When does it EVER make sense?

http://www.gallaudet.edu/x3698.xml

“Why are we having an installation for an interim president?
This may seem unusual. Although the Board of Trustees and Dr. Davila have agreed upon a term limit for his presidency, during his tenure Dr. Davila serves with the full duties and responsibilities of president. He is officially considered Gallaudet’s ninth president, therefore, it is appropriate that he be inaugurated as such.”

So I am sure that happens all over the country, which would skew the testing results of the residential schools. Now if you broke it down into the students’ ages of when they entered the residential schools, then I would support your argument. Because I think the picture would be clearer if the researchers did that.

Second, to answer your question, there have been many studies about literacy rates and residential schools. These are easily found online. One thing you will rapidly notice is that they all have their own ideological biases. Every year, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed M.Ed in Deaf Ed feels the need to publish a paper on literacy rates in the Deaf community, with a focus on residential schools.

But one thing they all agree upon is that deaf and hard of hearing children, on average, plateau at the third or fourth grade reading level. Studies have shown that the average American adult reads and writes at an eighth-grade level, and the average deaf adult at a fourth-grade level. I also believe that there was a study in the late 1990s by the Gallaudet Research Institute that showed that the average 17 to 18 year old deaf student who took the SAT showed that only 50 percent read at a grade level at or above the fourth, while the other 50 percent read below fourth grade reading level.

This, by any standards, is suboptimal.

You are correct, however, that the trend is that the dismal rates for literacy appear the same all across the board for both residential schools and mainstreamed programs. So, I was wrong in focusing solely on residential schools. There are some serious problems, though, with residential schools.

Despite the fact that there have been studies that show that bilingual and bicultural approaches show promise in raising literacy rates, deaf residential schools have had a pronounced tendency to ignore that approach and focus more on the socialization aspect. Residential schools are also somewhat insular.

We have known about bi-bi since the mid 1990s and I have yet to see any residential institution put that in place for several years (although I could be wrong) and any measurable and significant progress in literacy rates under that approach. There always appears to be some excuse, finances and/or and outside students placed in from failing mainstreamed programs skewing any study.

Setting aside ASL as a fundamental requirement for any Deaf person, it is also necessary in today’s world to be proficient in English, period. Not to have that skill is to set yourself back in terms of your career, jobs, finances, retirement planning, and, of course, the ability to be taken seriously by the outside world. Not to be literate is “less than optimal” in today’s world.

Please save us from another long winded rebuttal about some guy who studied monkey’s in the Congo and found some anthropological possibility that socialism and utopia is possible.

PLEASE!!!! I beg of you!

Case in point: http://www.raa-deaf.org/sandbox1.html

Gotta live with the medical condition…. and work with the majority, because if you continue to see the world as a customer service desk, you will be looked down upon. Those who strive to achieve, whine less, work hard, go through life with some modicum of sanity and reason will be respected and treated with some familiarity.

It’s irrational and illogical to expect utopia or some kind of extreme socialism. John Lennon is dead… it’s time to “break on through, break on through break on through… the other side”

Is there something you know that we do not know yet about Dr. Davila on his status that’ll happen next week?

This leads me to wonder that in spite of the limited term, do the Board of Trustees have the power to grant Dr. Davila an extension for however long he can to lead the university?