S1E7 - The FAPE Paradox: When “Appropriate” Isn’t Appropriate

Episode Notes

In this episode, Three Educators Who’ve Seen Too Much™ dive headfirst into the mess that is FAPE: Free and Appropriate Public Education. We unpack how “appropriate” too often means “sit in a class you can’t access,” why canned curriculum is a billion-dollar confidence trick, and how grade levels still haunt us like a bad group project. From misinterpretations of special education law to the systemic forces pushing students toward frustration or checked-out disengagement, we trace how schools keep setting kids up to feel broken when it’s the system that’s cracked. We also explore what real inclusion should look like, why research doesn’t back most of what districts insist on doing, and how learning actually works when we’re not torturing children with timelines that exist only on paper.