Over on LD Blog last August I posted a note about how the educational system’s failure by one student serves as an illustration of the refusal to adopt effective teaching practices, favoring ideology instead. I pointed to coverage of a story about a boy named Miguel, a 12-year-old student to whom a local education agency apparently denied appropriate educational services.
The case of Miguel illustrates how educators reject reasonable and evidence-based methods in favor of ideologically driven policies. In place of employing powerful instructional practices and adapting instruction to individuals, schools too often explain away students’ difficulties. They make what amount to excuses!
In contrast to this sorry state of affairs, I was happy to see a post by Pam Wright of Wrightslaw regarding explicit statements about “methodology” in students’ Individual Education Plans.
By including frequent references to the need to use scientific, research based instruction and interventions, Congress clarified that methodology is vitally important. By requiring the child’s IEP to include “a statement of special education, related services and supplementary aids and services, based on peer reviewed research …” (Section 1414(d)(1)(A)) Congress clarified that IEPs must include “research-based methodology.”
Given schools’ failure to adopt evidence-based methods and implement them faithfully, it seems to me increasingly important that those parents who have the clout of an IEP employ that instrument to secure appropriate services for their children. I’ll continue to post entries here on Teach Effectively that identify techniques, procedures, practices, and methods that have strong track records for effectiveness, hoping that parents and advocates can use the contents of these posts to request evidence-based methods for their children.
Link Ms. Wright’s “Methodology in the IEP” from Wrightslaw and to “Miguel might show us what’s wrong” from LD Blog.
Jeanne Wherrett’s comment on an old post prompted me to update the links there. If one of the three or four TE readers have been frustrated by the 404 results for the links pointing to the old mega-analysis (Steve Forness’s term), those links have been fixed.
For those unfamiliar with that old site, it’s a compilation of meta-analyses about cognitive-behavioral treatment of adolescent depression, cognitive-behavioral treatments, computer-assisted instruction, decreasing disruptive behavior, direct instruction (big DI), early intervention, Feingold hyperactivity diet, formative evaluation of students’ progress, medication for students with mental retardation, mnemonic strategies instruction, modality-based reading instruction, peer tutoring, perceptual training, psycholinguistic training, psychotherapy (including behavior modification), reducing class size, social skills training for students with emotional or behavioral disorders, social skills training for students with learning disabilities, special class placement, stimulant treatment of hyperactivity, teaching reading comprehension, treatment of classroom behavior problems.
Jump to the mega site. Flash of the electrons to Ms. Wherrett (see her site) for alerting me to the issue.
After the note I posted about access trumping success, I’ve had some back-channel correspondence with colleagues who also lament the situation. Some of that correspondence focused on how important it is to determine students’ special education needs (i.e., complete an IEP) before determining the students’ placement (i.e., special school < --> full-inclusion). The discussion reminded me of a diagram that has appeared in each edition of Better IEPs by Barbara Bateman and Mary Anne Linden.
Continue reading ‘Special ed done the right way’
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?’
Jay P. Greene and Marus A. Winters examined the prevalence and costs of placement of students with disabilities in private facilities, and they found that much of the rhetoric about this controversial expenditure of schools funds was exaggerated. Professors Greene and Winters examined data from the US Department of Education, aggregating those data across states. They reported that only 1.48 percent of the 6 million students with disabilities are placed in private facilities. Furthermore, the estimated total cost of such placements—just under $1 billion—is just 0.24% of the total budget for education.
Continue reading ‘Out-of-LEA placements not as costly as portrayed’
Over on D-Ed Reckoning there is a post about an odor emanating from education research. The item was picked up in a post on NCLBLog: Let’s Get it Right, a product of the American Federation of Teachers, and I dropped a comment on that one about the evidence about effectiveness in special education practices.
Faithful readers of Teach Effectively (both of you!) know that I champion the idea that effectiveness can be assessed with strong empirical research and that data coming from those studies can be aggregated to assess relative effectiveness of educational practices. I’m republishing here parts of a Web site I created in the ’90s on this topic.
If you’re comfortable with the idea of meta-analysis, jump to the section labeled “Practices.” For a review of how to make those evaluations, please consult the links in “Introductory Materials” (in sequence).
- Introductory Materials
- The Practices
Please review the published papers that examine this same literature (see Forness, Kavale, Blum, & Lloyd, 1997; Lloyd, Forness, & Kavale, 1998). There are many other meta-analyses that I’ve not had a chance to drop into this format. I need to create a new template and update the contents…arrrgh.
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