Teach Effectively!

A blogger who identifies herself as Lois Lane has a heart-tugging post about a cousin who has Asperger Syndrome. As she tells the story, Billy takes a bus independently so that he can visit with a dying relative. Those readers of Teach Effectively who teach about special education might find it valuable as a supplement in their classes for beginning teachers.

There is an informative article in the NY Times today about the continuing tug-a-war between providing special education services and containing special education costs. Alison Leigh Cowan, who wrote the article, described several disagreements between parents and LEAs about what constitutes “appropriate” in FAPE.

There’s a lot of illustrations of the disagreements in Cowan’s story. What I find especially interesting is that there is nothing about effective instruction. The closest we get is this:

Dr. [Elliot] Landon [Superintendent] and Nancy Harris, the business manager for Westport’s school system, said they have kept special education expenses in line through cost control, not by narrowing eligibility or skimping on services. One example they cited was the hiring of in-house occupational and physical therapists, saving the district $400,000 a year by reducing fees to outsiders. Dr. Landon said expanded “academic support” in lower grades has reduced the number of children who need special education referrals later.

It’s wonderful that the LEA is providing “academic support.” Would there be demands for, say, out-placements for students with autism if the LEA provided effective instructional practices? I have to bet that LEAs could save a bundle by using effective practices.

Bring on those windmills!

By the way, buried in the article is a quotation from Ms. Cynthia Gilchrest, the director of pupil services in an LEA, that raises another point:

We want to make sure we don’t put a label of handicapped on a child that’s not handicapped. That’s a serious label.

I don’t have time to address this one right now, and it might be better addressed in one of the other blogs, but I want to note that it’s an old—and in my view tired—assertion that doesn’t stand up under analysis.

In another footnote: It was great to see Pete and Pam Wright’s Wrightslaw mentioned in the first paragraph.

Wischnowski, Salmon, and Eaton (2004) report an evaluation of co-teaching in Geneseo Central School District in western New York (US). Their purpose was “to implement and evaluate co-teaching as a means for successfully including most students with disabilities into general education classrooms.” I was pretty excited about this because of the word “evaluate” in that purpose. Sadly, the study didn’t closely examine what really matters: Students’ outcomes. Here’s what the authors provide to describe student outcomes:

In between the two years of the evaluation, state testing in the elementary and the middle school changed from more traditional (and some considered less strenuous) competency tests to more demanding assessments (especially in the amount of writing required) aligned with the New York State Standards. In both years, students with disabilities receiving instruction in co-taught classrooms achieved acceptable scores qualifying them for the next grade level. The evaluation team also analyzed performances on the Kaufmann Test of Educational Achievement that the district routinely administered in the two years of the study and found that students with disabilities were generally making progress through the curriculum along with their peers who did not have individual education plans. Report card grades that reflected performance on curriculum-based assessments also suggested that students with disabilities were achieving at grade level as long as classroom accommodations and test modifications were in place. There were some failures recorded for individual subjects in the middle school for a small percentage of students with disabilities, but none of these resulted in grade retention.

Data on student achievement collected in this evaluation suggest that the majority of the students with disabilities that received instruction in co-taught classrooms were not any less successful than when they received services in more restrictive environments. Comparisons were difficult to make based on state-mandated testing that changed between the two years of the study and with the different report cards used at different grade levels, but most students with and without disabilities did not demonstrate regression on achievement tests administered each year. Research that focuses on student achievement in co-taught and single teacher models as well as in co-taught and more restrictive environments is needed; however, under current legislation and practice, finding these distinctions in classrooms, especially for students with high-incidence disabilities, is becoming more and more an outmoded exercise. Evaluative approaches to these questions currently provide a practical alternative in lieu of this current and likely persistent lack of empirical data.

Wischnowski et al. explained that

Research that focuses on student achievement in co-taught and single teacher models as well as in co-taught and more restrictive environments is needed; however, under current legislation and practice, finding these distinctions in classrooms, especially for students with high-incidence disabilities, is becoming more and more an outmoded exercise.

I certainly agree that such data are needed. It would have been nice if Wischnowski et al. had provided more data. Apparently, there were some curriculum-based assessments that could have been aggregated and provided, for example. As it is, we readers are left with the assertion that students were “generally making progress through the curriculum” and “achieving at grade level as long as classroom accommodations and test modifications were in place.” Those statements are pretty soft. I’d really like to see the data. This is another time when we need Og Lindsley to shout, “Show me the data!”

Wischnowski, M. W. , Salmon, S. J., & Eaton, K. (2004, Summer). Evaluating Co-teaching as a Means for Successful Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in a Rural District. Rural Special Education Quarterly. Available online from FindArticles.com

Margaret Philp, Toronto (Ontario, CA) Globe and Mail, reported about using dictation to reduce the difficulties that some students with learning disabilities have in written expression. Her story uses a good combination of features including a human interest hook elaboration based on interviews and historical resarch. It’s worth reading.

In Ed School Asylums, Professor Plum takes another whack at the lunacy that too often passes as preparation for teaching.

Ed schools are a lot like psycho wards, and many ed perfessers are loony as well, but they DON’T know it. So, who’s the real nut?

How else would you characterize an organization that has impenetrable delusions of grandeur?

After this query, he lists a string of quotes from schools of education (with his comments on each). The quotes are notable for what they don’t say about preparing ed school students to teach and, therefore, for what they do say about ed schools.

One of the quotes (“Our graduates are reflective practitioners.”) looks suspiciously like language that my employer uses. I harbor the same concerns that Marty expresses. I know the reasoning that went into chosing that catch phrase, but I’ve never been satisfied with it. I wish we would say, “We teach our students how to identify and use those educational methods that produce the best outcomes for their students.”

A newly appointed director of special education for a local education agency in the Boston area (Medway, MA, US) was featured in a recent story. The article reported about Denise Rochlin’s meeting with the Medway Special Education Parents Advisory Council. Reporter Auditi Guha wrote that Rochlin, who has a wealth of special education experience, was walking “into a school district rife with problems, from knotty finances to deep discontent among parents of children with special needs.”

Asked what the challenges facing special education in Medway are, she said she would rather focus on the most positive thing she believes the district has — everyone interesting (sic) in working together cooperatively.
“All jobs are challenging. I think this position is challenging, but there is a very high level of support at all levels,” she said.
She is beginning to look at program needs in the district and will present a report later this year. She will also map out a year of direction that special education in the district should take.

I wish Dr. Rochlin well in creating those plans. Let’s hope that the map includes advocating for—even requiring—use of evidence-based practices. To be sure, other aspects of schooling (e.g., staff working relations) are important, but using methods, approaches, techniques, procedures, practices, etc. that are most likely to improve students’ outcomes should be the top priority in my view.

It’s flattering when someone uses something I’ve written in a news story. But, it’s disconcerting when the content is wrong.

Emily Berg published a story in the Desert Dispatch, a news source in the high desert area of California (US), with the headline, “Expect more, get more” and a sub-head of “Special education students learn faster when placed in regular classes, educators say.” Here’s a quote with my underlining:

Districts are making the change based on research that shows the old pull-out programs don’t work.

John Wills Lloyd of the University of Virginia, Steven R. Forness of the University of California, Los Angeles and Kenneth A. Kavale of the University of Iowa reported that putting students in special classes reduces their academic achievement. For every year they are in the special placement they lose two months of academic growth, said Ron Powell, the director of the Desert/Mountain Special Education Plan Area, which manages special education for the area.

It must be that Ms. Berg is basing this statement on the graph in that article, which shows a negative overall effect size (ES = -0.12) for special class placement. However, as Steve, Ken, and I take pains to explain in the text of the article, that overall negative effect size is misleading. There is actually a positive effect size (ES = +0.29) for special class placement for students with Learning Disabilities and those with Emotional or Behavioral Disorders, as shown in an image of a direct quote from the article. See this graph for an illustration. (I encourage interested readers to follow the links in the box on the lower portion of that page to learn about effect sizes and other common methods of serving students with disabilities.)

I don’t know whether Ms. Berg actually read the article that she sites. If she did, she must have missed the part where we explained that positive effect. I’d be glad to review it with her.

Of greater concern to me is that Ronald J. Powell, Ph.D., didn’t explain that positive effect to her during the interview she likely conducted with him. I have to trust that he didn’t deliberately mislead her by citing only the part of the article that aligned with a policy of his office. As a professional responsible for a public school organization that serves local education agencies and charter schools, Dr. Powell should be capable of understanding that not-so-subtle point we made in that article.

I’ll write to Ms. Berg and Dr. Powell, inviting them to respond.

This AM I spent several hours with my Curry colleagues in faculty meetings. This comment doesn’t reflect on my colleagues, but some of the topics of the meetings were awful. I have the opportunity to work with many wonderful people. Sadly, today, in our departmental meeting we discussed the Commonwealth of Virginia’s requirements for “highly-qualified teachers.”

The effort to have highly qualified teachers for students is laudable. The problems are many, though. Without enumerating them all here, just consider what’s happening with special education teachers at the secondary level: If they are to teach a content-area subject for students with learning disabilities, serious emotional disturbance, or other disabilities, they must not only meet the requirements for special education but also the requirements for each of those content areas. So, as I read it, a high school special education teacher who provides direct services to students with disabilities, must now have what amounts to certification in each content area she teaches, as well as special education.

That’s a heckuva new conceptualization of “jack of all trades.” It’s going to cost the state and local education agencies, because they are not going to be able to find special educators who can meet those standards.

Is that good in your view? In my view, it’s not. It’ll just provide another opportunity for parents to express concern about whether schools are meeting the needs of students with disabilities. Can suits be far behind?