, as well as the mid-term exams. If not, I can leave the meeting stating that I be sending the digital content and a letter describing the outcome of the meeting, to the second and top tiers of the education ministry, and the premier’s office..

Not asking for much, but the real reason underlying why alternative setting has been denied for the public exams, is that they would have to pay an outside examiner to babysit one student, and only one student. No skin off their teeth, since the examiner can sit in the office, and monitor my child via through the security cameras, and turned on the audio. Beside being too cheap, the other side is the prevailing attitudes and belief systems of a guidance counselor who thinks my child’s reading difficulties is of low self-esteem.