it's more in terms of public schools that need to get involved. From what I've seen, Unless the parent fights for the child, Most Public Schools will treat the child same as hearing peers, which can cause developmental delays. Therefore, the child gets further behind and the school and parents give up and place the child in a deaf school. So the schools need to learn how to work with deaf children.. because from what I've seen.. They haven't done a good job of it.
Deaf schools are good for the child.. but I think that parents need to fight for their children. Instead of expect teachers to be an advocate, Parents need to step up to the plate themselves. Advocate for their children, not just sit by and watch their children fail. Also, parents need to help their children at home too. Some parents are too busy working or focused on other things to really help their children.
I'm not bashing parents in general.. I know most parents help their children. I've just seen some truly horrible parents in my lifetime.. Ick.
The part about parents needing to advocate for their children to remain in the mainstreamed program instead of sitting back and watching their child fail and then dumping them at the deaf schools, I have to disagree. My mother did put my brother in a good oral program and fought for his rights at my school but the real truth was that my brother was not thriving on the oral-only approach. When my school referred him to the deaf school, they felt that his needs would be better met there and turned out that my school was right. My brother blossomed and thrived academically at the deaf school. If it wasn't for placing him there, he would have never learned how to read and write cuz simply put, he could NOT develop language through the oral-only method. If my school had provided an terp, it would have been pointless cuz my brother, at the age of 5, didn't know ASL. He needed to be in a signing environment full time so his language development could flourish. There would have been no way for that to be possible if his only exposure to ASL was from an terp and then having to learn how to read and write without a strong language foundation. He wouldn't have a visual language through socializing with hearing peers anyway.
When my brother started at the deaf school at the age of 6, he was at least 3 years delayed in language development so he wasn't ready to learn how to read and write when he was supposed to be. He was put in a specialized class at the deaf school for language development. I gotta say that his school did a heck of a good job cuz right now he is studying for his MA. It was the best thing for him even though he graduated high school with a reading/writing level below than his age appropriate level but that came from his first 5 years of having very limited access to language not because the school didn't do a good job. Eventually, as an adult..he improved his reading and writing skills and now is able to write research papers. Just some mistakes with grammar structure but u know that English grammar rules r pretty complicated!!!
People need to keep that in mind when they blame the deaf schools for students having low reading/writing levels...I see it at the deaf school I work at..half of the PreK children come to our school with virtually no language so they have to start at square 1 at the ages of 3 or 4. Not to mention older deaf children being referred from the public schools who were unable to keep up. Those students at the age of 7 or older have to learn ASL when they should be learning how to read and write. How could they if their spoken language was at the level of a 3 year old? Maybe it is the parents' fault or the public schools' fault for not taking action sooner? We would never know but the point is, unfortunately for the deaf schools, many of our students enter our schools at least 2 or 3 years delayed in language development and that sucks cuz we get the blame if not all of our students don't perform on their age appropriate levels in academics.
Also, have to remember that many of our students graduate with sophisticated levels of ASL which is amazing considering many of them started school with severe delays in language...just needed more time to work on their reading and writing and I noticed that many of my brothers' former classmates from his school finally got their reading and writing skills improved while they were in their 20s. Can't keep kids in school until they are 25 years old, right?
Iam not denying that there are flaws in the deaf schools...but have to remember that the public schools have flaws too. There r hearing kids that don't read or write well but do we blame the public schools? I always read that it was the child or family's fault. But when it comes to deaf schools, it always seems like the deaf schools r at fault. Maybe EVERYONE..community, parents, schools, teachers, students, media and politicans are at fault.
The point it I notice that when several of u posted CONS for going to a deaf school, u listed poor English skills as one of them.