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Panel: How to improve special ed
Experts debate the success of IDEA in meeting the needs of students with disabilities
About 6.6 million students with disabilities are learning alongside their peers at a neighborhood school, up from 1.7 million in 1975.
As the push for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) increases, leaders in the field of special education recently debated whether the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) should be reworked to further align with ESEA, and how else the law might be improved to better meet the needs of students with disabilities.
“The 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has changed priorities for special-needs students. It’s been credited with improving outcomes for students but criticized for generating bureaucracy and rules and regulations that some believe stand in the way of providing more effective services,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies for the Brookings Institution. West moderated a Jan. 18 panel discussion on how to improve special ed.
Alexa Posny, assistant secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services with the U.S. Department of Education (ED), argued that IDEA has been very successful in meeting the needs of students with disabilities—and aligning it with ESEA would increase its strength even further.
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“I’m advocating for greater alignment between ESEA and IDEA. Alignment does not mean the merger of IDEA and ESEA. Nor does it represent any intention whatsoever to diminish or weaken IDEA as a unique and freestanding civil rights statute. … The reauthorization of ESEA and IDEA will create an opportunity for a paradigm shift that will allow us to define one educational system, while also refining our policies and practices to make certain that we educate all students to the highest possible standards,” said Posny.
Better alignment of IDEA and ESEA would allow policy makers to use the same definitions for what makes a highly effective teacher; use the same data-collection system for both general and special ed; coordinate initiatives within schools districts and education agencies; and concentrate on results rather than enforcement, she argued.
But others weren’t so sure that aligning the laws’ policies would have the best outcome.
11 Responses to Panel: How to improve special ed
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rigpapooh
January 25, 2011 at 2:25 am
living4learning mentions paperwork and more parent and teacher input.
I read an article recently about the dollar cost of labor hours to complete so much special ed paperwork. Streamlining and making it electronic (my son’s district is still behind the times) would free up money for instructional uses (e.g., PD on autism and students with learning disabilities who are also English learners).
I tried to get/help my son’s special ed teachers to write a succinct IEP that addressed the standards about main ideas and support details and making inferences/generalizations for language arts, math, science, and social science. As a child with autism it was his greatest need. But some teachers wanted to focus on minutia instead of THE most important skill for a lifetime.
Thehill1962 commented about dyscalculia. My son also has that big time. Now we joke about it when he has math homework and I try to figure out how his brain works…simple answer is very weak inferencing from math examples or prior math problems, and thinking that is the inverse of where my logical mind flows.
His sped teachers never wanted to address dyscalculia, perhaps because I knew much more about it than they did, and easier to say the state didn’t recognize it as a learning disability.
the not-so-easy answer to improving education for students with learning disabilities is: (a) decreasing paperwork to focus on what matters most (less is more) and number of staff involved while supporting collaboration among teachers; and (b) increasing PD for general ed and sped teachers on a concrete approach to teaching diverse learners that encourages co-teaching in inclusion classrooms.
I’m writing a book on a doable approach to differentiated instruction, based on the same strategies in books I wrote about teaching math and science to English learners. RtI is being generalized to be a process for all students in a school, not just a few that might be referred for special ed. Likewise, there is a set of strategies in common in the research on general ed, English learner, and sped. Couple the RtI as a process of interventions, and this set of strategies for effective teaching for all diverse learners, and perhaps not just sped but all ed can be vastly improved and teachers will benefit by a unified approach.
SPEDWatch
January 25, 2011 at 7:04 am
IDEA purports to protect the special education rights of students with special needs and their parents. However, IDEA has never been enforced, and USDE abd OSEP are clear that compliance with IDEA is not a priority for our government.
OSEP’s monitoring and enforcement system actually has a built-in allowance for noncompliance with IDEA. States are NOT required to be sustained compliance with IDEA. OSEP requires only that noncompliance be corrected within ONE YEAR of identification. So a state can be in noncompliance with an IDEA regulation in months 1-11, go into compliance in month 12, and then go right back out of compliance for months 13-23, and they get an A-OK from the feds. I have been told by Dr. Ken Kienas of OSEP that while 100 percent compliance with the law is their “expectation”, we (parents and students) have to understand that “systems break, errors occur, districts don’t always act in the best interests of the students they serve …”
Imagine the federal government telling the people of the Gulf region that while they expect 100 percent compliance with the laws regulating deep sea oil exploration, people who live in that region have to understand that “systems break, errors occur, oil companies don’t always act in the best interests of the people who are impacted by oil drilling activities.” Imagine a deep sea oil drilling regulatory enforcement system that actually allows oil companies to be out of compliance with safety requirements for 11 out of 12 months each year. There would be a massive uprising amongst the populace and changes would be made, quickly. And it wouldn’t be just the people in the Gulf region protesting. It would be people all over the country because such an enforcement system is fatally flawed and fundamentally immoral.
Until parents of students with disabilities rise up by the hundreds of thousands in protest, the same cycle of IDEA regulatory noncompliance and student failure will continue to repeat year, after year, after year, after year …..
We are organizing in Massachusetts. See http://www.spedwatch.org
Ellen M. Chambers, MBA
Founder and Director
SPEDWatch, Inc.
PS (My daughter nearly died as a DIRECT RESULT of a special education system that kept her locked into a totally inappropriate (read: less costly for the district) program. I did not have $10,000 to retain an attorney to press pursue case in the courts. And I had no answer toher heartbreaking question: “Mommy, was does God hate me?” All true.)
SPEDWatch
January 25, 2011 at 7:04 am
IDEA purports to protect the special education rights of students with special needs and their parents. However, IDEA has never been enforced, and USDE abd OSEP are clear that compliance with IDEA is not a priority for our government.
OSEP’s monitoring and enforcement system actually has a built-in allowance for noncompliance with IDEA. States are NOT required to be sustained compliance with IDEA. OSEP requires only that noncompliance be corrected within ONE YEAR of identification. So a state can be in noncompliance with an IDEA regulation in months 1-11, go into compliance in month 12, and then go right back out of compliance for months 13-23, and they get an A-OK from the feds. I have been told by Dr. Ken Kienas of OSEP that while 100 percent compliance with the law is their “expectation”, we (parents and students) have to understand that “systems break, errors occur, districts don’t always act in the best interests of the students they serve …”
Imagine the federal government telling the people of the Gulf region that while they expect 100 percent compliance with the laws regulating deep sea oil exploration, people who live in that region have to understand that “systems break, errors occur, oil companies don’t always act in the best interests of the people who are impacted by oil drilling activities.” Imagine a deep sea oil drilling regulatory enforcement system that actually allows oil companies to be out of compliance with safety requirements for 11 out of 12 months each year. There would be a massive uprising amongst the populace and changes would be made, quickly. And it wouldn’t be just the people in the Gulf region protesting. It would be people all over the country because such an enforcement system is fatally flawed and fundamentally immoral.
Until parents of students with disabilities rise up by the hundreds of thousands in protest, the same cycle of IDEA regulatory noncompliance and student failure will continue to repeat year, after year, after year, after year …..
We are organizing in Massachusetts. See http://www.spedwatch.org
Ellen M. Chambers, MBA
Founder and Director
SPEDWatch, Inc.
PS (My daughter nearly died as a DIRECT RESULT of a special education system that kept her locked into a totally inappropriate (read: less costly for the district) program. I did not have $10,000 to retain an attorney to press pursue case in the courts. And I had no answer toher heartbreaking question: “Mommy, was does God hate me?” All true.)
SPEDWatch
January 25, 2011 at 7:04 am
IDEA purports to protect the special education rights of students with special needs and their parents. However, IDEA has never been enforced, and USDE abd OSEP are clear that compliance with IDEA is not a priority for our government.
OSEP’s monitoring and enforcement system actually has a built-in allowance for noncompliance with IDEA. States are NOT required to be sustained compliance with IDEA. OSEP requires only that noncompliance be corrected within ONE YEAR of identification. So a state can be in noncompliance with an IDEA regulation in months 1-11, go into compliance in month 12, and then go right back out of compliance for months 13-23, and they get an A-OK from the feds. I have been told by Dr. Ken Kienas of OSEP that while 100 percent compliance with the law is their “expectation”, we (parents and students) have to understand that “systems break, errors occur, districts don’t always act in the best interests of the students they serve …”
Imagine the federal government telling the people of the Gulf region that while they expect 100 percent compliance with the laws regulating deep sea oil exploration, people who live in that region have to understand that “systems break, errors occur, oil companies don’t always act in the best interests of the people who are impacted by oil drilling activities.” Imagine a deep sea oil drilling regulatory enforcement system that actually allows oil companies to be out of compliance with safety requirements for 11 out of 12 months each year. There would be a massive uprising amongst the populace and changes would be made, quickly. And it wouldn’t be just the people in the Gulf region protesting. It would be people all over the country because such an enforcement system is fatally flawed and fundamentally immoral.
Until parents of students with disabilities rise up by the hundreds of thousands in protest, the same cycle of IDEA regulatory noncompliance and student failure will continue to repeat year, after year, after year, after year …..
We are organizing in Massachusetts. See http://www.spedwatch.org
Ellen M. Chambers, MBA
Founder and Director
SPEDWatch, Inc.
PS (My daughter nearly died as a DIRECT RESULT of a special education system that kept her locked into a totally inappropriate (read: less costly for the district) program. I did not have $10,000 to retain an attorney to press pursue case in the courts. And I had no answer toher heartbreaking question: “Mommy, was does God hate me?” All true.)
SPEDWatch
January 25, 2011 at 7:11 am
HARD PROOF
Here are letters received from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to prove my earlier points:
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/Mittnacht_Letter_May_2007.pdf
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/Nellhaus_Letter_January_2008.pdf
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/baehr_july_30_2010.pdf
Ellen Chambers
SPEDWatch
SPEDWatch
January 25, 2011 at 7:11 am
HARD PROOF
Here are letters received from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to prove my earlier points:
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/Mittnacht_Letter_May_2007.pdf
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/Nellhaus_Letter_January_2008.pdf
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/baehr_july_30_2010.pdf
Ellen Chambers
SPEDWatch
SPEDWatch
January 25, 2011 at 7:11 am
HARD PROOF
Here are letters received from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to prove my earlier points:
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/Mittnacht_Letter_May_2007.pdf
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/Nellhaus_Letter_January_2008.pdf
http://www.spedwatch.org/files/baehr_july_30_2010.pdf
Ellen Chambers
SPEDWatch
hopenharold86
February 1, 2011 at 12:19 am
One of the biggest problems that I see and have encountered through my child who has autism and other disabilities is that they are often just passed through to the next grade level regardless of their competency levels. I realize that my son may not be surgeon material but I do think he is very capable and I am not interested in how much the teacher knows about multiplication, spelling or division I am concern about how much my child knows. Because he has great difficulty with fine motor skills his writing is often so sloppy that you can not read it so the resource teacher or his aide does most of the writing and he looks to them for the answers too. Am I expecting too much out of my son? I want him to be able to transition easily, and know that change is inevitable and we will have our “bad” days however, he can’t stay in elementary school forever and I do have higher expectations for him than alot of the parents with special needs children in our county do for their children. By being in the school system and then counting on the school system to provide the best education possible has been quite challenging. I hear about the budget cuts, we are a small rural area without a great deal of revenue and that has presented a problem. Should my child suffer because of that, does he not deserve the best education too? I don’t have the answers but I do think it would be a great idea to test my son and see what level he is actually functioning on and look at ways to improve his ability to accept, retain, and use the information presented to him. I don’t like seeing 98% on his math quiz when he can’t figure out 8 x 0 without his reference sheet, or have him work on his A.R. reading and he can’t pronounce even half of the words so how can he comprehend anything he is trying to read! Let me see what HE can do, not everyone else. If you see one autistic child you have just seen one, there are no cookie cutter patterns for our autistic population. Each one learns differently and at their own pace. Our schools need to attempt to taylor their educational goals along with their learning abilities on an individual basis.
hopenharold86
February 1, 2011 at 12:19 am
One of the biggest problems that I see and have encountered through my child who has autism and other disabilities is that they are often just passed through to the next grade level regardless of their competency levels. I realize that my son may not be surgeon material but I do think he is very capable and I am not interested in how much the teacher knows about multiplication, spelling or division I am concern about how much my child knows. Because he has great difficulty with fine motor skills his writing is often so sloppy that you can not read it so the resource teacher or his aide does most of the writing and he looks to them for the answers too. Am I expecting too much out of my son? I want him to be able to transition easily, and know that change is inevitable and we will have our “bad” days however, he can’t stay in elementary school forever and I do have higher expectations for him than alot of the parents with special needs children in our county do for their children. By being in the school system and then counting on the school system to provide the best education possible has been quite challenging. I hear about the budget cuts, we are a small rural area without a great deal of revenue and that has presented a problem. Should my child suffer because of that, does he not deserve the best education too? I don’t have the answers but I do think it would be a great idea to test my son and see what level he is actually functioning on and look at ways to improve his ability to accept, retain, and use the information presented to him. I don’t like seeing 98% on his math quiz when he can’t figure out 8 x 0 without his reference sheet, or have him work on his A.R. reading and he can’t pronounce even half of the words so how can he comprehend anything he is trying to read! Let me see what HE can do, not everyone else. If you see one autistic child you have just seen one, there are no cookie cutter patterns for our autistic population. Each one learns differently and at their own pace. Our schools need to attempt to taylor their educational goals along with their learning abilities on an individual basis.
hopenharold86
February 1, 2011 at 12:19 am
One of the biggest problems that I see and have encountered through my child who has autism and other disabilities is that they are often just passed through to the next grade level regardless of their competency levels. I realize that my son may not be surgeon material but I do think he is very capable and I am not interested in how much the teacher knows about multiplication, spelling or division I am concern about how much my child knows. Because he has great difficulty with fine motor skills his writing is often so sloppy that you can not read it so the resource teacher or his aide does most of the writing and he looks to them for the answers too. Am I expecting too much out of my son? I want him to be able to transition easily, and know that change is inevitable and we will have our “bad” days however, he can’t stay in elementary school forever and I do have higher expectations for him than alot of the parents with special needs children in our county do for their children. By being in the school system and then counting on the school system to provide the best education possible has been quite challenging. I hear about the budget cuts, we are a small rural area without a great deal of revenue and that has presented a problem. Should my child suffer because of that, does he not deserve the best education too? I don’t have the answers but I do think it would be a great idea to test my son and see what level he is actually functioning on and look at ways to improve his ability to accept, retain, and use the information presented to him. I don’t like seeing 98% on his math quiz when he can’t figure out 8 x 0 without his reference sheet, or have him work on his A.R. reading and he can’t pronounce even half of the words so how can he comprehend anything he is trying to read! Let me see what HE can do, not everyone else. If you see one autistic child you have just seen one, there are no cookie cutter patterns for our autistic population. Each one learns differently and at their own pace. Our schools need to attempt to taylor their educational goals along with their learning abilities on an individual basis.
lzilla@usd466.com
February 3, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Pat, I agree with you. In our state, the kids are required to take the state assessments on their grade level and my complaint is always this…if they could take the tests and pass them on their grade level, they wouldn’t be in sped, now would they? It is so sad to see these kids try to read a 500-900 word passage and answer questions when those kids know they can’t do it because it’s not at their reading level. I wished parents would band together and force the state or even the feds to change that part of the testing world we now live in.
lzilla@usd466.com
February 3, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Pat, I agree with you. In our state, the kids are required to take the state assessments on their grade level and my complaint is always this…if they could take the tests and pass them on their grade level, they wouldn’t be in sped, now would they? It is so sad to see these kids try to read a 500-900 word passage and answer questions when those kids know they can’t do it because it’s not at their reading level. I wished parents would band together and force the state or even the feds to change that part of the testing world we now live in.
lzilla@usd466.com
February 3, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Pat, I agree with you. In our state, the kids are required to take the state assessments on their grade level and my complaint is always this…if they could take the tests and pass them on their grade level, they wouldn’t be in sped, now would they? It is so sad to see these kids try to read a 500-900 word passage and answer questions when those kids know they can’t do it because it’s not at their reading level. I wished parents would band together and force the state or even the feds to change that part of the testing world we now live in.