What are we doing as Special Educators

One mother's story about her son. What are we doing to make sure this is not the case in our charter schools and that this is not the common (mis)conception about all charter schools? What can be done?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/nyregion/charter-school-sends-message-thrive-or-transfer.html?_r=1&ref=education

CCS and Special Education

Some thoughts on how CCS (Common Core Standards) may effect students with special needs in the upcoming years...

http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=CEC_Today1&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=15269

Michelle Rhee! And Special Ed!

Michelle Rhee's Students First organization, just posted an interview with Nathan Levenson, the guy I mentioned last post and the author of this white paper on rethinking special education. I guess he is making the rounds?

He makes a couple of interesting points. His moral thrust is that even though we have achieved a lot in terms of inclusion, disability rights, and greater funding for special education our gains in tolerance have not really translated into gains in achievement.

Despite these gains, overall it is hard to be pleased with the state of special education in America. Despite much caring, and even more spending, students with special needs achieve at unacceptably low levels, and too few are prepared for college, work, or independent living. 

Probably Levenson's  most controversial claim is that the last thing a student struggling in math (or reading or writing) needs is instruction from a special education teacher with no content knowledge of how to actually teach math. The most direct solution, he says, is to have gen ed teachers provide both core instruction AND the extra help. Leveson: "The math department should be responsible for students learning math, even students with disabilities, rather than the special education department."


I think he's write to some extent, although I think the problem actually could be solved in two ways: making gen ed teachers special education experts or making special ed teachers content experts. 


Since Levenson's larger point is that schools can reduce cots AND increase student achievement, i.e. have their cake and eat it too, Students First asks more people aren't taking him up on his suggestions. Levenson:

I think there are two obstacles: compassion and fear. Rightfully so, no one wants to take away anything from students who struggle. Out of love, we have lowered expectations, shielded students from rigor, and propped them up with paraprofessional support. This is well intentioned, but it hasn't actually helped many students with mild to moderate disabilities succeed.

Is the problem with special education really a problem with special education training?

Check out this new working paper: Something Has Got to Change: Rethinking Special Education by Nathan Levenson.

Leveson writes,

'The largest portion of special education spending goes to special education teachers, who are trained in the law, know how to identify disabilities, and are steeped in theories of learning. They are not, however, trained in math, English, or reading, even though most of a special education teacher's day...is spent providing academic instruction." He flags one district where special ed teachers provided 100 percent of extra reading help even though only five percent of the teachers had been trained to teach reading.'

This pretty much sums up our own experience, right? Heavy on theories of multiple intelligences, defensible IEPs, and critical literacy, while our one class on actual literacy was taught off of Powerpoints by a student who had taken it the year before.

What do you guys think? What would the ideal special education training program look like?

Thoughts on the TFA Summit

1. TFA

Well this was a TFA party through and through and I think it represented what is both the best and the worst of TFA.

The worst: the excessive spending, the self-aggrandizement, and the failure to respond to very real criticisms. It seemed to me that TFA throughout the conference continuously set up the false dichotomy of you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us. Critics and enemies either: a. Care more about adults than children (read teacher’s unions) or b. Do not believe poor children can learn.

The summit could have been an opportunity for a conversation about the future of TFA. I think TFA at some point will have to confront the push back against two-year commitments, inadequate preparation, it’s conflation of race and class, etc. That TFA’s existence is so divisive in many education circles cannot just be chalked up to jealous, bad teachers and it hurts the education movement for TFA to continue to pretend it does.

And the best: being in the company of smart, intelligent, passionate people, and the feeling that we are a movement poised to make transformational change.

Also lots of free alcohol.

2. Charter Schools

Charter schools in TFA-land seem very much to be the generals of the ed-reform revolution. There was very little talk about what can be done to improve traditional public schools (for the most part, great teachers and great principals) and a lot more emphasis on starting great schools.

What’s disheartening for me is that while there seemed to be many charter schools doing amazing work in terms of getting students to college, I think they need to respond as a movement to the valid criticism of skimming off the top students. Which is not to minimize what they do for the students who do ultimately graduate from charter schools, but it seems to me that it’s a conversation they should honestly and transparently engage in because unchecked, it’s impossible to take charters seriously as any sort of answer to educational inequity.

3. Special Ed

Amidst all the excitement of many of the sessions, I felt discouraged because there was no session that addressed the future of special ed. As far as I know, unlike many other fields, there are no great leaders of special ed. There is no movement compiling the things great special ed teachers do. And there is no movement for more equity for students with IEPs; if anything, it seems as if charter schools are united in their failure to truly offer least restrictive environments. I don’t know what it will take to make special education part of the national reform agenda.

What did you think John?

My new favorite blog

http://www.startinganedschool.org/

My friend introduced me to this blog last night. It's by the founder of the charter school where he will be working next year as a tutor/trainee. Tutors spend time during the week helping out in classrooms, co-teaching, and working one-on-one with students and then attend classes and workshops at night and on the weekends. It's a lot like TFA only:

1. training takes a whole year, rather than 5 weeks, and

2. the program completely ignores the need for traditional certification.

That is, at the end of the year, he *won't* be certified as a teacher and so will really only be eligible to teach in charter schools. I guess the underlying philosophy is that undergoing any traditional certification program is a waste of time.

Here was a particularly good post: http://www.startinganedschool.org/2011/01/18/college-guidance-what-to-do-when-a-mediocre-performer-says-harvard/

makes sure to read his answer in the comments!