Revitalizing Special Ed.

Hi Thirdshift,

The special education classrooms continue to be the dumping grounds for students. I teach a cross- categorical classroom, the IQ of my kids means nothing to me. I teach ED, MR, LD and OHI (many behavior disordered ADHD) in the same classroom. I also teach those ESL students who can’t read and are promoted to LD who shouldn’t be there except that they are still not teaching them to read i.e. WL. Also, there is the Matthews Effect. This research has proven that the longer the student can’t read, they can lose as many as 50 IQ points. It has been proven that IQ has nothing to do with the ability to learn to read. I think that the committee is tying the two initiatives together, No Child Left Behind and revamping sped, as they should be. I probably had 4 out of 25 kids that were truly LD and the rest were the result of dysteachia. With ADHD being included under OHI, IQ really has nothing to do with LD. LD is becoming a label for most of the behavior disordered kids that should be classified under conduct disordered or ED so nothing has changed. Shay

In many towns(mine for instance), there are no special ed. classrooms, except for the most severely impaired students…inclusion and this new initiative will, I think, allow more students to receive focused remediation than ever before. I think the big group that’s lost out lately are students who used to be called “slow learners”, IQ’s in the 70’s-mid 80’s, because they didn’t have a big gap between ability and performance but needed the kind of reading instruction that Shay writes about and didn’t get it because they didn’t fit the LD label.

Shay:

<< It has been proven that IQ has nothing to do with the ability to learn to read.>>

IQ has nothing to do with the ability to develop word attack skills. Decoding is only one part of the equation. Intelligence has everything to do with how well a student will develop comprehension skills and at what level.

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It’s just my opinion that these truly LD kids are the ones who are being ripped off the most. Perhaps if these LD kids had been provided with the small-group multisensory instruction that they required in the elementary years, they would have been success stories by now, and would have been exited from Special Ed., or would be on 504 plans to keep necessary accommodations in place.I am personally so against the cross-categorical classroom. Kids are placed in Special Education so that their special learning needs can be addressed. The LD child’s needs cannot be addressed when there are so many other distractions in the classroom—mainly behavior problems.

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Like I said, there’s a lot that I am in agreement with in this plan. I still feel that there should be a more definitive policy concerning eligibility for the LD label. For the past few years, I am truly feeling that the true LD students are the most under-served of all the exceptionalities. It is well-known that these students require a special kind of instruction, but often they don’t get it, because college prep curriculums don’t provide the necessary instruction. (Some are actually still preaching the “whole language” concept!) Also, the districts have been so bogged down with the paperwork issue, that they haven’t focused on training their teachers in instructional approaches these students require. Hopefully, this will be remedied, according to the report.

Sorry for rambling…

Marilyn

It’s not just special ed that’s a dumping ground. When I taught art, that was used as a dumping ground for all the students who couldn’t succeed in classes that required reading and writing. I asked some of my students what the heck they were doing choosing an art class when they had absolutely no interest in the subject; the universal answer was “The guidance teacher told me I had to take it.” On paper there is free choice of curriculum and inclusive classrooms; in practice the guidance counsellors in very many systems have a university-prep curriculum and a general ed curriculum and a non-readers’ curriculum, and these are as strict as any tracking ever was.
Not only that, but when I was last attempting to teach math, I finally got some classes of pre-calculus. Wow! I thought, finally some students working on something like grade level with something like motivation! Fat chance. This school had divided the pre-cal into AB and BC groups, and the head of department had the AB groups (naturally) which actually were college-bound; the BC groups were dumping grounds for kids who had sat out three years with five substitute teachers and who had neither the background nor the interest to do any real senior high math. The students, parents, and guidance counselors were much happier with the unqualified substitute teaching the other BC group than with me, because he put no demands on them (he told me he didn’t ask the kids to do half the work because he couldn’t do it himself.)
I constantly warn parents to be on the lookout — it is amazing how many classes are not what they are advertised to be.

Marilyn,

The trouble with the discrepancy formula is that it can apparently take several years for the gap to develop. These early years are critical times to offer intervention services. By waiting until the all-important gap to appear, we lose the opportunity to provide these critical services at a young age.

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Victoria:

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I think it’s rather sad that they don’t have a vocational ed. curriculum beginning at the 7th grade level for those students who are not academically inclined. I truly believe that if the academics were provided through life skills activities (carpentry, industrial arts, cooking, sewing, computer skills etc., that the students would be more motivated to succeed academically at their ability level. Not all students are college-bound, no matter how bright they may be. And now, at least in our area, students who wish to be accepted in the technical high schools need to have decent grades to get in. Where does that leave the rest who want to learn a trade? Well if the powers-that-be want no child left behind, they better get with the program and provide a curriculum for these students who have not succeeded academically for whatever reason—high mobility, low motivation, disabilities etc. There shouldn’t be any dumping grounds, anywhere. System administrators in regular ed. need to take responsibility for students who don’t belong in Special Ed. instead of trying to find every excuse to dump them wherever they can be dumped! I really am beginning to see strides being made in K-3, but I don’t see much beyond those grade levels. Maybe, we middle school and high school teachers will begin to notice improvement then those K-3 students get to us, but that won’t be for quite awhile.

Marilyn

Amen to this!!! I think that all children ought to be screened in K. It is pretty obvious then which children are having trouble. Then they ought to have intensive instruction beginning after K. We would have fewer kids who couldn’t read that way.

However, there are some kids, like my son, who still won’t read with the help a school district can give. We have paid for private help for 2 years and he is still behind. I have very mixed feelings about what the level of obligation a school district has to a child like mine who cannot succeed in a group setting.

Beth

Please be careful when assuming that IQ correlates with Reading Comprehension. Other factors can effect this process, especially visual processing. My son tested VIQ 154/ PIQ 102 2 years ago and could not understand MOST things he was reading due to a VPD. SInce he could decode, the teachers assumed he was not intelligent, not that he had an LD that was effecting his ability to comprehend. After therapy he now tests at VIQ 119/PIQ 135-much more even but still the SAME total, so his comprehension did not effect his IQ, it just effected his spread!! He is relying less on his verbal skills now and more on his visual skills.

For every child who fits a formula, you can usually find one who does not. Please don’t assume something this important-I am not saying that you would but that the statement concerned me due to what I experienced.

Beverly:

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But you had every indication that your son was bright, so of course you would assume that there was a processing deficit interfering with his reading comprehension. That’s what a learning disability is. And the therapy allowed him to improve his reading comprehension to HIS ability level. If he wasn’t intelligent in the first place, he would not have been able make such wonderful gains. And I’m curious: what was the time interval between the testing? And I’m also very suspicious of the big drop in the verbal scale score. Was the testing done by the same person?

Marilyn

I’m confused too with the drastic change in the verbal IQ and just the change in general. I’d be interested to know if it was the same exact test and evaluator?

When LD first became a label, it was common knowledge to believe that IQ was static. Now, thirty years later, we are pretty sure that evidence says IQ scores are very dynamic. So, what have we put our arms around with an IQ-discrepancy formula? Within the last two years, there is more evidence that IQ isn’t an academic performance predictor. If not this, what?

I’m still not sure I like curriculum based measurement because so much depends on selecting the right curriculum—and that, too, varies. I’m still reading on this one.

Why not just figure out which kids have deficits and remediate them? What difference does the label really make for most kids with LD? For kids with physical and emotional disabilities, and for those with moderate/severe retardation, the label opens the door to community services. Not generally so for kids with LD.

A special education director, for whom I had little trust as a parent, said something ten years ago that makes sense now: Just give us the money and let us educate students. I knew then that parents want safeguards, but I believe now that they aren’t getting them in any circumstances because in most places, they can’t dictate curriculum.

When I look at kids for reading groups, I really don’t care what is their label. I look for what skills they do and do not possess. No matter what some IQ score says their ability to be, I’m going to try to teach them to read. With the right elements, I’ll bet their ability improves! Hopefully acheivement, too.

I think ability is way more complex than a WISC. (I’m not sure I’ve brightened your day…)

I feel a complete obligation to every student in my school who is struggling to learn. Not every child is groupable, however, I cannot succumb to 1:1 for most children—only the very lowest percentiles when absolutely unable to be grouped.

What are your mixed feelings?