Imagine teaching “To Kill a Mockingbird” to children who can’t read. Teachers of special education are expected to teach the Common Core to their students regardless of their ability or readiness.
This comes from Jill Cataldo, a teacher of special education, blogging on Brandin Stratton’s blog, called “Humans of New York.” (Thanks to readers for correcting me.)
“Even in special education, our curriculum is based on Common Core standards. I’ll have to teach about seasons to a child who doesn’t know his own name. I’m expected to teach To Kill A Mockingbird to a classroom full of nonverbal students, some of whom may be wearing diapers and haven’t learned their ABCs. I think it’s insulting to tell students what they’re going to learn, regardless of their abilities and needs. But I try to work some magic and design a lesson plan where everyone in the class can take something away from the story. For the least advanced students, we just use To Kill A Mockingbird to practice the alphabet. Then I’m also expected to teach Algebra. I try my best using lots of velcro and lamination, but I can’t say that many of my students have ever learned how to solve for x. We spend so much energy on learning how to sit still. I think special populations should be focused more on vocational training like filling out forms and budgeting money—things that will give them confidence and prepare them for independence. But I keep my mouth shut and do my best to work within the system. When I first began teaching, my mentor told me: ‘If there’s anything about the system that you want to fight, just make sure it’s the hill you want to die on.’”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And yet the Common Core supporters will tell us that the Core is not curriculum….
Diane, I can certainly agree with you on this. But does this mean all the over-protective parents of special education kids will agree that we can’t move heaven and earth to ensure their kids stay on par with the general education population?
What a ridiculous loaded question. Why don’t you insult the parents of special needs children some more?
That’s an awful wide paintbrush you’re wielding there, Virginiasgp.
Sign me,
Special Ed Mom
If my comment was too subtle, what Eric Brandon said.
You really are odious, aren’t you? And proud of it to boot.
Yes, Dienne, he/she is odious, and has very likely never worked with a special education student. Certainly none with anything but the mildest of learning disabilities, at the most.
Apparently, he/she/it doesn’t really believe in disabilities. I would invite this person to spend a week or two in a classroom with some of the students I taught.
Having different standards does not necessarily mean falling behind the general population. The final destination for all students is a good education. Some just need to take a different path.
Vsgp, Disgusting comment. We are all one mixed DNA combination, a mistaken step, an instant of misjudgment, a medical mishap away from being considered “special needs”. Heaven isn’t filled with souls embracing your views, but there are places reserved in another location.
It does seem as though Vsgp (as well as Bill Duncan, for that matter) don’t seem to believe that there are any legitimate special education students, and that their parents coddle them to get them out of performing to the expected Common Core level.
These two need to spend some time with the severely autistic, the severely emotionally disturbed, the developmentally disabled, kids with significant sensory processing disorders or dyslexia. And so on.
Yes, all of these students can learn, at different rates and at different levels, but they won’t all fit into the “one size fits all” model of education.
It does make me wonder is Vsgp and Bill graduated from the Eva Moskowitz No Excuses School of Education.
Oh, based on other comments from Virginiasgp has written, I think she believes there really are students whose disabilities prevent them from accessing the general curriculum.
She thinks it’s most of the IEP students, and that their mere presence in any general ed classroom, anywhere and at any time, is gumming up the works for everyone else. Schooling would be a lot better if they were someplace else, with their own kind.
Please correct if I have misinterpreted you, Virginiasgp.
Sign me,
“Over protective”
Virginia is a guy
virginiasgp,
I haven’t met a single parent in my 22 years of teaching special ed who expected us to ensure that their child stay on par with the general ed population. They recognize that their kids are challenged and want us to find ways to help them better their lives. Teach them how to function independently on a consistent basis so that they’ll be able to take care of themselves as they grow older.
Perhaps you meant to say that you believe we’re spending too much money on Special Education? That’s a different story and it has a lot of facets to it. The single student in a small rural town who’s special needs take up a huge percentage of that school’s budget, for instance. I’ve seen this and it’s definitely an area that needs to be addressed, as it directly effects the school’s ability to meet the needs of the other kids.
If we want to come to agreement on solutions to problems like these, I think it would help to show some respect to those who’s children needs are being met by the current system. From there we could collaborate and come up with ideas on ways to improve the system.
It isn’t her blog, she was featured in it though. I was thrilled to see her mention common core. I put it on my timeline…everyone loves Humans of NY.
Here! Here! As a sped teacher, I agree. Our systems make it impossible.
Just a note, Diane, that the Humans of New York blog is not Jill Cataldo’s. It is the blog of Brandon Stratton, once a day trader, now a social justice advocate and photographer. He photographs people in NYC and other places and interviews them about their lives. Jill Cataldo was featured recently.
http://www.humansofnewyork.com
“But I keep my mouth shut and do my best to work within the system.”
And that folks is The Mantra of all good GAGA*ers*.
May the banality of evil overcome the fair, right, and just!
GAGA*ers = 99% of all teachers and administrators. Soulless, cojonesless sheople for whom expediency always trumps justice. Screw you bastards (and that’s being nice). Yeah, all you teachers and adminimals need only to look to yourself to see the definition of the Good Nazi part of the banality of evil.
“Oh, but Duane, that’s too harsh, they have to have a job to live. . .” and on and on with the excuses. Spare me the self induced whine!:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville [my additions]
Oops forgot the GAGA explanation (from OYE’s Devil’s Dictionary):
Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution** upon their passing from this realm.
**Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
Most educators are Sheeple
Duane—There are plenty of us putting ourselves out there and advocating for our students and programs. The problem is —nothing ever changes because the “koolaide” is the drink of choice.
“When I first began teaching, my mentor told me: ‘If there’s anything about the system that you want to fight, just make sure it’s the hill you want to die on.’”
This statement really hit me for more than one reason. First of all, the world operates on gagaism. Usually someone(s) are the decision makers. They get to decide what an operation will do and how an operation will run. That means they get to tell employees what to do. A fair degree of freedom may be allowed within this structure, but there are some bottom line expectations. As an employee you either go along or not. If you are lucky, your own personal beliefs are not mangled by the job requirements/restrictions. If you are even luckier the decision makers even let you express your opinions even when they are not in line with your employer. It is harder for a public employee because your employer is not quite as clear. We are torn between the people we are meant to serve and the bureaucratic interpretation of what that means.
Duane and I are on the same side in one sense. Duane, I don’t think, can imagine not making his opinions quite obvious even knowing that there is a chance that his outspokeness will get him canned. Now that he is retired he can look back and feel good about his way of operating. He got to teach: found a place where he could teach where they were willing to accommodate his beliefs(or even agree with them). I went through my relatively short career not realizing that I might be wise to keep my mouth shut: I had no idea that others might find my beliefs or actions threatening. I didn’t go around telling others how to think. (Don’t ask me how someone remains so incredibly naive.) I knew I was a decent teacher; I knew I could be better. Like most teachers I believe(d) that learning to teach is a lifelong endeavor. There is no pinnacle of excellence where one can sit and observe the struggles of those who have not made it yet. Unlike Duane, I didn’t get to find a spot where I could teach freely before I became obsolete (2old2tch=60+). Can I judge those who stay quiet? No. Collaboraters turn my stomach, but if you listen to the voices of desperation on this blog, you know there are many more out there trying their best to serve the children, to be about the kids, caught between what they know kids need and what those in power try to force them to do. It’s not easy to choose what hill to die on.
Well said 2o2t!!
Except that I never found that “spot”. It was a battle the whole way, but perhaps that is because I was quite older when I started teaching (39) and had already seen quite a lot of similar nonsense (and worse) in the business realm. I chose to retire because this year probably would have killed me with the stress that would have been involved. It’s not easy being the “lone wolf”. People move away from you on the “group W” bench-ha ha!
Keep on posting 2o2t, we need your voice of wisdom.
I’m so glad we got the chance to meet at NPE/Chicago, Duane. I will have to think about that “lone wolf” metaphor. That’s not what I saw, but you lived it.
I am always suspicious of the self-righteous — 99%, really? This puts you in the company of Gates and Walton.You might think that TFA produces the revolution that upsets the bureaucracy and teachers’ unions that protect teacher voice are just protecting ‘gagas’. In my experience,which may not be as vast as yours, I find many more ‘gagas’ are in administration than in the classroom, demonstrably.
Self-righteous, NO! Right self, YES! I call it as I perceive it. And I make no pretense to be “better” in any fashion than the GAGAers. But I’ve experienced the looks, glances, comments, finger pointing-“That’s just crazy Swacker. . . ” from the GAGAers to still have too much disdain and bitterness left over-over 20 years of said derogation and only six months of respite. Perhaps over time I will soften my stance, but I doubt it.
Perhaps 99% is too high, make it 95% or 85% it’s still the vast majority that allow this nonsense to continue. And you are correct to imply that the percentage of adminimals being GAGAers is greater than teachers, but that doesn’t excuse those teachers that, to me, connote the banality of evil, the GAGAers.
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
Please read this Delaware legislators.
Here blog is not Human of New York. She was randomly interviewed by Brandon from Humans of New York and she chose to talk about it during her interview. She used the platform seen by millions around the world to give voice to this issue.
These absurdities are accepted in education but would be recognized for what they are in other professions. In medicine, if someone criticized oncologists for losing more patients than pediatricians, most people would just laugh it off.
Yesterday I received an email from my fourteen year old granddaughter. Her teacher wants her to interview an “expert” in education but it” can’t be a teacher or a principal!” In our profession, the people with the experience and the knowledge are not the experts. Why is that?
This is what I think: For many years teaching children has been considered “women’s work” and not that all important. Whatever Miss Jones did with the children was of little consequence to most people. After all, couldn’t “anyone” teach little kids to read and write?
The situation is quickly changing. Many of our children are being left behind, way, way behind. The other day I had the opportunity to contrast the achievement of high-performing (i.e. rich) public school students with those from a low-performing (i.e. poor) and the difference made me want to cry. Yes, life is unfair but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to do something about it.
My feeling is that our country will become so desperate for improvement in education that we’ll start asking the people who KNOW what works. Educators know that affluent students generally do well in school while impoverished children do not. That is the problem we must face if we hope to make changes.
I am an optimist so I believe the day of the teacher as expert is at hand, especially now that women have many career options.
Any standards that set challenging expectations are going to be difficult for some students especially students with special needs, depending on what their special needs are.
In any case, To Kill a Mockingbird was part of schools’ curricula before the Common Core and students with special needs required either accommodations or substitutions then too.
So I’m not sure what the message of this post is.
The point is that standards themselves are the problem. Kids are not standardized. But apparently you did so well learning the standards that you didn’t have time for critical thinking.
Ok. Just making sure. The objection is not to the Common Core standards, it’s to any standards at all.
Bill,
It is wrong to have the same standards for everyone. Some people run a four minute mile. Some run a mile in 10 minutes. Some can’t run a mile. What is the stAndard?
Diane, how should standards be organized? Teachers, including special ed teachers, have said to me something like, “The standard is a useful, consistent benchmark. It’s not that all my students will reach it, but I know where each student is on the path and have a good sense of how to respond to each child’s need.”
It sounds to me as if teachers want to set the highest possible expectations for their students without placing an arbitrary lid (as lower standards for some children would do), but then just work toward those standards in a practical way realizing that some will not achieve the standard.
An autistic/aspergers student I know was in a bad fix in school until his middle school, fully committed to Common Core, saw how to work with him and let him progress in accord with his abilities, which turned out to be off the charts in various ways.
That may be unusual, but if that school had set lower standards for him, no one would have realized what his capabilities are.
So Bill, lets say that the standard for running a mile is 4 minutes. Some few will do better. Most will fail.
Diane, wouldn’t that 4 minute mile argument would apply to any high expectation standard? If the goal were to have most children achieve the standard, we could indeed set the standard lower – 2 or 3 minutes. The premise for that would be that our students are doing just fine now in college and work and all we need to do is codify that expectation.
But one teacher after another that I talk to says, “I never would have thought my children could do this [X standard in math or ELA] but I see they can.”
To me, that makes the case for high standards and for our schools being supported to reach those new higher standards.
It’s the misuse of annual assessment results based on those standards that is the real problem. NYS is Exhibit A for that.
Bill,
New York has high standards, and 70% of the students failed.
I hate to say it this way, Diane, but according to NAEP, NY has a not very good education system so the numbers reflect that. Lowering the standards may help a few kids get low value diplomas but would not be a help in improving NY public education.
So if NY raised its standards yet again, the failure rate might be 90%. What’s the point? Maybe raise them so high that no one passes.
Diane, I don’t think anyone is proposing that. I think that the CCSS authors, and the teachers like the many in NH that participated in writing the standards, did the best job they knew how to do. Yes, the math standards do not make the same demands that some other countries do, but that was just too big a step, so we compromised (that’s just me speaking, but that’s what it looks like to me). And when states reassess their standards, they seem to come back to the same ones, as MS just did.
At some point, I think we have to say that, whatever reservations someone might have about this or any other set of standards, if you want to have standards at all, the Common Core standards are reasonable. The longer states spend in reassessing them, the longer they are off the hook for providing leadership and supporting their schools in giving their students the opportunity to achieve higher expectations.
In the end, it’s about the teaching. Where states support teachers in achieving the standards rather than using the standards aligned assessments to beat up on teachers, they can work on helping kids at every level. I think the whole high stakes assessment debate is a distraction from that.
Dienne: if I got this wrong, please set me straight—
I took your comment to mean that by “standards” in this thread you were referring to the sort of unrealistic, imposed from above one-size-fits-all mandates by those least capable of setting any sort of useful and helpful guidelines for anyone.
I also assume you would agree with the comments by MonicaNY below.
If I got it wrong, I am sure you will let me know.
😎
Do you mean, KrazyTA, that each district or each school should set its own standards?
Bill, do you think that the children who have cognitive disabilities and those who can’t read English should meet the same standards as those who are at the top of the class. That’s either a very low standard or a very high failure rate.
Diane, my other comment partly responds to your point but I would say the child with cognitive disabilities is a different case from the ELL child. I think (but couldn’t prove right here) that children with actual cognitive disabilities are in the minority even among students with IEPs. But where we have a child with cognitive disabilities, we need to work with them where they are.
A child who are just learning English is an entirely different project and the goal of giving that child an opportunity to achieve the same standard as a native English speaker is attainable, though it is clearly a matter of the school’s resources.
In my mind, none of that invalidates standards, though. It does mean that NCLB rhetoric 100% proficient and closing all gaps is empty and unattainable. But accountability can be separated from how we teach those children. It seems to me that reporting on the statewide standards based assessment by subgroups and being open to lower expectations for those scores – but not those individual children – is how we should approach it.
I mean that holding all children to any one standard, whether teacher, school, district, state or federally created, is wrong, dehumanizing, demeaning and cruel. The only “standards” should be on the educational system itself. For instance, when we talk about “standards of care” in the medical profession, we’re talking about what doctors, nurses, technicians and hospital administrators should do and how they should treat patients. We’re not talking about what the patients should do or how they should be. All students need to be treated in accordance with their own individual needs, strengths and interests. Period. If this country could just get its head around that one simple truth, we would actually see educational “excellence” flourish
Dienne: if I properly understand what you wrote just above, the enforcers and enablers and beneficiaries of self-styled “education reform” should be required (in the spirit of the medical analogy you made) to “first do no harm.”
That means, if I may be so bold as to suggest, that Darnell Earley of the “let them drink lead” fame of Flint, MI should not—I repeat, NOT!—have been put in charge of Detroit PS.
Do I get your drift?
😎
P.S. For those addicted to their Common Core ‘closet reading’ and failed to take extra batteries with them when the lights failed and their flashlights went out too, go to Wikipedia for this excerpt of an English translation of a Greek version of the original Hippocratic Oath—
“Nor shall any man’s entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; neither will I counsel any man to do so.”
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath
Very old. Very dead. Very Greek guys.
What would we do without them?
😏
Bill,
Your argument is the one I hear from my pro-cc admin buddies. It goes something like, “Without high standards, teachers & schools will dumb down instruction for kids with learning disabilities, minorities, girls, basically anyone who isn’t White or Jewish or Asian.” Variation is, “If the standards are higher, the students will reach higher.”
Non-verbals aside, that’s not even true for those who are at “normal” reading levels, but who either aren’t interested, don’t care about the material, or perceive themselves as bad readers. There is research that consistently demonstrates that if you have a high level of perceived efficacy in something, then high standards will make you better at it, and if you have a low perception in your abilities, then you will do even worse than if you were just left alone. I’m not going to look up that research, because I’m not handing this in for a grade.
If I think I’m really good at shooting basketballs, and I’m placed in front of a crowd of thousands and handed a basketball and cheered on, then I’m going to do even better than at practice. If I think I’m terrible at basketball, and the same thing happens, I’m going to be even worse than if I were just shooting around with some friends. Same principle applies.
Outlaw, I do hope administrators say that but (I think I probably said this somewhere in this thread) it’s teachers telling me that, in their classrooms, higher expectations lead to higher achievement. So many teachers in varying settings have told me that that I believe it.
I’m not sure who the teachers are that you talk to, Bill, but everything I’ve seen has shown that the best results come with a thorough knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the students in the class that I’m teaching and keeping my finger on the pulse, which can change from day to day/week to week/ and definitely year to year.
I’ve taught classes where all the kids responded well to challenging material. They were motivated and wanted to achieve at a high level. They tried their best to jump higher when the bar was raised. Some had more success than others.
These classes, however, have been very much the minority in my teaching career. Most classes have a mix of academic levels which often correspond to level of self-esteem. The lower functioning kids are more than aware of their academic “deficiencies” and, if they aren’t given material more on their academic level, they give up. The higher functioning kids often lord it over the others, btw.
Those were kids with decent cognitive skills. Then you move into the realm of kids who are more interested in the way the light from the windows hits the reflective surface of a white board. Kids who can’t speak their name and wouldn’t know what it stood for even if they could. If by “higher expectations” you mean that I’d expect this kid to learn his name by the end of the school year, then I’d be listening. If, however, you’re saying that by the end of the school year he’d be answering questions about characters, theme, and setting in “To Kill a Mockingbird”…well…then you’ve lost me.
I agree, gitapik, that it’s all about good teaching and not expecting every child to achieve mastery of every standard. You have hundreds of decisions a day to make as a teacher, especially if you are trying to meet the varying needs of each of your students.
But none of that means that you can’t set a path or goal for what you are trying to accomplish with those students over the time you have them. That’s what standards are.
No argument there. So why do people want to have the standards uniform, regardless of population being served?
Gitapik, I think it’s because people feel that if our graduates have this knowledge and these skills, they will have the opportunity to be successful in college, work and family life. That makes them, or some improvement on them, a legitimate goal.
Realistically, we cannot expect everyone to achieve those goals but they do give teachers a roadmap. And if this student – special ed or not – is way behind on this goal, the map still shows the next step to be working on with her.
At least that is how teachers have described their approach to me.
Some students (more than some) require a different road map, Bill, in my experience. That’s what I mean when I question applying the same standards to all students, regardless of their cognitive and physical abilities.
That’s true, gitapik, and I don’t want to overextend this exchange, but I would say that setting a goal to be able to read and multiply in the third grade and do fractions in the 5th grade, for example, is a legitimate overall expectation. Some kids won’t have that capacity and some schools will fail to accomplish that even with kids who do have that capacity. And different students will need different kinds of help to get as far as they are able. But I would assert that setting out those markers is legitimate.
I’m sure Diane will put the kabosh on the conversation if it becomes overextended, Bill. I do respect you for answering all these posts, btw.
You don’t give a roadmap of Pennsylvania to a kid who needs a map of the classroom or Main Street.
This post is about the imposition of the CCSS on special ed kids. Although I doubt you meant it this way (you seem sincere in your approach), the idea that some kids/schools will “fail” implies a cavalier attitude towards those who might/would have profited and “passed” while developing a solid sense of self esteem by using a road map that better served their needs and purposes.
At first it was “college” ready. Now it’s “college and career” ready. The CCSS will not better serve the kids I work with in either area better than standards based on basic social and living skills. In fact, they’re an impediment.
In the end, I guess I don’t see that CCSS has to be imposed on students, special ed or not. It’s a framework for schools and teachers and I’ve talked to special ed teachers who find it a useful guide. But if your way of doing the best for your special ed students is to work outside that framework, that can work. The obstacle is high stakes testing in the states that do it. But that is not about the standards. It’s a state by state choice, as the standards themselves are.
“Gitapik, I think it’s because people feel that if our graduates have this knowledge and these skills, they will have the opportunity to be successful in college, work and family life.”
Given that we have no evidence that these standards do any of these things and given that CCSS have been attached to high stakes tests that tell kids and teachers that they must achieve at this level or be considered either a failure or incompetent, such a heavy handed approach seems to be doing more harm than good.
2old, high stakes testing is a massive error and, where it is not already going away, it needs to go away. But it’s a different topic from the standards.
Right now, we can’t have one conversation without the other. In any case, we have to be very careful to not use them in a way that doesn’t dismiss over half of our children.
As a teacher I was in daily contact with my students. If I had a trusting relationship with my students based on mutual respect, they would trust me not to set expectations that were beyond them but that still challenged them. No one imposed “one size fits all” standards (that were basically designed by business and testing interests), thank goodness, especially since I was teaching self contained special ed classes with students who were seriously behind their grade level peers. The absurdity of such a rigid plan becomes obvious with a special ed population, but it is no less absurd within the general ed population to expect every child to meet standards set too high for any but the most advanced and declare the rest failures.
And what about all the other teachers, 2old? Did they all set their own standards? The standards are meant to be an indication of what post secondary education and work will require. Employers and colleges say that students should be able to write and calculate and work together and create. Employers can’t adjust their job requirements to each of your students and you can adjust your teaching. I you think that that wrong, that there should be lower or no standards because employers don’t or shouldn’t require those skills, then that’s the case you should make. Of if the standards should be changes to better reflect reality, then maybe that’s next.
But I don’t think it benefits our students to say that because each student is different and has different abilities, there can be no standards beyond what the teacher comes up with in the course of responding the her students. The world we are trying to prepare them for is not that malleable.
I object to the rigidity of the whole system. I am leery of standards paired with the word accountability. I object to business and testing interests telling us what they think schooling should accomplish and when it should be accomplished. Their interests are far too narrow and self serving to be the controlling factors in what determines the quality of education. I think it is foolish to set standards up that will tell the majority of students they are failures. As far as I know, the majority of our population cannot be considered failures.
We are pretty sure that cognitive development isn’t complete on average until the mid twenties. It seems really shortsighted to be declaring people failures at age 8 or 18. My children were all relatively late walkers. No one ever declared them walking failures. They were also early talkers. Nobody swooped in with a talking diploma. Two of them were high performing math students; two of them not. All of them are capable, competent adults able to use mathematical concepts in their workaday lives applicable to their chosen work. I find rigid, high stakes standards to be limiting both for teaching and learning.
Sorry, meant to put my name.
OK, here’s the research I was referring to. It’s late, and I didn’t have my name on the original post, so I hope I still get credit:
http://psychology.about.com/od/yindex/f/yerkes-dodson-law.htm
High standards are great, but we are willfully ignoring that students are compelled to take a rigid set of classes. For the classes they are forced into that they don’t like, aren’t interested in, don’t align with their goals or their natural skills, and don’t have a perceived purpose, those students will do worse the higher the standards become. To Kill a Mockingbird with nonverbals is an exaggerated example of what happens to nearly everyone.
Husky, I would agree that forcing students into passively consuming an arbitrary list of classes is unproductive. But, if the question is about standards, standards to not require standardization of instruction. Project based learning, for instance, can teach students how to develop the skills to apply their knowledge to real world challenges.
I subbed in a Sped class last year, and yeah, just like this, exactly. Lesson about transparent, vs translucent, vs opaque, and the higher-functioning kiddos were helping their partners underline, and the only thing any of them were getting out of the lesson was how to follow directions. Which is a valuable skill, yeah, but it could be combined with other skills they will actually use, instead of this crap, that was way beyond their capacities. How do you prepare kids to go out and be independent, if you can’t teach life skills because they’re not “on grade level?”
So true! I was lucky to spend some of my teaching career during a time when no one demanded that children receiving special services perform at the same level as their mainstream peers. No one was idiotic enough to expect a child reading on a second grade level to take a ELA test for sixth grade. There were certainly downsides to this benign neglect even in well resourced districts that were still pretty clueless as to the instructional needs of the older students. My students were almost all capable of eventually going on to productive normal lives but at their own pace. I, too, have subbed in those rooms where the students were still best served by learning those personal care and social skills more commonly of concern with 2 year olds. Today’s “experts” do not acknowledge the necessity of developmentally appropriate instruction. While the push for more academics was evident, the district still sided with sense in programming. It helps to work in a high socioeconomic community. The parents of special needs children usually know stupidity when they see it and have the power to make their views heard.
This has been going on for awhile. Years ago, when it was decided that inculsion and mainstreaming were the way to go, I had a neighbor whose daughter had Down Syndrome and was intellectually handicapped.
The district decided to close the special schools and classrooms except for the most severely and profoundly handicapped. They sent the rest of the students back to what would have been their home school, with the idea that they would receive plenty of support services, specially trained teachers to help them, and so on.
Well, the extra help and services didn’t really materialize. My neighbor’s daughter (high school age at the time) was placed into the student group which needed the most help. But they didn’t necessarily get that help. The daughter was assigned an O. Henry story to read and write an essay about. The girl tried her best to do this, but the teacher kept handing her back the paper with red pencil marks all over and the dictum “do it over!”.
After about the fourth time that the paper was returned, the mother made an appointment and went to the school to meet with the teacher. The mom slapped the latest paper down on the teacher’s desk and said, “This is as good as it gets! She’s intellectually handicapped, and if you don’t like having her in your classroom, talk to your administrators, because I sure as heck don’t like having her in your classroom, either.”
Too bad your neighbor’s daughter didn’t get to go to preschool with Goldman Sachs. They would have turned her down syndrome into up syndrome and had her tackling O. Henry like a champ. (Total tongue in cheek, intended) Truly, we do these students a disservice by not teaching them to function in the real world first.
No kidding. What I was trained to do in special education, way back over 40 years ago, was to first, work on behavioral problems and tasks of daily living and practical skills so that they could function in the community, and then work on academic skills that they could master. (I’m talking about the moderately, severely, and profoundly intellectually handicapped, as well as the severely emotionally disturbed, not the learning disabled.)
Forget the Common Core standards for a whole lot of these kids. For 40 years or so now, the laws have mandated that special education students have an appropriate education, and an individual education plan. What are the standardized tests and the Common Core curriculum supposed do for students like the ones I taught? We were trying to get them ready to become as independent as possible. Forget about Harper Lee or O. Henry, that’s not what these kids needed, and it would have been a waste of time better spent on independence sills.
That is the biggest problem I have with the ESSA. It kept in the language about only the bottom 1% getting alternately assessed. I think they should be exempt from the whole thing. They need to be taught to the level they are at. They need to be taught the things that will give them the best outcome, given their level of disability. It is the INDIVIDUALS with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The IEP document to follow is called the INDIVIDUAL Education Program. Yet, we seem to have forgotten the individual in this country when it comes to educating students with disabilities.
Jills comments (posted on her own blog) qualify her as someone who is 1) Not keeping her mouth shut, and 2) already fighting. I hear you Jill. You are not being silently passive.
However, Jill’s job title qualifies her as a representative of the field of Special Education. I am sure that Jill has a good heart and good intentions. She Needs to Care about demonstrating a commitment to At Least Exposing her students to the most fundamental areas of Common Core standards. Special Education teachers need to Be (and be perceived as being) educators who exemplify a foundational teaching style that says, “Even if my student doesn’t know his name, I work some magic and I Provide Exposure to things like seasons, or character traits and conflict. I address Common Core and I honor the humanity of my students. I provide Light. I offer Light, and even if my student doesn’t know his name I do not offer him a commensurate amount of darkness.”
Why is it so important that students with intellectual disabilities be “exposed to the fundamental areas of Common Core standards?” What is so magical about the CCSS that means that everyone must be “exposed” to it?
Maybe exposure confers immunity? Then I’d endorse it!
TAGO, Christine! I’d vote for immunity for all students, then!
“Exposure to Common Core confers immunity”
ha ha ha ha ha
TAGO!
“The Cure for the Common Core”
The cure for Common Core
Is simply to expose
Oneself to Coleman lore
And read a little close
Blogging is a good way to fight. Keep spreading the word. We should all be willing to speak up for our students.
I love this post and comments. As a truly thankful retired teacher of special needs I loved my students, my parents.Yep,I can truly say,you the teacher may die on that hill if the ridiculousness of common core expectations place on typical children as well as special needs students isn’t challenged which it is and stopped. Dark Ages,Dark Ages.
“A federal grand jury is examining the nation’s premier program that provides work for people who are severely disabled, after a series of CNN investigative reports detailing allegations of corruption and cronyism in what sources say could be the biggest fraud case ever in a U.S. government agency. ”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/us/disabled-work-program-investigation-update/
I’ve worked with special needs populations for over 20 years. As for that hill you’re willing to die on…there will be a lot of those, so prepare, and pace yourself.
Bill Duncan,
You stated “. . . how should standards be organized?”
The problem is that you are assuming that a “standard” can be formalized in curriculum discussions and that that is a good thing. Noel Wilson has shown the multitude of errors, falsehoods and resultant invalidities involved in the making of educational standards so your assumption is well shot to hell.
Be that as it may, all I ask of you, Bill or anyone, to show me (yep damn Missouri blood) an educational standard that has been verified and vetted by an appropriate authority with the input of those involved in using that standard. Not only that but then please show me the measuring device, its calibration against the standard and what the margin of error in the measurement is acceptable. Also, I need to be shown where someone has been certified in using said measuring instrument within the said parameters of that standard.
Aren’t there thousands of supposed standards out there to choose from? Shouldn’t be too hard to Show Me should it? Show this Show Me Stater one that meets the criteria for a true and usable standard.
There is such as thing as too little challenge. There is also such a thing as too much challenge. The reformers don’t get this. A big part of the art of teaching is finding that sweet spot between too easy and too hard. Too hard, and the student shuts down, acts out and/or feels miserable for no good reason. A beginning German student gets nothing out of reading Faust in the original. A beginning German student will profit much more from Mother Goose. Common Core represents a ham-fisted effort by non-teachers to establish the level of challenge at every level in every classroom in this country –because Arne and Bill Duncan don’t trust teachers to set the standard.
Again Bill,
“In my mind, none of that invalidates standards,”
The fundamental concept of educational standard has been shown to be COMPLETELY INVALID by Noel Wilson. In order to continue with your staunch support/defense of those standards the ball is in your court to show that Wilson’s work is wrong and/or false.
As I told my students when they were taking any assessment: “Have at it and have fun!!” Your turn!
I want to know what happened to an Individualized Education Plan. You know those things that are written in conjunction with professionals and parents and agreed upon and signed as a legal document? The goals for my students are generally nowhere near grade level Common Core standards and that is for a reason. Does anyone remember why the students are placed in Special Education in the first place? It is not because they were succeeding at grade level standards. I am still waiting for the big lawsuits from the parents of Special Education students since students IEP’s are not being followed throughout the country.
The absurdity of Common Core in Special Education:
95% FAILURE RATE for three consecutive years in NYS.
This is not just a testing failure. It is a failure to provide the neediest students in the system with what they need the most.
Standards …. Schmadards!
This is TOTALLY nauseating. Never mind Common Core–I would love to see all legislators have to take a course in Common Sense!
I’ve been teaching kids with severe disabilities for 22 years.
The concept of spending valuable classroom time teaching a curriculum based on a set of standards that is also meant for high achieving kids in general ed to a 6 year old with severe autism who isn’t even aware of his or her own name is absurd. Or to a classroom of severely emotionally disturbed children who can’t even make it through a period without at least 2 or 3 physical fights. The practice of it is a waste of time and cruel. Holding teachers responsible for it with the possibility of losing their job goes beyond the pale.
We used to have Home Economics rooms where the kids could take orders, help prepare and deliver food, wash the dishes, clean up, etc. Not all day…but a period a day. Honest, practical life skills. We used to be allowed a period in the morning for class meetings during which we could teach basic social skills. The kids enjoyed and profited from these classes as part of the curriculum.
Gone. No time for it. Got to meet the standards, now. Everybody. The same standards.
All in the name of standardization which is supposed to create a system of accountability on the parts of the teachers. It’s like someone put a machine in charge and we’re being fed into the grinder.
Gitapik, I am so glad that I’m old, and long retired from teaching special education. I don’t think that I could stand teaching under the current expectations.
I definitely hear what you’re saying, and totally sympathize. I’ve had students who would quite literally hallucinate, who were physically aggressive or self-abusive or destructive.
Also students who were multiply handicapped, deaf and intellectually handicapped, blind and intellectually handicapped, physically handicapped but needing help with the tasks of daily living, such as going to the bathroom and buttoning or zipping their own clothes.
Of what possible relevance would “To Kill a Mockingbird” be to these kids’ lives, when they needed to learn self-control, socialization skills, skills of independent living, and so on, primarily?
Yes, I had students in my classes who we taught to read, a few of them even up to the fifth grade reading level or so. But reading (or attempting to read) “To Kill a Mockingbird” would have had no relevance to their lives, and would have taken away valuable time that was needed to teach them the skills they required to become as independent as possible.
“I think it’s insulting to tell students what they’re going to learn, regardless of their abilities and needs.”
I agree. But I sense most people here would be comfortable with teachers doing the same exact things (telling students what it is that’s most important for them to learn). The debate shouldn’t be over who is more qualified to impose their will on young people – the debate should be around consent. I don’t ever remember, as a young person, anyone asking for my consent to be schooled, and I don’t recall asking it of any of my students.
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The Absurdity of Common Core in Special Education | Diane Ravitch's blog
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The Absurdity of Common Core in Special Education | Diane Ravitch's blog