Saturday, September 7, 2013
We need real diplomas for special education students
I am angry and I am frustrated that for thousands and thousands of New York students there is no longer a viable pathway to a high school diploma. That is really unconscionable.
There are millions of adults out there who would never have graduated high school if they had had to take Regents Exams! For over 100 years, Regents exams were only for college bound students. Then in 1979 Regents Competency Tests were instituted so that there would be a minimum competency for a high school diploma. Twenty years later the RCT started being phased out and all students had to take Regents Exams. Now the RCT is history and all students MUST take Regents Exams.
The RCT’s were far from perfect, but at least they gave students (albeit, eventually, only special education students) a chance to graduate from high school with a diploma. Were all those students ready for college or career? Not really. However, they were eligible to get a basic job which required a high school diploma (a parent once told me that he couldn’t even get his kid a job driving a Pepsi truck, which was what the father did, unless his kid got a high school diploma). Young adults with high school diplomas could also go to community college and take remedial courses, if necessary, before they took classes for credit.
In spite of what you may have heard, there is NOTHING wrong with some high school graduates taking remedial courses at community college. Education benefits individuals, society, in short everybody. It’s wonderful that people are willing and able to continue their education. I know of many students who took remedial courses in community college. They graduated from community college and went on to get Bachelor’s degrees and become successful self-supporting adults. The current situation, where students must pass New York State Regents exams in order to receive a high school diploma, is removing those opportunities.
Currently, there is nothing between the Regents Diploma Track and the Alternate Assessment Track. Yes, there is the Local Diploma (but only for special education students). The Local Diploma requires that students take, and essentially fail, the Regents exams. It puts special education students in the curious position of having to pass the Regent’s classes with a high enough grade to offset their failing Regent’s grade (generally the Regents counts for about 20% of the student’s final grade).
When students can’t pass Regents exams and or the Regents classes (or in the earlier grades get a 2 on the state assessments) the CSE often pressures parents to allow their child to be put on the Alternate Assessment track.
The Alternate Assessment was initially developed for students who were not expected to be able to read and count at a 5 year old level by the time they were 21. Now, students who can read grade level textbooks and do algebra are being forced onto the Alternate Assessment track!
At a 2013 symposium at CW Post, Michael Yudin, Acting Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U. S. Department of Education said that parents had to tell school districts that they want their children to get high school diplomas. Perhaps it should be that way, but it isn't. I've been to hundreds of CSE meetings, and Mr. Yudin's directive does not match reality. The pressure that school districts put on parents, of low achieving students, to take those children off of the diploma track and put them onto the alternative assessment track is intense - even when I am in the room. Seriously, the school district personnel make timeshare salesmen look like pussy cats!
District personnel play on parents’ guilt. They tell parents how unfair it is to subject their children to tests that they cannot pass. "Why does this child need to learn______________." (Insert your choice of subject, - reading, algebra, division). You name it. I've heard them all.
Once the children are on the alternate assessment track then they taught almost nothing. I had a big argument at one CSE meeting on behalf of a nonverbal autistic teenager. They had never taught him to write. They had never even let him use a pencil! And no, they weren't having him use a computer either. They said, "What possible benefit could this boy get by learning to write?" I forced it (and showed them how to introduce the pencil). Now he can write his name and numbers to ten. He can circle the correct choice on a worksheet and he loves working on academics on his computer and Ipad (OK maybe loves working on academics is overdoing it – he loves playing Temple Run and Angry Birds on his Ipad).
To be sure there are cases where parents pressure school districts to put their children on the Alternate Assessment Track. Those parents think it is a no-brainer (and it certainly will leave their children with no brains). They can put their children on this Alternate Track and suddenly there is no homework and no tests to study for! Yippee!
What these parents and school personnel are forgetting is that all students have a right to learn, to be taught, and at the very minimum be exposed to the general education curriculum. All students have the right to work towards a real high school diploma. NOBODY, not parents, not teachers, not administrators, not politicians should be able to take students off that diploma track.
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN (I can go into more detail on any of these upon request)
1) The first tenet of education should be, "Expose, don't impose."
2) Special Education should be more intensive and extensive, not slower and simpler.
3) Educate teachers on how to expose all students to the General Education Curriculum.
4) Assume that all students can learn – even if they don’t test well, even if they can’t speak.
5) Make sure those special education students who are going to be taking the same tests as regular education students at the end of the year have access to all the texts, materials, and information. Supplement it don’t supplant it.
6) Utilize teacher assisted computerized instruction.
7) Allow students to work at their own pace even if it takes more than one school year per class.
8) Break the Regents Exams down into component tests and let students master (and be tested on) one component at a time.
9) Look at the remedial classes that the community colleges are using and see if any of them could be beneficial to the students struggling in high school. (Suffolk Community College has some great Math programs).
10) Get over the idea that a student has to learn everything before he or she can graduate from high school. With any luck adulthood lasts a long, long time and one is never too old to learn. High School Commencement should be just the beginning.
12:57 am est
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Put an end to testing madness!
If there ever was a time for public protest to spearhead an education revolution, that time is now! Parents, teachers, administrators, students and everybody else should stand up and put an end to this testing madness! Arne Duncan and J. B. King Jr. and even Newsday are absolutely wrong, the tests are not improving education they are ruining it but even worse they are harming the very children they are purporting to help.
The current NYS tests are not about helping students or improving education, they are about politics. If they were really meant to improve student capabilities they would be diagnostic (which they are not). If the tests were really about improving education, students, teachers and parents would be able to review the tests along with the individual and collective student responses in order to better understand the difficulties the students as individuals and as a group were having (but they cannot).
The arbitrary passing scores, and they are arbitrary, being set by New York State are causing huge numbers of children to feel like failures. Success breeds success, failure does not. Anxiety among students and their parents is growing exponentially. And that anxiety is causing many students to do even more poorly on their tests.
The focus on testing is sapping resources, severely limiting student exposure to both basics skill practice and broad, enriching curriculums. Required remedial classes (which do not have to be targeted to a student’s area of weakness and which parents cannot opt children out of) have essentially reinstituted tracking at the elementary level, a practice which was previously found to be harmful and self-fulfilling.
Test proponents claim that they are instituting these tests in order to stem the tide of high school graduates who need to take remedial courses at community colleges. The statistic that I have heard most commonly cited is that 60% of community college students need to take remedial courses. This is misleading and misguided. First of all, most of our high school graduates, here on Long Island go to four year colleges and do not need remedial classes. Second of all, there is NOTHING wrong with some high school graduates taking remedial courses at community college. Education benefits our society. It was wonderful that individuals who struggled in public school still had enough confidence and drive to continue their education. I know of many students who have taken that route to become college graduates and successful self-supporting adults. I do not think that they would have had such rosy outcomes if they had grown up with the current testing system limiting their options and making them feel like failures.
9:13 am est
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Basic Premises of Teaching/Learning
1. All students can learn and are learning.
a. However, they can not learn about things that they are not exposed to.
b. There is no prerequisite for learning.
2. Learning is not linear.
3. Teaching and learning may not appear to be in direct proportion even when they are both occurring.
4. Testing is limited in its ability to assess knowledge, because it only measures output.
5. All students want to feel successful.
a. Successful is a subjective term and the student is the arbiter.
6. All students want to feel that they are making progress.
7. All students want to feel appreciated and accepted.
8. All students know more than one would think they know.
a. Special education students are generally aware of grade level expectations especially if they are in a general education school (regardless of their class).
i. Students in special education schools are usually aware also.
b. They know who is considered smart and who isn’t.
c. They know what parents, teachers, and other students have said about them.
i. Especially things said within earshot.
9. All students get insulted when given ‘baby work’.
a. ‘Baby work’ is a subjective term and the student is the arbiter.
10. Students are easily bored.
a. Students use the word, “boring” to mean slow, dull or repetitive.
b. Children who are having difficulties also use the term "bored" when they are really overwhelmed or lost.
c. Students also say they are "bored" when they would prefer to be doing something else.
d. If you are bored teaching them, they are bored being taught by you.
11. Negative attention is better than no attention at all.
12. All students require intellectual engagement and stimulation.
13. It’s all in the presentation.
a. Teaching is always more effective when intrinsically motivating methods and materials are used. The inverse is true as well.
14. Students are not always doing the best that they can. Sometimes they are not making any effort at all. Sometimes they’re just playing with you.
8:18 pm est
Sunday, January 30, 2011
No Child Left Unscathed
The educational system is failing children by the thousands and it is failing those same children over and over again. First arbitrary yearly standards are set (if the arbitrariness of the standards was in ever in question the debacle of the past summer, when NYSED changed the passing levels of the exams after the students had taken them and after the school year had ended, should have put that to rest) as if everyone learns at the same rate. Individual students don’t always learn at the same rate each year. Furthermore, some children are not able to show what they know on tests.
When we fail to teach children and then fail to promote them to the next grade, we should be labeling ourselves as failures, not them.
Schools in New York State, and elsewhere, are using tests, which are not, in the least bit diagnostic. The fact is, in most New York school districts the state mandated tests offer less diagnostic information, to teachers and administrators, than the yearly achievement tests (e.g. California Achievement Tests, Stanford Achievement Tests, Metropolitan Achievement Tests, etc.) that they replaced.
The remediation is not at all tactical either. Students who score below the cut off on a given exam are required to be given Academic Intervention Services (AIS) in that subject. However, there is no requirement that those services be targeted to the student’s specific area of weakness. This means that a student who reads well but scores poorly on the English Language Arts Exam because his writing skills are weak could easily find himself in a mandatory (AIS) reading class.
A student’s weakness in expressive writing also figures in to the scores on the New York State Mathematics Test. A student who is an ace at Math but has poor writing skills probably wouldn’t score so low that he or she ends up in remedial math class, but he or she wouldn’t end up in an accelerated math class either.
Decisions are being made, as a result of test scores, ostensibly on behalf of these children, which have implications so profound and long lasting that no teacher, administrator, government or even parent, should have a right to make them.
What kind of decisions? Decisions which remove children from regular classrooms for hours a week. Decisions which limit students' ability to earn high school diplomas before they turn 19 and give up. Decisions which leave students earning a diploma but not gaining enough skills and knowledge to go on to college or employment.
No Child Left Behind? No Child Left Unscathed.
3:03 pm est
Friday, March 26, 2010
Facing the Committee on Special Education 1992 I have been to many Committee on Special Education meetings starting back when they were called Committee on the Handicapped meetings. Back then I was a member of the committee. I knew everyone in the room. I read the reports on each of the students before the committee, voiced my concerns, and worked with the rest of the committee to develop the best recommendation possible.
Were there times when I disagreed with some members of the committee? Absolutely! But it really wasn’t a big deal. If I disagreed, I would just state my case (emphatically), with the knowledge that I was a professional. I usually prevailed. Especially,when it came to students with whom I was directly involved. After all, I knew my business.
Then I went into private practice. Wow, was I surprised by the horror stories I began hearing from parents who felt that the CSE (Committee on Special Education) was trying to railroad their children into unacceptable programs. Although I took their concerns seriously, I couldn’t help but wonder whether they were exaggerating when they spoke of the pressure and trauma they experienced in their dealings with the CSE.
So I interceded. I contacted the administrator responsible for CSE and and we worked things out. Again, it was really no big deal.
Then one day it happened. There was this one case where my phone calls were ignored. The teachers refused to budge from their original recommendation of a self‑contained class. The student's parents felt strongly that their daughter belonged in the mainstream. Frankly, I agreed with the parents, and not just because they had retained me. I had tested this girl, worked with her and couldn't see any justification for taking her out of the mainstream.
So it was that I went into my first CSE meeting on behalf of the parents rather than as a member of the team. Let me tell you, walking into that CSE meeting was intimidating. I couldn't even imagine how stressful it would have been if I wasn’t a professional or if it had been my child that the CSE was sitting in judgment on.
I felt really bad for those parents and I started to understand what those other parents had been telling me. It is hard to listen to one "expert" after another tell you what a mistake it would be to keep your child in the mainstream. Telling you how much you are hurting your child buy not putting her into a self contained special education class. No matter how sure a parent is of their position they will begin to have doubts. All those what ifs… What if your child doesn't do well in the future you will never hear the end of it.
Fortunately, for that young lady, we prevailed. She was kept in the mainstream and is did very nicely. At the time she was in elementary school. Eventually she grew up, graduated from high school (half a year early), got married and last time I ran into her in the supermarket was the mother of two adorable little children. Interestingly, no one ever came forward to tell the parents that they had made the right decision after all.
The point here is that nothing can really prepare you so that you can go into a CSE meeting and not feel stressed if you disagree with the recommendations the committee proposes. How could anything possibly prepare you to be level‑headed and assertive… To ask questions... To disagree…
Going before a panel of six to twelve "experts" who are now prepared to render a verdict, can be frightening. After all, who do you think you are to question the professional judgment of psychologists, social workers, educators, administrators, and others? ... You are the parent, that's who!
As a parent you know your child better than anyone else could. You have special insights and a sense of history that no professional could ever hope to equal. You have been there to see your child's reactions to different teachers and school situations.
You were there when the homework load was overwhelming and when your child was lost and frustrated. You saw what happened when your child was bored and uninterested. You have seen your child through everything. Don't let anybody sell you short. You have to lot to offer. The law of the land recognizes this. You are your child's foremost advocate. No change in your child's program will take place without your written consent. Furthermore, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. I tell you this not only because it is your legal right, but because you need to know that placing your child in special education does not lock your child into anything. If at any time you feel that your child's special education program is not meeting his needs, you have the right (and the moral obligation) to return to the CSE and have the program changed.
Go in with an Advantage ‑ Know Your Rights
Before giving consent for an initial evaluation, you have the right to receive, in writing, a description of the proposed evaluation and the uses to be made of the information obtained from said evaluation.
You have the right to inspect and get copies of (at a reasonable cost) all school records about your child.
You have the right to participate in (the law says participate not just attend) meetings on the CSE for developing recommendations for your child's special education program.
You have the right to be accompanied to those meetings by anyone you wish to have with you.
You have the right to request the presence of the school physician member of the CSE at the said meeting(s).
You have the right to submit additional evaluation information to the CSE that, if submitted, shall be considered by the committee.
If you disagree with the evaluation obtained by the school district then you have the right to obtain an independent educational evaluation, possibly at public expense.
You have the right to clear explanations in everyday language. If you don't understand anything about the evaluation, the meeting, the recommendation, or your rights, ask for an explanation. This is not the time to worry about appearing foolish. Why? Because asking questions is not foolish. Putting your child into the wrong program would be far more foolish than any question you could ask.
Make sure to attend all CSE meetings that involve recommendations for your child's education. Go to the meetings even if you agree with the proposed recommendations. That way you will be in a better position to challenge future recommendations. You must receive notice of meetings at least five days before the meeting is scheduled. Don’t be afraid to reschedule it if necessary. Just call the CSE.
copyright 2010 Heidi Reichel
Toward the close of the last school year there were news articles about special education students who were ‘graduating’ school with IEP ‘Diplomas’ and not prepared for competitive employment. This should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Those students were on alternative assessment. They did not have to sit for any of the State tests that typical students take. They did not do the same coursework. There is no disputing the fact that, those students were not being prepared to lead self-sufficient independent lives. IEP ‘Diplomas’ were not designed for students who had the potential for competitive employment. IEP ‘Diplomas’ are not high school diplomas at all, in fact, students who have received IEP ‘Diplomas’ are still eligible to continue going to high school to pursue a regular high school diploma.
The more insidious problem, however, is that many special education students (often, but not always, classified as learning disabled) are graduating school with actual high school diplomas and are not prepared either. These students passed their classes and exit exams but they did it with the help of special education accommodations such as one to one aides, tests read, scribes, directions repeated and or simplified, and extended time. Perhaps their spelling errors were not to be counted against them or perhaps they weren’t required to fill in the bubbles on Scantron answer sheets. Graduating from high school led these students to believe that they were ready for employment or higher education. Imagine their surprise (maybe I should say shock or horror) when they found that they weren’t able to read or write well enough to fill out a job application or when they could only qualify to enroll in non credit bearing remedial courses at the local community college.
I know that a lot of teachers and parents believe that giving students special education (and 504) accommodations only levels the playing field. However, that would only be true if school was a game and the goal was just to pass the tests and eventually get a diploma. School is not a game. The purpose of school is to educate students so that they have the tools necessary to become successful independent adults. Keeping students on an artificially leveled playing field denies them that opportunity.
“But these kids would never make it without accommodations. You’re setting them up to fail!” I would never set children up to fail and I don’t want others to prevent them from succeeding. What I am advocating here, is going beyond accommodating them all the way to educating them. Teach them how to read, write, fill in Scantron forms, follow instructions and pay attention all by themselves. They will not have someone at their beckon call to help them with these things once they leave high school. Even if their aspirations are low and all they want to do is drive a car, get a job, and go out on dates, they will need to have these basic skills. I have found that in over 90% of cases if students aren’t learning, then they are not being taught (appropriately for them). By the way, it doesn’t matter if a student is being taught with a ‘scientifically proven’ method. If that student isn’t learning then that method is inappropriate for that student.
Copyright 2009 by Heidi Reichel
We need real diplomas for special education students
I am angry and I am frustrated that for thousands and thousands of New York students there is no longer a viable pathway to a high school diploma. That is really unconscionable.
There are millions of adults out there who would never have graduated high school if they had had to take Regents Exams! For over 100 years, Regents exams were only for college bound students. Then in 1979 Regents Competency Tests were instituted so that there would be a minimum competency for a high school diploma. Twenty years later the RCT started being phased out and all students had to take Regents Exams. Now the RCT is history and all students MUST take Regents Exams.
The RCT’s were far from perfect, but at least they gave students (albeit, eventually, only special education students) a chance to graduate from high school with a diploma. Were all those students ready for college or career? Not really. However, they were eligible to get a basic job which required a high school diploma (a parent once told me that he couldn’t even get his kid a job driving a Pepsi truck, which was what the father did, unless his kid got a high school diploma). Young adults with high school diplomas could also go to community college and take remedial courses, if necessary, before they took classes for credit.
In spite of what you may have heard, there is NOTHING wrong with some high school graduates taking remedial courses at community college. Education benefits individuals, society, in short everybody. It’s wonderful that people are willing and able to continue their education. I know of many students who took remedial courses in community college. They graduated from community college and went on to get Bachelor’s degrees and become successful self-supporting adults. The current situation, where students must pass New York State Regents exams in order to receive a high school diploma, is removing those opportunities.
Currently, there is nothing between the Regents Diploma Track and the Alternate Assessment Track. Yes, there is the Local Diploma (but only for special education students). The Local Diploma requires that students take, and essentially fail, the Regents exams. It puts special education students in the curious position of having to pass the Regent’s classes with a high enough grade to offset their failing Regent’s grade (generally the Regents counts for about 20% of the student’s final grade).
When students can’t pass Regents exams and or the Regents classes (or in the earlier grades get a 2 on the state assessments) the CSE often pressures parents to allow their child to be put on the Alternate Assessment track.
The Alternate Assessment was initially developed for students who were not expected to be able to read and count at a 5 year old level by the time they were 21. Now, students who can read grade level textbooks and do algebra are being forced onto the Alternate Assessment track!
At a 2013 symposium at CW Post, Michael Yudin, Acting Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U. S. Department of Education said that parents had to tell school districts that they want their children to get high school diplomas. Perhaps it should be that way, but it isn't. I've been to hundreds of CSE meetings, and Mr. Yudin's directive does not match reality. The pressure that school districts put on parents, of low achieving students, to take those children off of the diploma track and put them onto the alternative assessment track is intense - even when I am in the room. Seriously, the school district personnel make timeshare salesmen look like pussy cats!
District personnel play on parents’ guilt. They tell parents how unfair it is to subject their children to tests that they cannot pass. "Why does this child need to learn______________." (Insert your choice of subject, - reading, algebra, division). You name it. I've heard them all.
Once the children are on the alternate assessment track then they taught almost nothing. I had a big argument at one CSE meeting on behalf of a nonverbal autistic teenager. They had never taught him to write. They had never even let him use a pencil! And no, they weren't having him use a computer either. They said, "What possible benefit could this boy get by learning to write?" I forced it (and showed them how to introduce the pencil). Now he can write his name and numbers to ten. He can circle the correct choice on a worksheet and he loves working on academics on his computer and Ipad (OK maybe loves working on academics is overdoing it – he loves playing Temple Run and Angry Birds on his Ipad).
To be sure there are cases where parents pressure school districts to put their children on the Alternate Assessment Track. Those parents think it is a no-brainer (and it certainly will leave their children with no brains). They can put their children on this Alternate Track and suddenly there is no homework and no tests to study for! Yippee!
What these parents and school personnel are forgetting is that all students have a right to learn, to be taught, and at the very minimum be exposed to the general education curriculum. All students have the right to work towards a real high school diploma. NOBODY, not parents, not teachers, not administrators, not politicians should be able to take students off that diploma track.
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN (I can go into more detail on any of these upon request)
1) The first tenet of education should be, "Expose, don't impose."
2) Special Education should be more intensive and extensive, not slower and simpler.
3) Educate teachers on how to expose all students to the General Education Curriculum.
4) Assume that all students can learn – even if they don’t test well, even if they can’t speak.
5) Make sure those special education students who are going to be taking the same tests as regular education students at the end of the year have access to all the texts, materials, and information. Supplement it don’t supplant it.
6) Utilize teacher assisted computerized instruction.
7) Allow students to work at their own pace even if it takes more than one school year per class.
8) Break the Regents Exams down into component tests and let students master (and be tested on) one component at a time.
9) Look at the remedial classes that the community colleges are using and see if any of them could be beneficial to the students struggling in high school. (Suffolk Community College has some great Math programs).
10) Get over the idea that a student has to learn everything before he or she can graduate from high school. With any luck adulthood lasts a long, long time and one is never too old to learn. High School Commencement should be just the beginning.
12:57 am est
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Put an end to testing madness!
If there ever was a time for public protest to spearhead an education revolution, that time is now! Parents, teachers, administrators, students and everybody else should stand up and put an end to this testing madness! Arne Duncan and J. B. King Jr. and even Newsday are absolutely wrong, the tests are not improving education they are ruining it but even worse they are harming the very children they are purporting to help.
The current NYS tests are not about helping students or improving education, they are about politics. If they were really meant to improve student capabilities they would be diagnostic (which they are not). If the tests were really about improving education, students, teachers and parents would be able to review the tests along with the individual and collective student responses in order to better understand the difficulties the students as individuals and as a group were having (but they cannot).
The arbitrary passing scores, and they are arbitrary, being set by New York State are causing huge numbers of children to feel like failures. Success breeds success, failure does not. Anxiety among students and their parents is growing exponentially. And that anxiety is causing many students to do even more poorly on their tests.
The focus on testing is sapping resources, severely limiting student exposure to both basics skill practice and broad, enriching curriculums. Required remedial classes (which do not have to be targeted to a student’s area of weakness and which parents cannot opt children out of) have essentially reinstituted tracking at the elementary level, a practice which was previously found to be harmful and self-fulfilling.
Test proponents claim that they are instituting these tests in order to stem the tide of high school graduates who need to take remedial courses at community colleges. The statistic that I have heard most commonly cited is that 60% of community college students need to take remedial courses. This is misleading and misguided. First of all, most of our high school graduates, here on Long Island go to four year colleges and do not need remedial classes. Second of all, there is NOTHING wrong with some high school graduates taking remedial courses at community college. Education benefits our society. It was wonderful that individuals who struggled in public school still had enough confidence and drive to continue their education. I know of many students who have taken that route to become college graduates and successful self-supporting adults. I do not think that they would have had such rosy outcomes if they had grown up with the current testing system limiting their options and making them feel like failures.
9:13 am est
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Basic Premises of Teaching/Learning
1. All students can learn and are learning.
a. However, they can not learn about things that they are not exposed to.
b. There is no prerequisite for learning.
2. Learning is not linear.
3. Teaching and learning may not appear to be in direct proportion even when they are both occurring.
4. Testing is limited in its ability to assess knowledge, because it only measures output.
5. All students want to feel successful.
a. Successful is a subjective term and the student is the arbiter.
6. All students want to feel that they are making progress.
7. All students want to feel appreciated and accepted.
8. All students know more than one would think they know.
a. Special education students are generally aware of grade level expectations especially if they are in a general education school (regardless of their class).
i. Students in special education schools are usually aware also.
b. They know who is considered smart and who isn’t.
c. They know what parents, teachers, and other students have said about them.
i. Especially things said within earshot.
9. All students get insulted when given ‘baby work’.
a. ‘Baby work’ is a subjective term and the student is the arbiter.
10. Students are easily bored.
a. Students use the word, “boring” to mean slow, dull or repetitive.
b. Children who are having difficulties also use the term "bored" when they are really overwhelmed or lost.
c. Students also say they are "bored" when they would prefer to be doing something else.
d. If you are bored teaching them, they are bored being taught by you.
11. Negative attention is better than no attention at all.
12. All students require intellectual engagement and stimulation.
13. It’s all in the presentation.
a. Teaching is always more effective when intrinsically motivating methods and materials are used. The inverse is true as well.
14. Students are not always doing the best that they can. Sometimes they are not making any effort at all. Sometimes they’re just playing with you.
8:18 pm est
Sunday, January 30, 2011
No Child Left Unscathed
The educational system is failing children by the thousands and it is failing those same children over and over again. First arbitrary yearly standards are set (if the arbitrariness of the standards was in ever in question the debacle of the past summer, when NYSED changed the passing levels of the exams after the students had taken them and after the school year had ended, should have put that to rest) as if everyone learns at the same rate. Individual students don’t always learn at the same rate each year. Furthermore, some children are not able to show what they know on tests.
When we fail to teach children and then fail to promote them to the next grade, we should be labeling ourselves as failures, not them.
Schools in New York State, and elsewhere, are using tests, which are not, in the least bit diagnostic. The fact is, in most New York school districts the state mandated tests offer less diagnostic information, to teachers and administrators, than the yearly achievement tests (e.g. California Achievement Tests, Stanford Achievement Tests, Metropolitan Achievement Tests, etc.) that they replaced.
The remediation is not at all tactical either. Students who score below the cut off on a given exam are required to be given Academic Intervention Services (AIS) in that subject. However, there is no requirement that those services be targeted to the student’s specific area of weakness. This means that a student who reads well but scores poorly on the English Language Arts Exam because his writing skills are weak could easily find himself in a mandatory (AIS) reading class.
A student’s weakness in expressive writing also figures in to the scores on the New York State Mathematics Test. A student who is an ace at Math but has poor writing skills probably wouldn’t score so low that he or she ends up in remedial math class, but he or she wouldn’t end up in an accelerated math class either.
Decisions are being made, as a result of test scores, ostensibly on behalf of these children, which have implications so profound and long lasting that no teacher, administrator, government or even parent, should have a right to make them.
What kind of decisions? Decisions which remove children from regular classrooms for hours a week. Decisions which limit students' ability to earn high school diplomas before they turn 19 and give up. Decisions which leave students earning a diploma but not gaining enough skills and knowledge to go on to college or employment.
No Child Left Behind? No Child Left Unscathed.
3:03 pm est
Friday, March 26, 2010
Facing the Committee on Special Education 1992 I have been to many Committee on Special Education meetings starting back when they were called Committee on the Handicapped meetings. Back then I was a member of the committee. I knew everyone in the room. I read the reports on each of the students before the committee, voiced my concerns, and worked with the rest of the committee to develop the best recommendation possible.
Were there times when I disagreed with some members of the committee? Absolutely! But it really wasn’t a big deal. If I disagreed, I would just state my case (emphatically), with the knowledge that I was a professional. I usually prevailed. Especially,when it came to students with whom I was directly involved. After all, I knew my business.
Then I went into private practice. Wow, was I surprised by the horror stories I began hearing from parents who felt that the CSE (Committee on Special Education) was trying to railroad their children into unacceptable programs. Although I took their concerns seriously, I couldn’t help but wonder whether they were exaggerating when they spoke of the pressure and trauma they experienced in their dealings with the CSE.
So I interceded. I contacted the administrator responsible for CSE and and we worked things out. Again, it was really no big deal.
Then one day it happened. There was this one case where my phone calls were ignored. The teachers refused to budge from their original recommendation of a self‑contained class. The student's parents felt strongly that their daughter belonged in the mainstream. Frankly, I agreed with the parents, and not just because they had retained me. I had tested this girl, worked with her and couldn't see any justification for taking her out of the mainstream.
So it was that I went into my first CSE meeting on behalf of the parents rather than as a member of the team. Let me tell you, walking into that CSE meeting was intimidating. I couldn't even imagine how stressful it would have been if I wasn’t a professional or if it had been my child that the CSE was sitting in judgment on.
I felt really bad for those parents and I started to understand what those other parents had been telling me. It is hard to listen to one "expert" after another tell you what a mistake it would be to keep your child in the mainstream. Telling you how much you are hurting your child buy not putting her into a self contained special education class. No matter how sure a parent is of their position they will begin to have doubts. All those what ifs… What if your child doesn't do well in the future you will never hear the end of it.
Fortunately, for that young lady, we prevailed. She was kept in the mainstream and is did very nicely. At the time she was in elementary school. Eventually she grew up, graduated from high school (half a year early), got married and last time I ran into her in the supermarket was the mother of two adorable little children. Interestingly, no one ever came forward to tell the parents that they had made the right decision after all.
The point here is that nothing can really prepare you so that you can go into a CSE meeting and not feel stressed if you disagree with the recommendations the committee proposes. How could anything possibly prepare you to be level‑headed and assertive… To ask questions... To disagree…
Going before a panel of six to twelve "experts" who are now prepared to render a verdict, can be frightening. After all, who do you think you are to question the professional judgment of psychologists, social workers, educators, administrators, and others? ... You are the parent, that's who!
As a parent you know your child better than anyone else could. You have special insights and a sense of history that no professional could ever hope to equal. You have been there to see your child's reactions to different teachers and school situations.
You were there when the homework load was overwhelming and when your child was lost and frustrated. You saw what happened when your child was bored and uninterested. You have seen your child through everything. Don't let anybody sell you short. You have to lot to offer. The law of the land recognizes this. You are your child's foremost advocate. No change in your child's program will take place without your written consent. Furthermore, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. I tell you this not only because it is your legal right, but because you need to know that placing your child in special education does not lock your child into anything. If at any time you feel that your child's special education program is not meeting his needs, you have the right (and the moral obligation) to return to the CSE and have the program changed.
Go in with an Advantage ‑ Know Your Rights
Before giving consent for an initial evaluation, you have the right to receive, in writing, a description of the proposed evaluation and the uses to be made of the information obtained from said evaluation.
You have the right to inspect and get copies of (at a reasonable cost) all school records about your child.
You have the right to participate in (the law says participate not just attend) meetings on the CSE for developing recommendations for your child's special education program.
You have the right to be accompanied to those meetings by anyone you wish to have with you.
You have the right to request the presence of the school physician member of the CSE at the said meeting(s).
You have the right to submit additional evaluation information to the CSE that, if submitted, shall be considered by the committee.
If you disagree with the evaluation obtained by the school district then you have the right to obtain an independent educational evaluation, possibly at public expense.
You have the right to clear explanations in everyday language. If you don't understand anything about the evaluation, the meeting, the recommendation, or your rights, ask for an explanation. This is not the time to worry about appearing foolish. Why? Because asking questions is not foolish. Putting your child into the wrong program would be far more foolish than any question you could ask.
Make sure to attend all CSE meetings that involve recommendations for your child's education. Go to the meetings even if you agree with the proposed recommendations. That way you will be in a better position to challenge future recommendations. You must receive notice of meetings at least five days before the meeting is scheduled. Don’t be afraid to reschedule it if necessary. Just call the CSE.
copyright 2010 Heidi Reichel
Toward the close of the last school year there were news articles about special education students who were ‘graduating’ school with IEP ‘Diplomas’ and not prepared for competitive employment. This should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Those students were on alternative assessment. They did not have to sit for any of the State tests that typical students take. They did not do the same coursework. There is no disputing the fact that, those students were not being prepared to lead self-sufficient independent lives. IEP ‘Diplomas’ were not designed for students who had the potential for competitive employment. IEP ‘Diplomas’ are not high school diplomas at all, in fact, students who have received IEP ‘Diplomas’ are still eligible to continue going to high school to pursue a regular high school diploma.
The more insidious problem, however, is that many special education students (often, but not always, classified as learning disabled) are graduating school with actual high school diplomas and are not prepared either. These students passed their classes and exit exams but they did it with the help of special education accommodations such as one to one aides, tests read, scribes, directions repeated and or simplified, and extended time. Perhaps their spelling errors were not to be counted against them or perhaps they weren’t required to fill in the bubbles on Scantron answer sheets. Graduating from high school led these students to believe that they were ready for employment or higher education. Imagine their surprise (maybe I should say shock or horror) when they found that they weren’t able to read or write well enough to fill out a job application or when they could only qualify to enroll in non credit bearing remedial courses at the local community college.
I know that a lot of teachers and parents believe that giving students special education (and 504) accommodations only levels the playing field. However, that would only be true if school was a game and the goal was just to pass the tests and eventually get a diploma. School is not a game. The purpose of school is to educate students so that they have the tools necessary to become successful independent adults. Keeping students on an artificially leveled playing field denies them that opportunity.
“But these kids would never make it without accommodations. You’re setting them up to fail!” I would never set children up to fail and I don’t want others to prevent them from succeeding. What I am advocating here, is going beyond accommodating them all the way to educating them. Teach them how to read, write, fill in Scantron forms, follow instructions and pay attention all by themselves. They will not have someone at their beckon call to help them with these things once they leave high school. Even if their aspirations are low and all they want to do is drive a car, get a job, and go out on dates, they will need to have these basic skills. I have found that in over 90% of cases if students aren’t learning, then they are not being taught (appropriately for them). By the way, it doesn’t matter if a student is being taught with a ‘scientifically proven’ method. If that student isn’t learning then that method is inappropriate for that student.
Copyright 2009 by Heidi Reichel