As the new year approaches, with the hope engendered by a change in US government, here’s a salute to organizations—Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, Justice for All, and the World Institute on Disability, among others— that advocate for individuals with disabilities. These organizations and their siblings have done a great deal to secure health care, civil justice, employment, protection from violence, and many otherwise taken-for-granted features of daily life that are too often denied to individuals with disabilities. Now’s a good time to accomplish more.
On the educational front, one of the factors to which many disability rights organizations regularly point is the poor outcomes for students with disabilities after graduation from high school. The litany of unfavorable comparisons between students with disabilities and their not-disabled peers is familiar to many: higher unemployment, less frequent enrollment in post-secondary schools, more frequent contact with and incarceration by law-enforcement officials, etc. These are clearly outcomes that we would not only like to see improved, but also they are improvements that would auger well for our society (e.g., emphasizing the abilities of individuals) and economy (e.g., lower unemployment).
Among many advocates for individuals with disabilities, a (if not the) critical concern for public policy is ensuring access to situations to which those without disabilities routinely have access. Access may range from curb cuts that permit safer road crossings to computers that “read” printed text. Without elaborating further here, suffice it to say that the range of applications is far greater than this simple dimension, and information about possible means of ensuring or providing access abounds on the Internet.
Continue reading ‘Beyond access: Improving success’
Since 1997, the first Children and Technology Committee of the US American Library Association has maintained a list of Web sites for children that should be on the list of to-be-visited-locations-on-the-Web for readers of Teach Effectively. Here’s a snippet about the content:
The Web is a lot like a flea market: there’s a vast selection of sites to choose from but not a lot of order to it. Some sites are offered by reputable “dealers” and some from individuals who want to show off their personal favorite items. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a hidden treasure, what’s worth taking a look at, and what’s a waste of time.
It’s not hard to find sites if you use a search engine like Google, or a subject directory like Yahoo (or Yahooligans for kids). But how can you tell if a site you find is worthwhile?
Continue reading ‘ALA sites for kids’
Writing in the New York (US) Times on 19 November 2008, Sandra Tsing Loh calls for parents to mount a bottom-up revolution in public education. Although it’s short on specific proposals—and, of course, I hope the central feature would be a focus on teaching effectively—and long on criticism of politicians sending children to “toney private schools,” Ms. Loh’s concern about improving public education is well placed.
And yet, against all apparent odds, as a public school mother in the trenches, I’m extremely optimistic about this brave new era. The time is perfect for an American renaissance revivifying this most Jeffersonian of ideals — quality public education, available for all — where an educated citizenry is the heart of a thriving democracy.
I hope Ms. Loh’s call for a political renaissance aimed at improving the quality of public education is heeded. We in the US—and elsewhere on the planet—need not just a few well-educated elite children for the future but a mass of well-educated children. Going forward, as the pop phrase has it, out progress as a society as well as a species will depend on having lots of savvy workers, managers, innovators, and leaders.
I recommend Ms. Loh’s editorial. Here’s a link to it. For more about Ms. Loh’s thoughts regardinh parents taking a strong role in their children’s schooling, make sure that you read her sensible remarks cunningly disguised as notes about Jonathan Kozol’s views on education, see “Tales out of School.” The multi-talented Ms. Loh, who has a pretty solid educational pedigree (e.g., physics graduate of Cal Tech), has plenty of other interesting comments about education that merit perusal by parents and educators; browse her Web site at http://SandraTsingLoh.com/. I plan to read her book, Mother on Fire.
Sandra Tsing Loh, who may be familiar as a commentator on the US National Public Radio (among other venues), reports that some wit and persistence can make a difference in public schools. Although I’d followed her comments for other reasons, I was pleasantly surprised that she was presenting a fresh and thoughtful analysis of contemporary educational issues in multiple fora.
- “Tales out of School” (from the Atlantic Monthly) in which she compares her own street-level activism to the utopian visions of J. Kozol;
- “Ask a Magnet Yenta,” which helps parents in Southern California learn about magnet schools; or
- Her current home page.
Two organizations interested in improving the quality of education in the US have joined together to solicit support for their efforts. The organizations—Great Schools, and ED in 08—created a quiz that challenges parents to take a quiz about their knowledge of math or science (or both) and compare their results to those of students in the US and other countries. They’re using it to promote their agenda that they dub “Strong American Schools.” The image at the right opens a pop-up window from Ed in 08 for you to take the quiz.
Links for the sponsors: Great Schools (“the parent’s guide to K-12 Education”; interesting that they used the singular possesive) and Ed in 08.
Multiple sources accross Canada have covered a distressing story: Nearly ½ of parents of students with disabilities say they had problems securing special education for their children and nearly ¼ of the parents of students with disabilities in Canada said the needs of their children were not being met, according to a survey called “Participation and Activity Limitation Survey” (PALS) conducted in 2006. Overall the report shows that children with disabilities are served well, regardless of variations in type of education provided (full inclusion, part-time special education, or full-time special education) and students’ levels of severity.
As in most other developed countries, Canadian schools are required by law to provide “free and appropriate public education.” Apparently, lots of parents don’t think their children are getting it. To be sure, these are perceptions, but parents’ perceptions are powerful influences on schools’ functioning.
Continue reading ‘Which needs unmet?’
Don Hirsch published an editorial in Education Week that tells it true. We need, he argues, to place a greater emphasis on what and how we teach during children’s early school years. Of course, he champions his recommendation for adopting a clear curriculum during the early years, too. But, the big idea is that the primary and elementary grades are very important if students are to be able to excel in high school and college.
Continue reading ‘Hirsch hits homer’
In its current newsletter (No 63, Winter 2007: “The Great Reading Disaster; Beware BSF”), the UK Campaign for Real Education alerts readers to a dozen contemporary concerns about the quality of education. There are sections recounting the “great reading disaster,” concerns about the government program called “Building Schools for the Future,” notes about how English students scored on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, recognition that the Department for Children, Schools and Families has now (finally?) published guidance on teaching synthetic phonics, and much more. Link to the newsletter here.
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