Teach Effectively!

The Bekeley (CA, USA) Daily Planet reported that the Berkeley local education agency received a report about special education services. According the article by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, the “report concluded that the district’s special education classes have an ‘over-representation of minority students.’” The article indicates that a parent said, “she found the problem with overidentification ‘appalling’ and said that students ’should not get dumped into the special education program’ just because the ‘general education program in the district is not working properly.’”

Several observations:

• Much of this is the same rhetoric we’ve heard over the past 15-20 years, beginning with the regular education initiative. It’s just penetrated from the academic critics to the level of local boards.
• The overidentification rates appear to be predicated solely on ethnicity. If the consultant who prepared the report used any form of co-variance to eliminate the contribution of SES to identification, so one could have a cleaner view of the racial issue, the article didn’t report it.
• The LEA efforts to reform the schools apparently began a year before the report. One has to doubt that a year is sufficient time to make a dent in the problems of students who have achievement problems. How long does it take to teach a child to read, especially a child who’s already been struggling with reading?
• Is the number of students eligible for special education the right outcome variable? What about kids’ academic and social competence? Instead of aiming for keeping them out of special education, why not aim to improve their competence regardless of placement?