School ABA testing serves property values more than children’s needs

Evidence

Even in those schools that have been forced to step up—which are overwhelmingly in whiter, wealthier districts where parents can afford to sue—the dominant teaching method is still ABA, often executed as a system of candies and consequences not unlike dog training. In New Jersey, after I got over my initial euphoria that we were no longer dealing with straight-up neglect in the school system, I often had the distinct feeling that the atypical kids were being hived away in special classes and bombarded with ABA training less to support their needs and more to show impressive results on the tests that never stopped coming. Those tests formed the basis for school rankings, which formed the basis for property values, which formed the basis for property taxes, which funded the schools. And from the moment the diagnosis process begins, children are put into a matrix of normalcy and deviance. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 709