It’s April and time for STEP  Four!  As you know, every month in 2011, we’ll post a STEP  to FIX special education.  There are 12 steps. By December, our systemic transformation should be well underway! Please share your comments and let us know the steps you are taking to fix special education. 

 April 2011—Step Four to change the path we are on

 Educate all students, without labels. End the reliance on the medical model as gatekeeper for services in our schools. 

 Where we are now….

To obtain special education services in the U.S., a student needs to pass a gatekeeper to get a label signifying that he or she is diagnosed with one or more of the 14 disability categories recognized by federal law. The term ‘medical model,’ as used here, describes that gatekeeper model—a system to diagnose children and then special education to ‘fix’ or ‘treat’ or remediate the disability.  The law is based on the idea that something is wrong with the child that the schools need to fix or improve. 

 Many issues have emerged from this label-driven system.  Much of it is based on flawed research. For example, the labels we used are viewed as fixed—even as brain research suggests otherwise—the brains are more fluid and change over time. We spend much effort on treating the disability, rather than focusing on skills and knowledge that students need to learn.  Some science we believe in—such as the belief in ‘learning styles,’ or dividing students into VAK categories (visual, auditory, kinesthetic)— is discredited by current science.  And finally, we really don’t know why some struggling learners are labeled with a disability and receive special education services, while others are left behind as, well,  just ‘struggling learners’ Our identification procedures are flawed.

 Where we need to be. How to fix it?    We need to change our belief systems and the incentives we have in place. We need to make it unproductive to spend money and time on labeling, and productive to spend it on teaching and learning.   As Don Asbridge wrote, “Students need to go to school to get an education, not a diagnosis.”

 We need to focus on educating all children—not on sorting them. Let us educate children based on what they know and can do and need to learn, rather than on who they are. 

The No Child Left Behind Act and IDEA’s focus on response to intervention (RtI) is a good start. RtI provides targeted assistance to young students, especially in reading and math. The theory is that if we teach children at their level—from the start—fewer of them will be referred for special education.

 Every learning difference is not an illness or defect. Teachers need to focus on teaching all types of learners, not sorting and diagnosing them.

 Creative open-minded problem solvers—we need you now!

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These steps are taken from Fixing Special Education—12 Steps to Transform a Broken System.  The book is available at School Law Pro: http://schoollawpro.com/fixing-order.doc and at 

Park Place Publications at http://www.parkplacepubs.com/online-store/view/fixing-special-education-12-steps-to-transform-a-broken-system

 Stay tuned for May’s STEP!

It is April. Time for step 4!  Tomorrow’s blog will be just that.

Steps 4 through 9 are for changing the path we are on. Switching gears. Following credible research. Keeping our eye on the prize–educating all students to high standards and preparing them for life after K-12.

As the editors of Rethinking Special Education for a New Century  wrote, back in 2002,

“The choice confronting today’s policymakers is not whether to keep the program as it is or return to the pre-IDEA status quo.  Rather, the challenge is to modernize the program, building on what we’ve learned about both special education and education in general.”

Until tomorrow!

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/congress/2011/03/us-house-reinstates-dc-school-voucher-program#

All that fuss and commotion and angst and emtion about vouchers.  AT MOST, they serve 1% of US students. Special education serves some 14% of US students.  The system is broken. Yet, it reform of that system does NOT make the front pages of our papers.  It’s about time that it does.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/03/dear_diane_if_george_orwell.html?intc=mvs

If you’re puzzled, join the crowd. This Bridging Differences piece includes  most interesting language used to describe our President’s speech.

The disconnect between our government’s policy and this speech about, in part, his own daughters in private schools–now what are teachers supposed to think and do?

We need clarity, not obfuscation.

Dear readers….

If you tried to download the nifty practical ONE-PAGE definitions of FAPE under the IDEA/ MA law and under Section 504, please try again. The links are fixed!

Please let me know what you think of the FREE STUFF. Thanks.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/03/lawmakers_grill_duncan_on_spen.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CampaignK-12+%28Education+Week+Blog%3A+Politics+K-12%29

This  article is listed under Politics-K12 in Education Week. Need we say more?

While it’s good that we’re talking about whether more spending on education is leading to better results (it is not, necessarily) it is bad that the discussion is wrapped in politics. One party says yes to more spending;  one says no. Knee jerk reactions?

Until we get the matter out of politics into reliable research on what works and what does not, we will continue to fret and fret and then spend and spend.

The discussion should be among educators–not politicians!

http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/thinks_tanks/151930.html

Thank you for this story. Finally, we are talking about burdensome federal regulations. 

However, the story has a HUGE gap–not a word about special education. That arena alone is burdened by paperwork, has onerous bureaucratic requirements that impede teaching and learning for all students, and costs schools some 20-40% of their budgets–though we  don’t even know how much of that cost is due to bureaucratic requirements.    The legal requirements in this arena alone take up hours and hours of educators’ and administrators’ time, drive teachers away from the field,  take teachers away from precious time-on-task with students, and incubates litigation and the fear of litigation in our schools.

It’s time to place this arena on the table.  I’m disappointed that it is not there yet.

http://edworkforce.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=229296

Thank you, Duncan Hunter, for bringing this issue forward at last. Let’s hope we finally get action to reduce  paperwork work and  focus attention on teaching and learning for all students!

And thank you www.mkcresources.net.  Teaching on Edge, for bringing this post to my attention.

http://www.mkcresources.net/teachingonedge/.  Go,  Mary!  as you say, let’s hope this action pushes that elephant out of the middle of the room!