I have never known any school in Texas not to have the official policy except as much delay as possible. I have never known a case where the school did not want to delay. I know of no school that wants to do an LD evaluation before thrid grade – thus insuring the child 3 years of failure before testing.
Concerned folks for years tried to get the word out that testing was a right. Teachers have been fired, or quit, over this. They felt it so important to tell parents, but their principals ordered not to.
Here is an instance of federal oversight being helpful — directing local schools to follow the law. As long as the school, however, will have to expend extra money to help a child with a special need, they will be motivated not to do so.
Worse, as long as they have no hope and no methods of actually fixing the problem, perhaps in that system, it is just as well.
I see parents with money and desire to see their child perform well academically also delay testing their children. Normally this is out of stark fear. Fear because they think of a diagnoses as a death knell.
Correctly used, the evaluation result is a directive to the educators (including parents of course) about how to best help the child. If you beleive in healing, then the evaluation is ONLY markers to what needs to be worked on. Thus evaluations are helpful and obviously should not be delayed.
If your child had his leg cut off, you would not delay taking him to a doctor. You would not refuse to help him either grow a new one or get a prothesis. So why, if there is a learning problem, would you not want to discover what it is, grow in that area, or find a way to manage it?
There is no reason to delay evaluations. There is every reason to use them correctly.
