Teach Effectively!

Over on Mentor Matters, Mrs. Ris provided an excellent example of how the continuum of services has been thinned to the point that it cannot accommodate children. She has been documenting the situation with siblings who have emotional and behavioral problems—one who has been identified and the other who soon may be—and her school administrator’s efforts to meet these children’s needs…sorta.

In Mrs. Ris’ entry for 6 October, she provides editorial comments on the need for and absence of services in general education classrooms and elsewhere along the continuum of alternative placements.

The full continuum of services envisioned by the crafters of the original spec ed law is just not out there. Counties just say, “We don’t have that here, so the child has to receive services in a less than desired setting.” To my mind, this borders on the criminal. It’s definitely unethical.

Here! Here!

Link to Mrs. Ris’ entry on Mentor Matters. (Search for previous entries referring to her on this blog and over on EBDBlog.)

Last month we noted that Sheena Dooley covered the story of a parent in Indiana who complained that the principal of her son’s school and the director of special education for the local education agency had admitted the school failed to provide appropriate services for her son (see Uh-oh). Ms. Dooley reported 5 October 2005 that two other parents have filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Education about special education in the Fort Wayne Community Schools.

A U.S. Department of Education official has confirmed three parents in the last month have filed formal complaints with the agency against Fort Wayne Community Schools, alleging the district violated the rights of special-education students.

Link to Ms. Dooley’s 5 October article.

I’m late posting about this story, but it merits recounting. The Associated Press picked up a story reported 25 August 2005 by Karen Kane and Virginia Linn of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA, US) about a boy who died during administration of a controversial therapy for autism. It’s a sad one.

A 5-year-old autistic boy died Tuesday in a Butler County doctor’s office while undergoing an increasingly popular though controversial medical treatment touted by some as a cure for the lifelong neurological and developmental disorder.

Abubakar Tariq Nadama died while receiving chelation therapy, an intravenous injection of a synthetic amino acid that latches onto heavy metals and is then passed in the urine.

State police at Butler are investigating Nadama’s death, which occurred at about 10:50 a.m. Tuesday in the office of Dr. Roy Eugene Kerry in Portersville.

Authorities said Kerry’s office reported that the child was receiving an IV treatment for lead poisoning when he went into cardiac arrest.

There has not yet been a finding that the therapy caused the death.

The private group, GenerationRescue, that is touting chelation therapy as a cure (the group’s choice of word) for autism issued a statement reiterating its position. The group provides 31 links under the heading “Top Scientific Reports.” Most of them are not reports of studies, but testimony before Congress, Web sites, and public statements. A few are data-based articles in reputable journals, but they are exclusively about issues such as the incidence of autism, not the effects of chelation therapy. I didn’t spot any that showed behavioral changes following chelation therapy.

Here are links to addtional coverage:

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette original and follow-up stories;
• MSNBC story (AP);
• Advokids blog entry;
• BloggingBaby’s entry;
• The GenerationRescue statement,

Rachel Kreinces, one of the recent college graduates who opted to participate in Teach for America for two years, is now responsible for the Individualized Education Programs of sixth graders who have disabilities, according to a story by Tamar Lewin in the New York Times. After graduation from the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Kreinces decided to take on the duties of teaching special education prior to matriculating for a law degree.

After taking a five-week training program over the summer, Ms. Kreinces is teaching sixth-grade special education students at Public School 123 in Manhattan, arriving at 7:30 a.m., prepared to offer as many tutoring hours and after-school meetings and gimmicks as it takes to help them learn. Before school started, she bought gold envelopes and cut out round “I’m a champion” medals for each student.

“In training this summer, we watched videos of this incredible teacher,” she said. “He had this ‘Mission: Impossible’ theme going, and his kids were clamoring for more homework, and we were all sitting there thinking, ‘How can I be this kind of teacher?’ And my idea was this Classroom of Champions. I want so much for these kids to do well.”

I admire Ms. Kreinces’ desire to contribute to the betterment of the US, but I have to wonder if a 5-week program is sufficient. Of course, it might be better than the awe-inspiringly terrible programs that are offered by some multi-year teacher education schools, but is five weeks long enough to learn about the requirements for handling IEPs legally, reporting results to parents frequently, performing non-discriminatory assessments, and such? How about modifying instruction to meet those PLOPs, presenting lessons clearly, and assessing progress systematically,, and the host of other things that go into teaching effectively?

Also, I hope someone disabused Ms. Kreinces of the notion that all it takes for students in special education to succeed is motivation. The “L” in LD does not stand for lazy. Perhaps Ms. Lewin selected the quote about “Classroom of Champions” for its human-interest appeal. Let’s hope it doesn’t reflect the sum and total of what Ms. Kareinces explained to Ms. Lewin.

I feel some musings about TFA and special education arising….

Link to Ms. Lewin’s story (free subscription required).

A novice teacher with a new blog and who lives in California described concerns about the quality of instruction she received in a class about special education provided by California’s Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) Program. Although much of what the person, who identifies herself as LingLing Zilla and bogs at “Blog of an Uncertain Teacher,” wrote regarding the BTSA covers other issues, a couple of paragraphs are about maleducation at the teacher preparation level.She described a person who presented a 1-day seminar on special education for the beginning teachers.

It turned out, she really didn’t have much substance to teach us, novice teachers. Her focus was gifted students plus a bit on differentiated instructions, with focus on, again, gifted students. Man, I don’t remember seeing a lot of gifted students in my classroom when I was still teaching. I think I got, maybe, two? She did not mention much (if at all) teaching strategies for kids with learning disabilities or other problems. Nor did she mention the procedures that a teacher SHOULD know if you suspect a student might be having LD or ADD or dyslexia. 504 plan? IEP? She didn’t mention any of those BASIC stuff in her SpEd seminar.

There is more to Ms. Zilla’s observations, of course. She goes on to compare the BTSA course to what she had learned in an earlier course she took, apparently during her undergraduate teacher education program. It is instructive.

Link to Ms. Zilla’s post. Link to a description of California’s BTSA program.