Teach Effectively!

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.

I spent a little time browsing the Web site of the Center for Teaching Quality and came away unencouraged. The organization has a lot to say about the people involved in teaching, but little to say about how to do it. Apparently, these folks think teaching effectively is mostly about the conditions surrounding teaching rather than the actions of teaching. Here’s the organization’s vision statement:

The Center for Teaching Quality improves student learning through developing teacher leadership, conducting practical research and engaging various communities. To accomplish this mission, the Center for Teaching Quality strives to shape policies that ensure:

Students, no matter what their background or where they go to school, are ready to learn; with

Teachers who are caring, qualified, and competent with vast content knowledge and the ability, through quality preparation and ongoing development and support, to ensure that all children can learn; in

Classrooms that have adequate resources and provide environments conducive to student learning; in

Schools that are designed to provide teachers with sufficient time to learn and work together in collaboration with a principal who respects and understands teaching; in

Districts that have policies and programs that support the recruitment, retention and development of high quality teachers in every school; in

States that have well-funded systems that include rigorous preparation and licensing with evaluation tools that ensure performance based standards are met; in a

Region that works collaboratively, using common teaching quality definitions, sharing data, and working across state lines to recruit, retain and support high quality teachers; in a

Nation that views teaching as a true profession and values teachers as one of its most important resources.

Nice words and niftily arranged…now, what about what those teachers in those classrooms in those schools in those districts in those states in those regions do?

Link to the Center for Teaching Quality Web site.

A while back in a story about parents demanding effective teaching from schools, I mentioned that an advice columnist had suggested seeking funding for tutoring via Florida’s McKay program. Liz Ditz reminded me of this story and pointed out some of the problems with Florida’s voucher program and one of the major benficiaries of it. Her notes about these issues are very worthwhile reading.

• Florida vouchers
• Dyslexia school

Thanks, Liz!