•      "The root of the abuses, I think, is in the language of the law. The vagueness of crucial terms allows for easy manipulation of the eligibility process. The determination of a disability has become more subjective. Compassionate educators and invested parents can easily over-identify disabilities. I have seen students who perform extremely well on psychoeducational assessments and meet or exceed all grade-level standards put on an accommodation plan based on mild distractibility or slow written output…Thanks to the ADA, many students who need support are seeing futures that otherwise would not have been possible. Yet the disproportionate number of “disabled” but high-achieving students at secondary schools reflects the pressure that students and their anxious parents feel to find any edge in a society where young adults face shrinking opportunities for gainful employment, secure incomes, and stable communities. These circumstances have turned a well-intentioned law into a ticket for advantages." Source: Rose Horowitch, The Atlantic

•      "Educational accommodations provide a benefit to those who receive them, and like any benefit, the distribution of accommodations should be fair. Students should receive accommodations just because those accommodations are needed for access to educational programming. The chances of obtaining accommodations should not be due to irrelevant factors, such as demographic features (e.g., gender and ethnicity) that often raise concerns about potential discrimination. Unfortunately, the available research suggests that demographic factors do play a causal role in determining whether a student will receive accommodations. Specifically, students with higher socioeconomic status (which does vary by ethnicity) are more likely than their peers to receive accommodations. In the United States, this has been investigated via the analysis of “Section 504 plans”—educational accommodation plans that students receive, typically for relatively mild disorders and disabilities where comprehensive special education is not needed, only accommodations." Source: Benjamin Lovett, Frontiers 

•      "However, a suite of acute, well-documented problems with disability accommodations demand attention. The data is clear, for instance, that a significant minority of diagnoses are fraudulent or mistaken. In many cases, there is no empirical basis for granting common accommodation requests like extended time or distraction-free testing. And there is further evidence that the current state of disability accommodation compounds inequities in student achievement, rather than alleviating them. Students and instructors are rightfully concerned about fairness and compromised rigor. Resources are being misallocated to unproven interventions and students who don’t need them. Worst of all, the interventions may be harming some of the students they are intended to help, exacerbating their mental-health problems and setting them up for a lifetime of struggle. Colleges have remained complacent about the status quo for a variety of reasons. Since they want to support students and avoid lawsuits, administrators are incentivized to pursue a maximally inclusive approach to accommodation. Disability advocates fear, understandably, that calling attention to these issues will result in public backlash, creating more stigma around disability and threatening hard-won rights. Outside of academe, alarmism about accommodations has been associated with ableism and culture wars. While researching this piece, multiple people refused to speak with me about their misgivings on the record. There is a chilling effect at work, resulting in a lopsided discussion that leaves educators, students, and the public poorly informed. However understandable the reluctance to criticize disability accommodations, refusing to do so is antithetical to the mission of higher education. Inaction harms students both with and without disabilities, allows for continued misallocation of limited resources, and calls the integrity of our institutional practices into question. We have a duty to engage in even-handed, critical reflection and pursue necessary reforms — even when it makes us uncomfortable. …" Source: Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog