Agreed. Kids need to stick far our of the bottom of the box to get testing provided by the school board (at least here). Otherwise it is up to parents to do it which means that only the kids who's parents A) can afford it, B) know a bit about how the system works (or who research it), C) know what LD's are, D) think that there is enough of a mismatch between the marks and potential will actually bother to do it and E) think that the school will do something with results. I have friends that assumed the school would be on top of everything and their kids were much older when they finally tested privately and found out (this was me hinting for a couple years...). Other kids aren't even that lucky and never get tested.
In grade 1 DS was getting low marks and not completing most of his work at school but then coming home and begging us to read Death By Black Hole (Neil deGrasse Tyson) to him at bed. This was such an obvious difference it was impossible to ignore. If he had been begging for us to read him something more average we might not have questioned his school performance and assumed he was low-average. If we as parents hadn't both breezed through school without breaking a sweat we might not have questioned low performance. If we were new immigrants and not familiar with the system we might not have questioned. I'm sure there are a lot more if's in there as well but that is a start.
