I am no expert in special education. I would like to get the views of experienced teachers about what is the best means of assessing the progress of students with disabilities. My assumption would be that the range of disabilities is so broad that one-size-fits-all will fit no one. My assumption is that students with an individualized learning plan need an individualized assessment plan. I have spoken to many teachers of children with high needs who are in despair because of the imposition of inappropriate tests. One teacher wrote to tell me that some of her students literally break down in the classroom when it is time to take the standardized tests.
This letter sensibly asks what’s best. Will students be neglected if they are not tested? Will expectations for them disappear in the absence of testing? What do you think?
| I’m in agreement with you that the testing going on now is pure madness. It infuriates me. However, I do think it has helped accountability for special education students, before the pendulum swung as far as it has. I’ve seen evidence of that in my state. Of course, I still see and hear other teachers say that their students can’t learn xyz because of their disability, or that they’re not teaching them certain standards because they can’t learn them. I had a teacher once tell me that her (severe-profound) students couldn’t learn even extended grade level standards because they were so very “retarded”, but in the same conversation tell me that she was shocked to see her students could learn some basic things once they found a communication system. This would not have happened if not for high standards and our alternate assessment. This mindset infuriates me as well.
With that in mind, what are your thoughts on how accountability should be measured? I know i personally want the emphasis on testing and testing based accountability to go away, but for the population of students I’ve taught, I know there needs to be accountability for the reasons I mention above, or else a large population of students will not be pushed to higher expectations. Conversations with a colleague have brought up the idea of accountability based on instruction–on the front end, if you will. But how could this be measured? Could it be left up to principals, team leaders? Is their a problem with school leadership in that teachers who are bad teachers based on what they do in the classroom, NOT on test scores, are left in the classroom with no regards to providing the PD to help them improve or getting rid of them if they don’t improve? |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I began my special education career in Texas when President Bush was governor. State assessments went through many phases before NCLB. When special education students were “exempt,” referrals went through the roof. The students who did not qualify for services went on to meet minimum proficiency when instruction was tailored to their needs (think Response to Intervention). When most special education students were no longer exempt and were administered the same assessments at their peers, the crying began (both students and teachers). A number of changes were made over the years that included accommodations and alternative, but still multiple choice, assessments.
My years of experience with multiple special education programs and assessment systems have led me to an alternative suggestion for use of current assessments, a compromise.
It has never made sense to me to give a student a fifth grade assessment when he did not pass the fourth grade assessment the previous year. I would like to see ALL students (including second language learners) take ability level appropriate assessments with a focus on success rather than on failure. We could celebrate each level of assessment passed, and the next assessment would be at the next grade level. The current culture of failure would be replaced by one in which achievements are celebrated, and all children could succeed. Students who were behind could even skip levels if deemed appropriate through benchmark testing. A pattern of average growth rate for special education students would emerge for lawmakers obsessed with comparisons, and students performing significantly below grade level for reasons other than special needs would no longer be forced to endure decades of increasingly more difficult assessments that confirm their beliefs that they cannot learn and should just drop out.
Darciann Samples
Parent,Teacher, Reformer, and Doctoral Student
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I don’t think there is any perfect answer here. There ARE Special Education Teachers out there believing they HAD a cushion job – they are exponentially struggling in this “reform” era due to data collection. But my question is why those teachers weren’t addressed individually? Why did we have to create all these mandates, scripts and assessments to force them to raise their level to average? The impact on great teachers was the equivalent of “clipping their wings” so they, too, now, are average. Currently everyone is trying desperately to hang on to their jobs. And I know this is too simple of a scenario, but I often feel this way – the past below average teachers, at first, were soaring because they loved having it all created for them but now are struggling with data collection and the past great teachers are floundering. They are floundering because …they dare to speak out for their students…they dare to question …they dare to sneak in “what works”…they dare to risk the behavior problems arising from tearing down students’ walls and pushing them to try …they acknowledge there will be risks of behavior problems as students come to a teacher they trust – the only one letting them finally letting them breathe and exist without fear of being who they are – the only one they know will accept, forgive and start over with them day after day – if only they could be free all day so they could learn to manage their behavior instead of exploding in the moment of freedom. The great teachers are struggling to keep their eye on the truth and not be brainwashed through the pressures or fear of losing their job. We are human though. We have our moments when only our weaknesses show – the human nature of surviving. There are days I question whether I am a good teacher or not. And yet I KNOW I have made a difference – I know because it is reflected in my students. But, I know I am not growing as a teacher and I dislike the negative human side of myself rearing its ugly face increasingly more because I am afraid. I have a family. I don’t want to give up my teaching job to find something else. I worked hard to get here. How can I let someone take it away from me? How can I continue becoming someone I don’t want to be – too stressed and many times unavailable to my family? I’m torn between the guilt of my children’s needs and my students. I don’t know about other teachers but once you’ve been my student – you are my child – how do I walk away from a child?
I do agree with Darciann Samples on at least compromising with the assessment being at the level of the students. When I talk of “tearing down walls”, it is in reference to this ingrained failure and unworthiness my students feel and believe about themselves…If we could just even start there…
I dream of a day where all teachers are Special Education Teachers and all students are Special Education Students. A day where all school districts incorporate the best of the best. A day where we utilize what works regardless of who created it or thought it up because our goal is the same – to support a life long love of learning and instill the intrinsic motivation to be the best one can be!
Servicing children’s needs should never be for profit – it should be an investment made by all – they ARE our FUTURE!
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In special education, we desperately need accountability. We cannot return to the days of low standards and no curriculum. However, we also need to ensure that teachers and students have flexibility and are not graded on the basis of a single test score. We do need to test every student, every year, using appropriate academic and/or functional instruments, We need to track that data diligently and ensure that it corresponds completely with the IEP and with the instruction that is actually occurring in the classroom. Our population varies widely and students’ test scores are notoriously inconsistent. We need to put our best and brightest psychometicians on this case, but we need special educators at the table as well. As a field, we are typically an afterthought to policy, when we need to be leaders.
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Special Educators have accountability already in place, created by the federal government, the document is called an INDIVIDUALIZED education plan (IEP, emphasis on the individualized) and included are annual goals. I, too, was a special education teacher under Bush’s governorship in Texas and I also was a special education teacher in MI, I am now a special education educator in IL. I worry about my in-service and pre-service teachers’ mental health with the policies that are enacted these days. I remember the middle school where I worked in TX encouraged kids with disabilities and or limited English proficiencies to be “absent” on testing days. While that is not the solution, neither is what is happening now.
Stories from my graduate students tell me that “alternative” assessment are worthless especially for those with Intellectual Disabilities. Asking a student with an IQ of 40 to count the balloons in 1 dimensional black and white cartoon and pick the right multiple choice answer is ridiculous and a waste of their time, not to mention extremely time consuming and expensive to administer (one to one). There is no proof that this is good for kids nor does it relate to information they must learn.
In MI, teachers are now being told that it will affect their school rating if they do not “graduate” students with disabilities in four years. Special educators work and modify the curriculum so the student can pass the class yet, when they are to take the exit test they cannot pass the test. Teachers are expected to work miracles and have been told to do both, have the student pass the class and the test all within a months time. The pressure to do it all is overwhelming.
The IEP is supposed to be the legal document that makes special education teachers accountable. Good SPED teachers have a long history of collecting data from multiple sources and making instructional decisions based on the data collected. The IEP has been revised to included those accountable measures, such as: informing parents what the annual goal is, how it will be measured, and progress on the goal. In addition there 3 year reevaluations to discuss the labeling condition and progress. Special education teachers have been living under federal mandates for a long time.
Universal design (UD), RTI and inclusion are mentioned in federal regulations (IDEIA, 2004), yet the accountability era of NCLB has limited UD practices because for accountably there is only one way to show achievement, RTI is often implemented in such a way that our special educators are working with students who don’t have disabilities as SPED teachers become the tier 3 responders (and who is teaching our SPED students during this RTI time, usually paraprofessionals), and inclusion has general educators running away from including student with disabilities in their class if students can’t pass an accountability test. It is difficult to create a very inclusive environment if you know the student’s performance will tied to your rating as a teacher and you may lose a teaching position because of it.
I fear for my students both K-12 and higher ed.
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Unfortunately, the IEP Team generally consists of “one” besides, hopefully, the parent (usually overwhelmed with the whole process – but that’s another topic needing covered). All the others are just for show because the law says they must be there, but the teacher of record is the one making the decisions and writing it (before the meeting). If you don’t have a “good” SPED teacher than the IEP is usually crap (I fix a lot of crap every year) and the data collection may or may not be credible. On top of this, the district is very good at telling us “how to write the IEP”. They’ve also found their way around those 3 year reevals (saving taxpayers money they are – anything to meet the bare standard of the law). A student’s IEP used to mean more than it does today. I have been reprimanded more times than I wish to say because I attempted to write an IEP for a student and not for the school. I’ve also dared to question the “experts” doing the eligibility assessments and their sometimes “lazy apathetic ways” which equals more highlighted heat that I’m being insubordinate. The bottom line always comes back to the teacher. If you have a good caring teacher with only the students’ best interest as motivation (considering the teacher IS of sound mind) and there is no “red tape obstacles”, than the students will benefit and grow, otherwise, another year is lost. The school also depends on the likelihood of a parent holding the school accountable for the IEP. I have been told to follow district mandates first and figure out how to make the rest “work”. We won’t speak of how parents are generally persuaded to leave it to the experts (sorry Johnny keeps failing but it’s not our fault). And yes, even the best Gen Ed Teachers wish those failing numbers could go away. They look to me to fix it even though they realize we aren’t the problem and they often add to the frustrations due to the pressures now being put on them in relation to accountability for these students. In addition, there is our Gen Ed population of “slow learners” and “underachievers” and “the problem child”. Intervention mandates more and more interventions…and the district suggests asking the Sped Teachers to help carry these out – taking even more time away from my students. With more and more cuts resulting in increasing ratios of students per teacher as well the loss of assistant principals, Title Teachers and other Support Staff, we are running out of resources for duties such as lunch, dismissal, etc. so it tends to fall on the Sped Ed Teachers (more lost time with our students). There are currently interventions of small groups without enough staff to lead. If you are a school employee, you will be assigned a group regardless of your other duties, qualifications or even interest in doing so. Most school employees enjoy interacting with students and offering their support as long as it is mutually beneficial and successful. What if a staff person is great at their job but not so great with reading – does that make the person less worthy to be part of the team? Why does education focus on exploiting weaknesses rather than honor strengths? Why does accountability stop at teachers when someone far removed from the classroom initiated the path of destruction? Who will they blame when all the teachers have been replaced over and over and yet still the students fail to thrive?
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But all that is happening now is that more policy begets more policy. You’re making an assumption that there are a large number of “bad” sped teachers and I refuse to believe it. A plethora of “bad” sped teachers does not exists, bad policy yes, bad teachers, no.
We had an IEP with the federal mandates and data collection and annual goals. Yet there was no consequence for failure to follow protocols. (I used to thank principals who would sign AFTER the meeting, after not being present by saying, “Thank you for your signature, I am sure the district won’t mind the new indoor pool requested by the family.”) If IEPs are not being used correctly perhaps education on how to use those appropriately would be better than creating new policy. But you have to be careful for what you wish for, the reason why NCLB got the attention it does is due to the punishments tied to the act.
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Sorry, I did not intend to imply there were more “bad” teachers vs. “bad policy. Thanks for clarifying my message! I loved your “pool” comment – been there done that! I don’t necessarily want more hands in the pot just a return to the basics – teaching. I want the IEP’s to mean something again with improvements. All IEP’s should reflect all attendees of the meeting. The IEP’s should BE the education plan and I believe all students Gen Ed or Sped deserve it. I want honest support and critique – the kind fostering positive growth and quality. I want a leader in my school not a policy enforcer. Teachers DO want to continually improve, but first we have to work on the trust issue. Is there anyone willing to earn our trust back? I hope so, because I would like to recapture the teacher I started out to be and combine it with my experience – that would be a powerful impact on my students…and to see their eyes lit with the joy of learning (without looking over our shoulders)!
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And to clarify further…I believe this era of education is creating the “crap”. Just as my students are increasingly feeling defeated so are the teachers. I have worked with a lot of great teachers that only want the best for students – even for the problem child (often my favorites). My children have been blessed with some really great ones – and it made all the difference in the world. I just want someone to hear us, respect us and support us. I want the ones that shouldn’t have been teaching in the first place taken care of without penalizing the rest of us. I want us all to feel rejuvenated and rediscover our sparks. I want us strategically placed according to our strengths because “one size fits all” doesn’t apply to us either. I want the “ideal world” to be our goal and in order to move in this direction we must look through the eyes of our children.
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There needs to be some kind of accountability; some way to measure student progress that isn’t just the subjective opinion of the teacher. Standardized testing aka ISATs, CoGats, MAP testing isn’t the right answer. It only frustrates our students because they can’t answer the question nor can we accomodate them so they can be successful. I like some aspects of the AIMSweb assessments because you are measuring their growth (and you can also compare among students in the district, etc). Although I question the validity of the levels at times. My students’ scores were too inconsistent. Yes, inconsistencies can happen w/sped students but not to the extent it was happening all year. The written component of this test was crap. I had one student who writes fairly well but her spelling is horrible. Since her spelling was horrible, her scores were consistently low. It didn’t measure the ability to write a complete detailed sentences or that her story had a beginning/middle/end. Honestly, I don’t think there will ever be the perfect assessment for our students. We need to combine formal and informal assessments to measure achievement.
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Schools in Finland rely on the professional judgment of teachers, not tests.
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What would concern me about only using professional judgment is the consistency of measuring achievement. Professional judgment may differ or the type of assessment may vary so how can that be valid?
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I agree with many of my special education colleagues above, the IEP IS how Sped teachers are held accountable. Keep in mind that IEPs are intended to be developed by a multi-disciplinary team of professionals, parents, and the student themselves. Strong IEP teams develop strong and appropriate goals for students based on the individual needs of that student. It is up to the TEAM (not just the Sped teacher individually to meet those goals and create new ones as needed.) I also believe many more students should be able to opt out of standardized tests as it is cruel, time-consuming, and MEANINGLESS! Here are a few of my ramblings about administering these tests to students with special needs: http://mskatiesramblings.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-first-year-of-teachingdata-data.html
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This sounds harsh, but we have had IEPs for years, and look at our outcomes. They are terrible! IEPs measure process, not outcomes.
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Leah,
Yes, that does sound harsh. I’d also say it is not accurate. I’m not sure how you are measuring outcomes, but I can tell you that my students make progress. Some progress enough to pass state tests, some come close, others will never get there, but all make progress.
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What are the outcomes we are expecting? Does every child need to meet the same benchmarks at the same time? I teach on a child/adolescent inpatient psych unit. I work with kids who are actively psychotic, who are suicidal, who have significant cognitive impairments, who have been sucked up into a world of substance abuse, who have been abused, who have been working on the streets as sex slaves. What’s wrong with letting them heal and recover and progress at their own pace? How can you standardize the outcomes when kids’ lives are so varied?
Besides, the bigger issue to me has never been poor IEPs (although there are certainly poorly written IEPs out there). It’s poor resources. When I worked in a school, I knew what to do, I just didn’t have the manpower or resources to get it done. I needed more support and more flexibility. IEPs can sometimes be very rigid legal documents which don’t allow for creativity or spontaneity. (For example, there were times when I’d rather my students with special needs stayed in the general education classroom with my support to participate in an exciting project, but I had to remove them from the room to give them their legally-mandated resource minutes.) But as long as we have a school system which focuses on accountability and punishment, there will never be space for the types of truly innovative, collaborative teaching I’d like to do with all children regardless of ability.
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Outcomes to me means high school graduation. In many places, our dropout rate is twice that of general ed!
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I enjoyed your ramblings and have added it to my reading list!
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Thanks!
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I teach inclusion at an urban elementary school in Massachusetts. There are many facets to the issue of testing our children with disabilities:
1. Almost all students are now fully included into a regular education class. While I embrace this as best practice, I recognize that some students require more support than others.Yet financial constraints have resulted in a failure to provide what is needed for the child to be more successful.
2. MA allows some accommodations on the testing. But when some of our sped students scored “too well” according to the state, our district was told we were over-accommodating. The result was a fearful retreat from offering any help.
3. We differentiate our instruction for the neediest students, but not our testing. Does this make sense?
4. Sped students often have strengths that are not tested by the MCAS format. Answering multiple choice and open response questions after reading a story is too limiting.
5. When classes are assigned for the following year, there is now a great deal of resistance, by teachers, to having the sped students. They are afraid of the scores they will receive. This is inhuman. We did not go into teaching to view any child with apprehension.
I had several horror stories related to testing this year. One parent confided in me that his son acted out a great deal at home the week of MCAS. He kicked, screamed and did not sleep. The stress on him was immense and that was OUR fault for trying to emphasize its importance. This poor child spent four hours taking a test that was too difficult for him and then sat in the room completely still while waiting for the others to finish. This borders on child abuse in my mind.
Another child with Asperger’s rocked back and forth and refused to bubble in anything claiming it would be too hard and he did not want to take it.
All the students, not just those with special needs, feel stressed and nervous.
No matter what type of test or assessment we use, if it is high stakes it will be poorly used. And just for the record, I am highly insulted that people think I will not educate these kids to the best of my ability if they are not tested! Maybe there are some bad sped teachers out there, but they should not be teaching in the first place.
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RAC,
I’ve always felt that inclusion is what you do when you don’t have the money to do the right thing. At my elementary school, we do pullout, and work with kids one-on-one, or in groups of up to five. Middle schools in our district are starting to do inclusion, but still have a few kids they will have special classes for. I hope we don’t have to change at the elementary level, because I can’t believe it’s good for kids, and it would be a scheduling nightmare.
I wonder, when the decision gets made to go to inclusion, is it based on a record of good performance, or some unproven dogma?
Good luck. I don’t think I could do what you’re doing.
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“Full inclusion” is what drove me out of special education. I am now a Response to Intervention teacher and actually get to teach reading again!
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The first thing to realize is this: If you give a student with a disability the same test as a non-disabled student, and you demand the same performance standard, you are probably discriminating against that student.
For example, kids are identified as having a Specific Learning Disability for a reason. It is a neurological disorder, and involves more than merely being behind. Some of these students can learn coping mechanisms and gain enough skills so that they can pass a test, but many cannot. For some, the disability is so severe, that they may be two, three, or more years below grade level. These students’ progress is measured using appropriate measures, as described in the IEP, as are all students on IEPs. They really do not need to be subjected to another opportunity to fail.
These tests have “cut” scores that tell you whether you met the standard or not. Cut scores have a way of creeping up over time (as we raise our standards). To me, they are unnecessary. If you want to measure student growth, compare this year’s score to last year’s score and say whether it represents one year’s growth or not. The “cut” score is there as an artificial standard to measure the school and the teacher. They also act as motivation for the teacher to give the student the test two or three times during the year, in the hopes that they pass.
I would submit that forcing a student who is so far below grade level that he or she has no chance of passing does two things: First, it renders the test invalid. Second, if the student is forced to take the test more than once, it is an act of child abuse.
When I became a special ed. teacher, I feel I took an oath, similar to the “First, do no harm,” of the Hippocratic Oath.
My oath is “Do not be cruel.”
Too much testing of special ed. students is cruel.
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Well said Tim!
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Your last 2 paragraphs are spot on! This is the conflict raging inside of me.
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My district is using the Developmental Reading Assessment (a Pearson product), along with several other assessments. So far, I question whether or not the DRA is valid for my students.
First, it appears to be a glorified Informal Reading Inventory, i.e., something simple that was transmogrified into a time-consuming proprietary assessment.
Second, a student has to pass the accuracy, comprehension, and fluency pieces before he/she advances to the next level. This prevents many students who are using phonics strategies, but lack automaticity, from moving forward. My students often get stuck at a particular level for a long time.
I like using IRIs, myself. I can, for example, say that a child is reading with 100% accuracy and 100% comprehension at 50 words per minute at the third-grade level. That’s a lot of valuable information, telling us what the brain is doing. Certainly, we can work on fluency. But, most of my students will struggle with fluency as long as they are in school. Would I ever refuse to move them to more challenging material? No!
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What a surprise! Now Pearson is also in the business of reinventing the wheel! Not only do they make incomprehensible (AND reprehensible) “standardized” tests, but they have expanded the quickly administered & relatively painless (for sp.ed. students) IRI–which I also like, Tim, for the same reasons you mentioned–into another instrument of torture. Inasmuch as high-stakes tests & sp.ed. student are concerned, I have been collecting horror stories from sp.ed. teachers in the hopes of gathering thousands, which I would then present to O.S.E.P., in an effort to convince the D.o.Ed. to–at least–stop testing sp.ed. students (a good beginning). However, having read Diane’s blog about the kabosh on oversight & compliance–COMING from O.S.E.P.(as well as other information received)–I doubt that anyone in that office cares. I will briefly share some here, though:
-The homebound teacher whose sp.ed. student had recently attempted suicide, was hospitalized, & the principal told the teacher
that she must bring & administer the test at the hospital “because we
need to get our 100% for student participation.”*
-MULTIPLE stories of ADHD kids NOT on meds (&, invariably, in low-income, poor school districts) who would simply fill in all the bubbles on the Scantron w/in 10 minutes, turn it in, & proceed to fidget & disturb the other test takers who have extended time.
-A student who filled in the bubbles, then connected all of them w/lines.
-One of my students who used her highlighting pens (for the reading selection) to fill in the Scantron sheet, saying,”Isn’t my test pretty, Mrs.RTbMtK?”
-A student who hid under her desk for an entire test session.
-A student who’d come back late from a vacation (we’d taken the tests right after Spring Break) & fell asleep. (I had asked her parents if they still wanted her to take the test that morning, & they insisted she must.)
-A sp.ed. student who’d been sexually abused for 3 yrs. & only told his parents that year, & so spent this year having outbursts & tantrums which continued to take place during testing. As requested, the principal removed him from the room (he’d been throwing pencils into the ceiling & disturbing the others’ concentration), but then returned him 15 min. later, stating he was ready. Of course, he wasn’t. He repeated his behaviors, & the social worker came to get him.
-Several instances of Asperger’s students who were completely puz-
zled by reading comp. extended response ?? asking them “how they would feel” about something that had happened to the story’s protagonist, & what they would do had they been in his/her shoes.
Interestingly, these students (one of mine & 2 others in stories I received) had the same response–“Oh, I guess I’m stupid,” & put their heads down on their desks.
And on & on…
*One GOOD principal told this teacher NOT to give tests to a terminally ill, hospitalized student. Said he didn’t care at ALL about the school participation %age. Bravo to this man!!
Also, while Response to Intervention (RtI) is being used (inconsistently &, mostly, harmfully) to identify sp.ed. students (&–make no mistake–there are RtI materials, manuals, etc. being sold & taking even MORE $$$ away from schools), it is being misused to save money (no one is I.D.’ed & stays in gen.ed.), BUT also to keep the sp.ed. subgroup below the number, so that
subgroup is not counted in the school’s test score, therefore any low scores that subgroup would have would not count against the school so that the school would not make AYP.
BUT–I would think the crying, the under-the-desk-hiding, the tantruming & the low-self-esteem producing vibes from these tests
would be enough to say,”Enough!”
Finally, I believe that Congress was supposed to reauthorize the
ESEA, & was to have included in that that sp.ed. kids would be tested (or not) in accordance w/the IEP as determined by the IEP Team which is composed of PARENTS as well as teachers, therapists, social workers, whoever else works with the child, & the administrator(s). This would be the best outcome for our students,
but I’m assuming that this is not happening anytime soon.
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I’m not an experienced special educator and soon will be an unemployed one, due to my rebel ways. Please allow me to use my talent as a writer to share a story that I believe illustrates how ridiculous this testing obsession has become, especially with students who already have their progress monitored through IEP and general education report cards. (For students with behavioral issues, there is also additional data collection and reporting of progress through behavior plans and Applied Behavior Analysis.) Last year, a child was promoted to seventh grade who was still reading at a second grade level. Beginning in third grade, he and the other students with learning disabilities were removed from the gen ed setting and taught in a separate special ed room. They spent most of the school year completing worksheets to go in a binder which would be collected in the spring and graded as an alternate way of demonstrating their knowledge of the standards. Each year, the student received the read-aloud accommodation to allow him to demonstrate his comprehension of text without being hindered by his inability to decode at grade level. These assessments were so time-consuming that he never actually progressed in learning to read. During his transition meeting for middle school, his future teacher automatically placed him in a remedial reading class to address what had become a common problem. When faced with the possibility of not making AYP and being punished, administrators will pressure teachers to give these ridiculous alternate versions of the test, no matter how time-consuming and inaccurate they may be. IEP goals become an afterthought unless the parents realize what is happening. How does this make any sense? We spend so much time gathering evidence/data to prove we are doing our jobs that no real teaching (and learning) takes place. I’m disgusted with the whole business and what it is doing to children and the integrity of teaching.
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First, I love your username! Second, I am sorry you have become a casualty in this battle but thank you for continuing to speak out on our behalf. Most days I think I’m just lucky I haven’t encountered anyone willing to put out a “hit” on my yet. My administrators mostly just don’t know what to do with me. I am a thorn in their side but I also have a high success rate of taming “problem parents”. Sometimes, I think this alone saves me. They always ask me my secret and I always reply, I acknowledged their concerns, I validated their feelings, I showed them I care about their child and want the best for them, etc. Blank stares usually follow because it is beyond their comprehension. I enjoyed your blog and have added it to my reading list.
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