Teach Effectively!

In Bibb County (GA, US) the schools have made substantial changes in where many students with disabilities receive their education, according to a story by Julie Hubbard in the Macon Telegraph. Ms. Hubbard reported that last year 900 students were taught in “isolated classrooms” but only 165 are in self-contained classrooms this year. Greater than 50% of students in Bibb County spend 80% or more of their schools days in general education settings. Although it’s not clear to me that “isolated classrooms” is the same as “self-contained classsrooms,” the change in numbers is substantial.

[To help understand the terminology, I checked the Georgia's State Department of Education (SDE) Website. Georgia schools use three relevant placement categories (leaving aside special schools and hospital or home-bound placements):

1. General Education Placement Greater Than 80%
2. General Education Placement No More Than 79% but At Least 40%
3. General Education Placement Less Than 40%

I'd hope to find the child count data for 2005 on the Georgia SDE site, as it would likely give the number of students in each placement for each local education agency (e.g., Bibb County). However, I did not find the data (perhaps someone among Teach Effectively's readers can help with this), so I can't clarify the numbers in Ms. Hubbard's story. By the way, I think these classes of placement are standard, not unique to Georgia.]

The thrust of the story is not so much the numbers—though some folks would look at those numbers and mumble about “dumping”—but the rationale for the changes in placement. To cover the inclusion story, Ms. Hubbard interviewed school officials, including director of special education Philip Mellor, who explained the changes.

“When you put students with disabilities with typically developing peers, they generally do better,” Mellor said. “It’s a better model.”

The inclusion model will improve learning, state test scores and self-esteem among students with disabilities, Mellor said. It also may lead more of the 2,900 students with disabilities to graduate and earn a regular high school diploma, he added.

State and federal guidelines always have required school systems to teach students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment possible, said Bibb County school board member Lynn Farmer. School officials thought their previous model might not be exposing the students enough to the state’s curriculum.

“If they’re not hearing the regular curriculum, how are they supposed to know it?” Farmer asked. “We’re certainly testing them on it.”

In an attempt to improve services, the system also has moved hundreds of students with disabilities back to their neighborhood schools this year instead of assigning them to a school specializing in a specific disability.

The rationale sounds familiar. I wonder, however, if the thinking has omitted student outcomes. How will the LEA know whether the students are benefitting? Will it actually even ask this question? I fear that effective teaching has been overlooked again in the search for reform.

Effective teaching can occur in both self-contained and general education settings. Simply changing the setting in which students with disabilities receive their education without changing the teaching they receive, in the direction of greater effectiveness, is not likely to improve outcomes for the students.

I support efforts to provide education in least restrictive environments (LRE), but I have to wonder if the LRE argument hasn’t presumed a higher level of importance than it deserves in this situation. The most important elements in special education are “free” and “appropriate,” as I understand it; “where” should be subordinate to those.

Link to Ms. Hubbard’s story.