A reader who comments as Gitapik writes about life in the classroom:
“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 education 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.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m not a parent of a Special Ed. kid in this situation, but if I was …
I would sue the ever-lovin’ sh#% out of everyone and anyone responsible for this idiotic change in education policy … and publicize it and spread the word far and wide.
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Generally special education related tort does very poorly in the courts. One has to go through the IDEA legal process which is stacked in favor of the local education agency, relies on mediation that is picked by the state and slow expensive legal action seldom won hense seldom paid for. This is why the opt out is so popular.
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Diane always wows me with her posts!
I pulled my ADHD 5th grade public schooled daughter and put her into private school. She went from failing and having Grand Mal tantrums to loving school and honor roll. Now 12 in 7th grade and at her private school they take the Terra Nova and teachers I met who have done both, and they say that the prep time is nothing like PARCC high stakes testing. They don’t waste the time with rote memory test repetitiveness.
Then, there is my 14 yr old dyslexic, dysgraphia, Dyscalculia etc child with normal IQ, but reads at 3rd grade level and in Public School. Took the PARCC with critical scores just over the start line. The test is not vocally read to him, and the response to me was because expecting reading so I can’t allow you that accommodation. Quite frankly beast tennis are pathetic. Our children are tested throughout the years and the teachers interpretation is obviously not expertise in doing so because children are consistently failing and yet the response to intervention is really response to delay and fail those that learn differently.
I am deeply tormented and angry. The autism example is perfect Diane. Daily Educational Malpractice ensues in our schools
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I teach students who are on the lowest 1% level and am expected to increase the rigor of my teaching and my students’ understanding as part of my evaluation. Oh, how I wish I could cure them! They may not have slept well, may not breath well, may need g-tube feedings, may need diapers, may not communicate verbally, may have physical challenges and may also be in a wheelchair most of the day. I don’t believe I could concentrate on learning what’s expected on grade level curriculum. With such low IQs it’s challenging to make abstract concepts interesting and understandable for this group of students. It’s also difficult to help concepts stick in their memory so they may build on them. I’m able to create very sophisticated communication boards with answer choices and do occasionally see growth through the years but when a child is in need of total physical assistance and doesn’t engage by eye gaze to answer it’s frustrating to have evaluation tools that don’t fit. I also feel it boarders on abuse to insist on engaging a child who has severe health challenges in learning.
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For years I have been in awe of the amazing work done daily, year by year, over and over, by the Integrated Needs teachers I’ve known, and it is nothing less than direct physical abuse to watch as, under the guise of “helping” our students, our district’s subservience to test-score companies allows these teachers to be abusively attacked. The call to force “better scores” out of Special Needs students or “withhold their funding” is one of the most heinous invasions our country has ever legislated.
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You are right – allow yourself to innovate, to do your best and to be important in your students eyes first.
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As a former E/BD teacher I felt the same way and so I quit.
Politicians, judges, lawyers and educators with little practical knowledge of biology or pedagogy – only rules and laws – dictate the ed. curriculum through fear inducing testing. It’s bullying!
IEPs can promote restraining learners and forcing learners with physical and mental disabilities to locked quiet rooms, aka: solitary confinement or hauling them off to jail to “teach everyone a lesson!” …Even the teachers!
Just think about that legal systems overreach for “shaping appropriate classroom behaviors” and “helping disabled learners”
First we asses with educational and psych.testing like the Woodcock Johnson Psycho-educational Battery. Do you know what that tests? How does that test help the learner?
Second, “helpful” psychs’ label learners using DSM, even though it got hammer in 2013 for not being science.
And now the labeled learner (i.e. schitzo-typo, E/BD, attention deficit, etc…) is set for bullying and coercion through IEPs that mandate what happens (i.e. locked quiet room interventions, testing, isolation) as “due process.”
Again, is any of this helping the learner? It doesn’t. Simply ask, who really benefits? Yep, politicians, judges, lawyers and a handful of bought and paid for educators…that’s who benefits.
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Sorry to lose you to the proffesion – what are you doing now?
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Oh, I feel so bad for Gitapik and other current special needs teachers.
And I’m also glad that I am long retired from the field.
This amounts to yet more child abuse, in the interest of standards that do not and cannot apply to these kids with severe disabilities.
How is a teacher supposed to be teaching what these children need to be learning, and also, BTW, following the kids’ IEPS, for which the teacher is also held responsible, while trying to meet these “standards”?
I always felt that there were barely enough hours in the day to teach them what they should be learning, to work on their behaviors, and also, for many of them, self care skills (up to and including toilet training for some of them), to teach them other practical skills, communication skills………the list goes on and on.
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And a lot of general education teachers also work with these students, because mainstreaming is the norm for nearly all students now. I support the chance for most students to mainstream, but I had a class last year with two VERY emotionally disturbed students, and one aide there to help me. The entire rest of the class didn’t really learn much because the aide and I were always dealing with those two. How is that fair to anyone? And most of the time, there is no aide at all. I have a class with 11 kids with IEPs. How can I “differentiate” 11 kids, plus the general education kids?
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Yes, I understand , TOW. Those of us in Special Ed, way back when they started the whole mainstreaming thing, always thought “This isn’t going to work very well for a whole lot of our students.”
Give me a class with no more than about 15 or so students, max, two teachers (including one trained in Special Ed), and a full-time aide (or more, as necessary), plus the appropriate support personnel, including speech, physical, and occupational therapists, and sure, you could have students of varying abilities and needs, including special ed kids, in the same class. But we all know that’s never going to happen.
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I hear you, West. It’s gotten very difficult for the local schools to refer the kids with emotional difficulties to self contained, small, special ed classes. The upper administration wants them to stay in their home school districts.
The general ed schools came up with a solution, setting up separate classes for these kids. Some good friends of mine worked in those classes. It was very difficult because they didn’t have the supports in place (paraprofessionals/crisis room) to help out. But they did their best to earn the kids’ trust and the other classes in the school profited from this intervention.
This is no longer allowed. The word is that it creates a stigma for the kids who are being excluded. It also makes it so that they don’t get the same quality of education because their self contained class(es) fall behind due to the constant temper/attention induced interruptions. Add to that the concept that these kids with emotional problems won’t have well behaved role models to follow as in a standard general ed class and you’ve got three strikes against moving them out of the well behaved class. So he/she stays.
While I understand this reasoning, I also understand (and have experienced first hand) just how difficult (if not impossible) it is to conduct a class of 25-30 kids when there’s just ONE seriously emotionally challenged child in the room, let alone two, three, four, etc. In situations like these, everyone loses. The majority of the kids don’t get the education they need because of the time the teacher needs to spend dealing with the difficult kid(s), the teacher’s evaluation suffers because the class isn’t learning at the pace required by the standards, and the school loses because it’s rating goes down, which puts it in jeopardy of closure.
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1. It is time for teachers to borrow from physicians’ oath “First do no harm.”
2. Arguing that a student with IEP should follow same curriculum/take same tests as regular students wouldn’t fly in a philosophy or logic 101 class. Why have we let NCLB proponents get away with it?
Maybe a Moral Monday issue to follow the NPE 2016 conference in NC?
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There are also ESE parents who do not want their student in life skills classes, but want the student who cannot write a sentence to take Spanish I in high school. Parents want their student with an Intellectual Disiability to go to the local college , because they can be in a program for ASD students. That would be great for him, but only on the days he isn’t reciting lines from the latest Star Wars movie.
When will ESE parents accept the truth that typical parents are forced to; your child is not Einstein. Mainstreaming students does not work, despite the stories you see of the football player taking the girl with DS to prom. Should every student be given the chance for the best education possible? Yes. The best one for them, based on their capabilities. If you can’t read the required posted learning goal why are you in the class?
Why can someone who does not test as gifted not take gifted classes, but other ESE students who test less than typical can take standard classes?
The answer. Money. Parents will sue if they don’t get what they want.
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Most have no issues allowing for an alternative curriculum for these kids. The same belief that all SpEd kids should be mainstreamed has led to this requirement that SpEd kids take the same tests as Gen Ed kids. We should use common sense in both.
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So how would YOU make the teachers of these special needs students “accountable?” VAM wouldn’t work here. And what about those who have the kids mainstreamed into general education classes? How are SGPs supposed to work then?
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As we all know, VAM doesn’t work, period.
Nor does SGP.
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“So how would YOU make the teachers of these special needs students “accountable?”
Portfolio Assessment. Administrative and peer observations and reviews. Authentic assessment: baseline assessments with periodic checks and then final assessment.
Standard stuff. Parental interest/involvement, of course, is key.
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I had an administrator who insisted that a profoundly impacted student take part in a pre-algebra class I was teaching. Her case manager had been working like the devil to teach this child the difference between red and green so she stood a chance of crossing the street without getting hit and now the admin wanted me to teach her how to factor polynomials! The admin AND the girl’s parents came to watch the class. And afterwards, I stood, in awe, as I watched that mom and dad take that administrator on for the ridiculousness of her demands. Would that the parents of ALL students be the champions for the APPROPRIATE education their children need!!! Insisting that a child who qualifies for special education because they are working below the grade level equivalent of their peers take the same test as their peers is circular logic, at its worst.
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I would have loved to see those parents ream out that principal! The idiocy of inclusion is apparent when you have such an obviously impaired individual. Unfortunately, those children who appear “normal” and have severe learning issues are frequently placed in the same situation and are totally aware that they have no chance of understanding what is going on. Somehow the concept of Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) has been twisted as if the general ed classroom should be the goal for all children whether it realistically can meet their needs or not. The idea that that classroom may not be the LRE for that student does not seem to factor into to placement decisions especially when there is a push to have all children take the same tests regardless of their abilities to fulfill some politicians policy pronouncements.
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Some time ago I analyzed all of the national standards written for the Goals 2000: Educate America Act during the Clinton administration. I relied of the database assembled by McMel (Midcontinent Research for Education and Learning). All of those standards were voluntary, but they were supposed to be “world-class” —at least as good or better than standards of all other nations.
The Goals 2000 project produced national standards in 14 broad domains of study, encompassing 24 subjects, 259 standards, and 4100 grade-level benchmarks. Researchers at McRel estimated that it might take 23 years to address all of them. I found redundancies, contradictions, some errors of fact in the history standards, an abundance of jargon, not much reasoning about the necessity of standards and always, a hidden-from-view hope that writing lots of standards would gain more time in the curriculum to address them—wishful thinking.
My next exercise in standards watching and analysis focused on the American Diploma Project for high school. I discovered a distain for studies in the arts, an aversion to electives, and lot of hoopla about no less than two years of a foreign language, preferable four.
Then I looked at the Common Core, offspring of the American Diploma Project. The CC standards were marketed as the greatest thing for every single child and for a super-duper strong and every-growing economy.
I downloaded and printed everything I could, so I could make notes. I set up a spreadsheet to understand the distribution of standards by grade levels, including parts a to e of the standards, but I did not count standards for high school mathematics. That spreadsheet had 1620 standards. It allowed me to see some patterns not otherwise easy to see. For example, geometry was the only math topic taught in every grade. In the English Language Arts grade 3 students faced instruction addressed to more standards than any other grade: 79.
I am sure others have discovered that many standards are boilerplate statements, with changes in one or two words grade-to-grade to fake something like a “learning progression.”
I am currently looking at who else is publishing national standards, and the expectations for student learning they identify—key concepts, skills, and rationales, degrees of connection with the Common Core or independence from them.
That work is not yet complete but the following inventory shows the proliferation. It is restricted to pre-school or Kindergarten through grade 8.
All of these standards are wild thing, wishful thinking, free of any thinking about coherent education.
PARTIAL INVENTORY of NATIONAL STANDARDS: PRE-K to GRADE 8 only.
February 25, 2016 References available on request.
Standards -Year-Domain or Discipline and Grade Level Distribution
747 2010 Common Core English Language Arts and Literacy. K-8 (each grade)
285 2010 Common Core Mathematics. K-8 (each grade)
85 2011 Computer Science. K-8 (overlap: K-3, 3-6, then 7-8) in revision for 2016
99 2012 National Sexuality Standards. K-2, 3-5, 6-8
12 2012 Common Career Technical Core: Career Ready Practices. “continuous, ungraded” for 16 Career Clusters and their 79 Career Pathways.
85 2013 Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Early elementary, late elementary, middle/junior high)
208 2013 Social Studies. K-3, 3-5, 6-8
144 2013 Next Generation Science Standards. K-8 (each grade, except for 3 grade spans for engineering), Add 410 connections to the Common Core.
453 2013 Physical Education Literacy. K-8 (each grade)
18 2014 School Social Workers Four grade level competencies—identified as early elementary, late elementary, early high school, and late high school
1,038 2014 National Core Arts Standards. Pre-K-8 (each grade) Dance=210, Media Arts=180, Music=272, Theater=226, Visual arts=150
35 2014 School Counselors. I could not access the grade level standards for the 35 key concepts.
240 2015 Personal Financial Literacy. K-8 (K, 1-3, 4-8)
98 2015 National Health Standards. PreK-2, 3-5, 6-8
11 2015 World-Readiness Standards for Learning (Foreign) Languages. ungraded
? 2016 International Society for Technology in Education standards are being revised now. Nine topics: Communication and Collaboration; Creativity and Innovation; Research and Information; Technology Operations; Critical Thinking; and Digital Citizenship. More at iste@iste.org See Computer Science 2011 (above) for the present version
? 2016 21st Century Skills. Eleven “core” subjects (English, reading or language arts, world languages, arts, mathematics, economics, science, geography, history, government and civics)
Plus five to seven Interdisciplinary literacy themes: Global Awareness; Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial Literacy; Civic Literacy; Health Literacy; Environmental Literacy.
Plus four to six Learning and Innovation Skills: Creativity and Innovation; Critical Thinking and Problem Solving; Communication; Collaboration.
Plus three to five Information, Media and Technology Skills: such as: Information Literacy; Media Literacy; Information, Communications and Technology Literacy.
Plus five to ten Life and Career Skills: Flexibility and Adaptability, Initiative and Self-Direction, Social and Cross-Cultural Skills, Productivity and Accountability, Leadership and Responsibility (In my opinion, this is a conceptual mish-mash—word salad. It has been marketed far and wide by Ken Kay a lobbyist for the tech industry, who twice tried to get this scheme embedded in federal legislation.
3,558 TOTAL Many of these standards are redundant, contradictory, and based on wild assumptions. State standards suffer from many of the same problems, and these will be more important under the new Every Student Suceeds Act.
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In looking at the standards you have reviewed, I ran across 21st century emphasis on literacy, which seems to include everyone’s latest “innovative” take on any and all subjects that may currently be deemed critical. When the International Reading Association (IRA) changed their name to the International Literacy Association (ILA), I figured they must have gotten beaucoup bucks from the tech biggies. I nearly dropped my membership, but on the off chance that they still have something to say about reading, I have stuck with them. I’m afraid it will become clear that they no longer are an important source of information for reading professionals. I would hate to think that the lure of money will diminish the role they have played in the reading community. I no longer can tell what they stand for. It seems to be a similar problem that is faced by the global standards community. It is no wonder that CC stuck to ELA and Math however one may feel about how useful they are. Trying to establish a finite set of national standards when learning is limitless and to some extent unique to the individual (subjective) has got to be a thankless task.
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Literate has the the connotation of being educated, schooled, in the know–not naive, not “dumb.” Visual literacy, health literacy, environmental literacy and so forth are one way to telegraph the need or value for education. I am least patient with the 21st century skills meme..a real word salad from a person who knows nothing about education but is a highly skilled marketer of ideas. In the midst of an era where “academic” anything has had credibility, the very revival of the term “creativity” and “flexibility” and so forth helped to sell the whole package. The part that mattered to Ken Kay was technology. Business people also liked the fact that he raided language from human resource manuals.
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This is probably on of the most offensive posts I have ever read, and I really wish that Dr. Ravitch would consult the Inclusive Education National Action Committee of TASH, read about cognition and learning for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, and read the literature on inclusive practices and long-term outcomes for people with significant disabilities (virtually NO study has shown that segregated placements lead to improved post school outcomes). And students with significant disabilities attend and thrive at college (through TPSID programs). We know that students with significant cognitive disabilities can learn standards-based academic content (read anything by Browder and Spooner and see the Common Core Connectors, alternate standards NOT regular standards, see http://www.ncscpartners.org)–we know that they learn just like typically developing kids, but at much slower rates (read Kleinert and Browder). We also know that kids who don’t have symbolic speech and who don’t use AAC are more likely to be segregated and not have access to alternate standards-based curriculum, but that students who do have access to AAC are more likely to be included and have access to (and do better in) alternate standards-based curriculum (see Kleinert, Kearns, Towles-Reeves). The ladder effect (someone having to know how to write their name or speak or tie their shoes or be academically or behaviorally “ready” for general education contexts) before we expose them to higher level thinking skills or activities can be very detrimental to this group of students. It is essential that teachers (and I am one) presume competence for individuals who are perceived as incompetent because they don’t speak or they move in atypical ways or think in neurodiverse ways.
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So what’s your point? Are grade-based standards of competency good or not? For SPEd? For anyone?
Additionally, does it matter what the standards are and who created them?
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Grade based standards are fine…for some kids. Most important, though, is that they are not used as a bludgeon to demand certain levels of performance at certain points in time. At the center should be the child and the realization that there is no such thing as a typical child. That doesn’t mean we don’t have certain expectations but that we use wide disparities to look for reasons that go beyond the typical failure mantra. When we see a gross mismatch between grade/age expectations and the performance of a child we have to ask whether the traditional classroom can address those disparities or whether an environment specifically designed for the needs of the child is more appropriate. Inclusion is not always the answer.
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I agree with you, Julia, that there are many with “disabilities” who can thrive, academically, if given the right materials, teaching methods, and teaching situations. We have no argument, there. You are correct.
This, however, is an example of what I’m talking about:
“In all seriousness, the level of absurdity is reached when a profoundly disabled student is required to be tested and the testing looks something like this… a teacher pulls a chair up to the student’s wheel chair and reads a test question to the student. The student has nearly no use of his limbs or body but can turn his head. Then the teacher reads the possible answers “A”… blah blah blah “B” … blah blah blah and then the teacher holds up a sheet with letters on them and tracks the students eyes trying to guess at where the child’s eyes are looking at A, B, C or D! Meanwhile most of the test material (if not all) is not even relevant to the child or part of the child’s learning day. His day is focused on physical therapy to learn to swallow or to increase motor movement in his very stiff arms and legs. He is well below grade level because along with his physical issues there are cognitive ones too. Is this really the best use of this child and teacher’s valuable time to force him to endure a grade level test based on his chronological age because EVERYONE MUST BE TREATED EXACTLY THE SAME so that data crunchers are happy?”
Or the classrooms with physical fights erupting at least two to three times per period.
To include these kids in a classroom of children or teens who are serious about keeping to/leaping beyond grade level is a disservice to all, imo. The teacher’s attention becomes too divided to attend to the task at hand.
Add to these the timelines we’re expected to adhere to and we’ve got a serious problem.
I also question the “need” for high academic goals for ALL people. It’s as though “academic” trumps “trade” or “manual labor”. As though the latter two are inferior to “academic”. It used to be accepted that some people were better served by fields outside of those that required college degrees. Not just “ok”. It was necessary. People could be proud of their professions, regardless of whether they had a diploma or not.
Why has this changed? I THINK know the answer: The new world order. The new world economy. I’m not so sure that the architects of these “new” things really had much of a plan in mind in terms of how it would effect the masses. The emphasis was on how it would effect multi-national business. Too busy building that airplane in midair, maybe?
As always, I’m open to correction and debate, Julia. I don’t want to be “right” and I don’t oppose your slant. Just adding my own.
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Puts a new spin on the concept of “blended” learning : { !!!
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In all seriousness, the level of absurdity is reached when a profoundly disabled student is required to be tested and the testing looks something like this… a teacher pulls a chair up to the student’s wheel chair and reads a test question to the student. The student has nearly no use of his limbs or body but can turn his head. Then the teacher reads the possible answers “A”… blah blah blah “B” … blah blah blah and then the teacher holds up a sheet with letters on them and tracks the students eyes trying to guess at where the child’s eyes are looking at A, B, C or D! Meanwhile most of the test material (if not all) is not even relevant to the child or part of the child’s learning day. His day is focused on physical therapy to learn to swallow or to increase motor movement in his very stiff arms and legs. He is well below grade level because along with his physical issues there are cognitive ones too. Is this really the best use of this child and teacher’s valuable time to force him to endure a grade level test based on his chronological age because EVERYONE MUST BE TREATED EXACTLY THE SAME so that data crunchers are happy?
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In Massachusetts we have a system of vocational schools and traditional public schools (as well as charters). When I started teaching in Massachusetts the vocational schools provided an alternative for students that could not thrive in a more traditional environment. Students in these schools were given a basic curriculum, but not as challenging a curriculum as in the more conventional schools. My concerns at the time were more about “tracking.” I am dyslexic and the public schools in California where I grew up believed me to be unteachable and were going to put me in a “special school” for folks like me and I was only educated because my parents could afford private schools (who, I should add, had not better understanding of dyslexia than the public school, they just forced me to sink or swim and fortunately I learned how to swim). I worry about kids who are like the kid I was and might have happen to them what nearly happened to me. But the vocational schools did provide training in vocations for students that could not thrive academically and had vocational aspirations. When MCAS was instituted vocational schools were required to achieve at the same levels as the rest of the public schools in the state, but the student population they were serving could not succeed at that level. Perhaps a change in the curriculum would have done something about that, but the course vocational schools chose to follow was one where they would only accept students with transcripts that demonstrated they could achieve academically so that they could maintain the scores the state required. This means that students who needed a more vocational program could not get it and those that might be served better by a conventional school were lured into the vocational schools. This is not a problem where a student is attracted to the vocational programs these schools offer, but it is a problem if they are being encouraged to forsake more academic aspirations for more vocational ones. But I accept this is the students’ choice. I worry about the consequences for the students and for the schools when alternative avenues to a high school education are closed to students that need more options not fewer. It seems to me that we are losing sight of students that do not fit the “cookie cutter;” who like many of us are not conventional or have other handicaps to confront.
I have IEP and 504 students in my classroom; I have had on one occasion an autistic student in my class (it was an honors level class and she was a capable student, perhaps because of her autism and not in spite of it). I believe in inclusion, I see some very valuable things happening as a result of inclusion. But when I started teaching in Massachusetts students with 504’s, for example, had access to help from special ed teachers that, because of cost and budget cuts, they are now denied. If I were in school today I would be on an IEP and I would want my school to do for me what they do not always do. I needed help, but when it came time for me to graduate I had to be able to hold my own in a college classroom where there are fewer helps and less understanding. I needed to enter the “real world” capable of competing with everyone else. I hope that IEP and 504 students in my classroom are moving towards academic independence by the time they graduate. So, needless to say, many aspects of inclusion are attractive to me. But I am also troubled by the declining number of alternatives for students with more severe handicaps or that need alternatives to the more conventional classroom, who do have interests and aspirations that are better served in a less academic program. I believe that if a student chooses to be a carpenter or a car mechanic because this is the kind of work they want to do, and not because the academic doors have been closed to them, they should be able to pursue that vocation (which does not mean they cannot be philosophers as well). I worked for time in construction and most of the people I worked with loved working with their hands and spending more time outside (this was in California where all seasons were propitious for working outside). There was a book published a few years ago called “Shop Class Is Soul Craft” that makes this argument. However, students should not be forced into a vocation because it is easier to prepare them for a vocation than it is to give them the education of which they are capable. I think, like so many problems in education, this one is complex and it resists simple solutions. But the reason these problems are not grappled with often has more to do with economics than student ability. And a major consequence of making decisions solely on economic grounds has been that fewer alternatives exist for the unconventional student or the student with special needs. Perhaps we cannot afford public schools that meet the needs of everyone, but if this is the case we should say so.
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
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After reading the research and the ratio of teacher and staff to students along with the individual instruction each child with severe cognitive disabilities receives each week to boast learning gains, I was dismayed. In my school a teacher may have two paraprofessionals who help with the custodial needs of the students but there isn’t time to teach ten students individually each day like the perfect research classrooms have! Diaper changes, putting students in standers, breathing treatments, feeding and so on takes a lot of time and sometimes three people for difficult individuals. Then one has to deal with behaviors, seizures, sensory needs, processing needs, special techniques for each student’s individual learning needs and for good measure add multiple grade level curriculum needs too! That’s just a regular day. You should see these sainted teacher handle multiple wheelchairs during fire drills!
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I too teach student with exceptionalities. I have taught in a self contained autism classroom and understand your stress. However, I am a strong proponent of the common core. I see that many of the teaching techniques are the same as we have used in special education classrooms. I currently teach in an inclusionary classroom and my lower students are able to understand concepts due to the teaching strategies.
At the same time I wish to dissolve any connection between common core and merit pay or teacher qualifications based on state assessments. Particularly in our classrooms this smacks of absurdity. Our students can not be expected to maintain pace with their peers. The need the freedom to learn at their pace and in their learning style.
I would go so far as to say all students deserve this same luxury. Study after study reveals that some students best learning style is through doing and yet we continue to mandate that they sit still through lectures.
I realize you did not request my two bits but thank you for reading this.
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I’m thankful for you two bits, Christi. I think it’s a great post.
For me, the main point is that students should be allowed to proceed at their own pace and that teachers shouldn’t be held responsible if that pace is slower (sometimes dramatically) than those of their age group in both special and general education.
I’m not clear on what you mean by your “lower” students, in terms of functionality. The spectrum has been expanded, as you know, and your definition of the term might be different from mine. I honestly can’t see the majority of the kids I teach being able to keep up in an inclusion setting, regardless of teaching techniques or differentiation. But maybe that’s just me…?
I’m for the concept of options. I question the concept that all should be able to achieve a specific set goal.
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In the non-public special education field, we generally feel the residual effects of educational policies and changes. Right now we’re feeling the effects of Common core and PARCC and not in such a positive way. Common Core Standards “do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations,” but our students with disabilities must participate at the same level and with the same rigor as their “non-disabled” peers in PARCC assessments. Our IEP’s must be standards-based, aligned to their grade level and our teaching must be aligned to the Maryland CCR Standards at the students grade level. The problem, however, is that the majority of our students are functioning 3 to 4 grade levels below their non-disabled peers and our teachers are struggling to help them acquire and demonstrate a few skills successfully. How then do we prepare our students effectively for an assessment that will test them on the very standards they fail to understand? Our students with ED, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and autism have already been formally tested by teachers and related services providers multiple times before even reaching PARCC season. When is enough enough? There has to be a better way to assess their learning.
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In the non-public special education field, we generally feel the residual effects of educational policies and changes. Right now we’re feeling the effects of Common core and PARCC and not in such a positive way. Common Core Standards “do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations,” but our students with disabilities must participate at the same level and with the same rigor as their “non-disabled” peers in PARCC assessments. Our IEP’s must be standards-based, aligned to their grade level and our teaching must be aligned to the Maryland CCR Standards at the students grade level. The problem, however, is that the majority of our students are functioning 3 to 4 grade levels below their non-disabled peers and our teachers are struggling to help them acquire and demonstrate a few skills successfully. How then do we prepare our students effectively for an assessment that will test them on the very standards they fail to understand? Our students with ED, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and autism have already been formally tested by teachers and related services providers multiple times before even reaching PARCC season. When is enough enough? There has to be a better way to assess their learning.
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Takes the “special” out of “education”, doesn’t it?
It’s literally “absurd” in every aspect of the word except when it comes to how it effects the kids.
I let my students know that the tests were a way to figure out what needs to be taught next. (which actually isn’t the reality, anymore). I gave them snacks before the tests and a small celebration with food/juice and free time after each day of the tests. They appreciated it. Before I started doing this, there were many, many fights, kids trying to run out of the room/school (screaming, “I’m STUPID”!), crying fits. It was terrible. The celebrations helped a LOT. Talking about it beforehand and afterwards helped, too.
But now they need “grit”.
They want to teach “grit” to some inner city kid who’s seen his friends being shot. His father die of an overdose. And more.
So easy to sit behind a desk and make official proclamations and decrees. Makes me wonder if they just WANT us to fail. There’s no way that anyone who actually KNOWS the situation would create policy like this.
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