Teach Effectively!

In cost cutting moves, the New Orleans (LA, US) local education agency will reduce its teaching staff by 520 teachers, 150 of whom will be special educators, according to Brian Thevenot of the Times-Picayune. “It’s unclear whether the cuts, while in some cases severe, will affect the system’s delivery of services to students,” Mr. Thevenot reported.

Responding to concerns over the cuts to special-education teachers from 950 to 800, [Interim superintendent Ora] Watson said the reduction stemmed in part from a plan to stop the inappropriately high identification of special-education students. Many, she said, have no learning disability other than the year-after-year failure of the city’s public schools to teach them properly.

Moreover, a study unearthed some special-education teachers who seemed to be hardly working, teaching as few as two class periods per day while students rotated into regular education classes.

Link.