Evidence-based teaching methods for helping students who are at risk for school failure or who have disabilities.
Liz Ditz, who’s fed me many marvelous items recently but that I’ve had too little time to review, has an entertaining and enlightening post about the dark ages in reading instruction. Give it a read and, while you’re reading, please be very grateful that the dark ages have passed.
Link to Liz’s entry.
In February of 2005 I dropped an entry into Teach Effectively about how the District of Columbia (US) was having difficulty funding transportation required by a court order to ensure that students with disabilities could get to school. The saga continues, according to Jim McElhatton, reporting for the Washington Times.
A court-appointed administrator who oversees transportation for thousands of D.C. special-education students is at odds with D.C. school officials over his latest budget proposal.
The D.C. Board of Education last month rejected a budget request by transportation administrator David Gilmore to set aside $72.8 million for special-education transit costs for fiscal 2006. Instead, the board approved a resolution to budget $61.2 million for the transit program.
Thanks to the DC Education Blog for posting about this.
Link to Mr. McElhatton’s story.
The Northeast Regional Resource Center is holding a discussion about issues at the intersection of IDEA and NCLB. Their description of the event, that they refer to as “NCLB/IDEA: Joining Forces to Improve Achievement for Each and Every Student” refers to problems with schools not making annual yearly progress because of lagging performance by students with disabilities.
Start Date: 12/14/2005 Time: 10:30am - 12:00pm Pacific Teleconference: Toll free: 1-866-330-1200
Participant code: 894-7100#
If I get a chance, I’ll call and put in a pitch for teaching effectively. Along with calls from all one or two of the readers of this blog, perhaps that would help further the cause.
Link to the page previewing the event.
Here’s a case illustration of the need for qualified—let alone “highly qualified”—special education teachers, as reported by Heather Bremner of the Gilroy (CA, US) Dispatch. The lead is so much better than I can do in summarizing her treatment of the topic that I shall quote more than I usually quote:
Special education teachers are so rare that even without an emergency credential, Katrina Strand landed a job at Gilroy High School.
The Gilroy Unified School District board unanimously approved the move at a recent meeting. Strand, who is teaching the GHS special day class, worked as a long-term special education substitute in another district, but she has yet to earn a teaching credential or enough units in special education to apply for an emergency permit.
GUSD Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Linda Piceno said she had to make the recommendation because special education teachers are “just not out there.”
“The demand is certainly exceeding the supply,” she said.
Of the district’s 33 special education teachers, three have emergency credentials and one has a waiver.
Ms. Bremner goes on to explain how this situation will be exacerbated by the provision of No Child Left Behind, which requires that special education teachers be highly qualified in subject areas they teach. It is an insightful report on this important subject, worth reading.
Link to Ms. Bremner’s article
I know that I should have a schedule for reviewing the products of the U.S. government’s What Works Clearinghouse, but I don’t. I have previous posts here (24 Mar 2005) and here (7 Jan 05) but my calendar is irregular. Still, I thought it was a good time to check in on the goings on again.
What did I find? There are new materials in the second-level analyses—studies on a topics but not full-blown reviews by the WWClearingHouse that are worth reviewing: Cognitive Tutor; Connected Mathematics Project (CMP); The Expert Mathematician. Nothing stunning….
I’d really like to provide a set of links to what the WWC has accomplished, but the technical folks, those who run the Web site, are so wedded to the technology of one particular commercial company that it’s very difficult to refer to their links. I really wish they would get a clue that not all of us want to be beholden to one company’s technology.
More importantly, I’m still waiting to get to the heavy stuff. I know it takes time, but y’all got the resources. Giddy-ap!
Link to the general site (given their adoption of M$ technology, you’ll have to explore on your own.)
Brenda McBrayer, special education teacher at Conner Street Elementary school, received Putnam County (WV, US) Teacher of the Year honors for 2005, according to Adam Brown writing in the Putnam Herald.
“The most challenging part of what I do is to work with so many different abilities and to give each child enough time,” McBrayer said. “There’s never enough time for each child to receive the introduction of structures that work in a classroom setting.”
Link to Mr. Brown’s story.
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