Get Schooled

By jim d

March 2, 2007 12:08 PM | Link to this

Bridget,

I fear it does exist.

School systems have been known to spend more money fighting to keep from providing services than what the cost of providing them would have been.

The justification for this is that if they provide for one student they will have to provide for others.

By JustMe

March 2, 2007 12:18 PM | Link to this

As a teacher, I am frustrated. Sometimes, I have special students sitting in my class and all I am told is that they have ‘some problem’ but they (the case worker) cannot tell me what the problem is.

If I am supposed to include special ed students into my classroom, how in the world can I provide for them unless I know what their problem may be? Then, some incident occurs in my room due to this problem and I have no idea how to handle it. Does this make sense to anyone?

And yes, there is the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ mentality in more than one way. The more money and services provided to special ed students, the less of the proverbial pie remains for the other students. This pie may be teacher time, funds, or whatever. So when the government dictates that we have to do more for special ed, that translates into less for all other students. Is this right? You tell me….

By hs sped

March 2, 2007 12:39 PM | Link to this

I never knew that the state was accepting comments from the public regarding all the new changes, and I’m a spec ed teacher. We’re usually the last to know anything. We’re also the group that is usually jerked around when changes are made. Ask me about the highly qualified merry-go-round. From what I understand, most of the population will be able to be served through spec ed if they have any problems at all. This change, from what I understand, is so that the “slow learners” can now be served. Basically, I see the whole thing imploding upon itself. What is going to happen is there will be a small core of students that are not in special ed (the gifted?) and they will be pulled into their own classes and will be quite successful. The rest will be grouped together and chaos will be the norm. There will be no learning taking place as teachers frantically try to document that ALL are receiving the accomodations that they are entitled to. The curriculum will be dummied-down as two teachers cannot successfully teach a classroom of slowlearners and special ed students. Woe to the regular ed kid (not gifted), as he is the one who will really suffer being stuck in that mess. And we all know that class size is not really going to be reduced. The collab classes at my school hover around 30. The trend then will shift to NOT being in special ed. As the spec ed population grows at an exponential rate the once “desired” special services will become commonplace and no longer desired. That’s what I predict.

By 2 Cents

March 2, 2007 12:57 PM | Link to this

The amount of money wasted on special education astounds me, and the concept of mainstreaming so that special education students will be with regular education students and possibly adopt some of their traits has failed miserably. The opposite tends to occur. I have a small eleven person first period class of an esoteric elective in world languages. Three of my students in that class are special education, and they disrupt the class daily. They have no desire to learn or act right. They are just occupying spots. The amount of paperwork I must produce about these three is mind-bogglingly redundant and essentially worthless, as are the weekly meetings I am forced to attend.

I know I’m not being politically-correct, but so what. Special education has ruined regular education.

By JustMe

March 2, 2007 1:04 PM | Link to this

hs speed-

Actually, the opposite is supposed to happen. The State of GA Dept of Ed is proposing (as I understand) to eliminate special ed. Their reasoning is that all students are supposed to be included in the regular classrooms anyway, so why have a special label? Another part of their reasoning is NCLB. Even special ed students must pass those NCLB hurdles to get a high school diploma (HSGT, etc.), so why separate them?

This is why current special ed teachers are being asked to “specialize” in some academic area. This is to prepare them so that when special ed goes away, they can teach that academic course as a regular classroom teacher.

By scott

March 2, 2007 1:22 PM | Link to this

It boggles the mind when most educators agree that students grouped by learning ability learn more as a class than a class mixed with special ed, regular ed, ESOl, and gifted students. However, the trend is to have a melting pot classroom with two teachers; resulting in less overall learning for all students.

The catalyst for all of this have been lawsuits and until parents of regular ed students band together and produce a lawsuit demonstrating their kids are the ones suffering from inclusion, this will continue on.

I would like special education teachers to comment on what they believe is the best learning strategy: inclusion or the smaller special education students only classes.

By V for Vendetta

March 2, 2007 1:23 PM | Link to this

JustMe and hs sped,

This is scary indeed. I think much of the problem lies with how we define special ed these days. It wasn’t so long ago that a kid with that made up BS disorder ADD (I’ve made my feelings known on this subject many times having been diagnosed myself), a kid with chronic misbehavior, or a kid with high-functioning autism (such as aspergers) were not all lumped together.

Calling some of these kids “special ed” is just assinine, and to me, it dilutes the resources and manpower needed to provide for the kids who actually need it. The percentages don’t lie. If you were to look at the percentage of kids who are deemed special ed in the school system where you live, you would notice a number hovering somewhere between 10-20%. That’s absurd. Simple statistics dictate that if there is an anamoly within a certain group, that anamoly should not be appearing in more than 5% of the population.

Unfortunately this is not the case. Instead of booting kids out of school who are unable to control themselves (EBD), we create a special place for them. Instead of telling parents to get it together and help their kids stay focused and on task (ADD), we create a special place for them. Instead of telling a parent that her child who picks his nose and sticks pencils in his ear cannot take part in a “regular” classroom because he’s disrupting the learning of 29 other students, we bend over backwards to accomodate him. Ridiculous.

Special Ed students should have all the resources in the world available to them, but they should not be taking away from the leaning environment of general education students. And “special education” should mean just that. It shouldn’t be a term bastardized by the lumping in of every reject kid or “ADD” punk. There are kids out there who need REAL help and they are not getting it.

By jim d

March 2, 2007 1:32 PM | Link to this

AW what the heck.

One size fits all. RIGHT?

By Teacher Teacher

March 2, 2007 1:36 PM | Link to this

You know you’re in trouble when the special education department at your high school has twice the number of staff members as the math or English departments!

By teach overseas

March 2, 2007 2:26 PM | Link to this

Special ed is sucking the lifeblood out of regular ed. If regular ed parents actually got an accounting of excactly how much is being spent on a special ed kid vs. their regular ed kid- I’m hoping they would go through the roof.

And while is sounds very harsh to actually spend more on to fight the accomodation rather than just give it, jim d is right- it will just snowball and end up costing untold amounts of money to service others.

Public education is guarenteed by the government to be “free and appropriate” it’s NOT the best education money can possibly buy at public expense.

Parents of sped students will fight to the death- all the while claiming: “I only want what is best for my child.”

It’s the school districts responsibility to look after the best interests of ALL the kids.

Sometimes, sped kids are just like regular kids, they don’t get all they need. That is public education.

By 4th year in Hell

March 2, 2007 2:28 PM | Link to this

Just Me makes a very interesting point, but I do beleive it will be a matter of years before the state or country in going to do away with the “special Ed” label. This is my fourth year teaching Special Ed in Georgia. I am a carpet bagger from NY who got my degree there and moved down here because of the lack and necessity of special education teachers. While student teaching in NY, I was exposed to how a successful inclusion program can work in schools. I student taught at a middle school which had an amazing group of dedicated teachers who were willing to adapt and modify their classroom for students with special needs.
When I started my first teaching job in GA, I taught a resource language arts class in a district that was supposed to be more finacially better off than most and more progressive in their approaches to student curriculum. I was shocked. No inclusion, none. Behavior was a constant problem, which in the inclusion setting it is more manageable. With behaviors being a constant issue my academic teaching time was cut in half. Throw in any number of other daily “teacher work” factors and it was impossible to get anything done. It took me half of a school year to get through The Outsiders. I am now teaching at the high school level(in an urban district with next to no money) and I am actually co-teaching with another teacher. My student who I am responsible for are no longer causing the behavioral problems that they did in the past, mostly due to them not wanting to be labeled special ed in the eyes of regular students. Are they passing? No. Even with all of the modifications, pep talks, after school study sessions and “zero zaps” (and teachers don’t tell me you’ve never done it!) they still choose to not do their work, whether it be classwork or homework. When the only inspiration a child receives is from you for either 45 or 90 minutes a day, it will be near impossible to convince this child of what is necessary to be successful in school. How can we fix this? I have no idea, but I do know that special ed is becoming more regular than regular ed. As far as Us vs. Them……my train of thought is to do the best I possibly can for my student that I feel is right. There are too many children in this state that are neglected and abused. I see it every day.

By Dana from DOE

March 2, 2007 2:45 PM | Link to this

I don’t normally comment on this blog (this is the second time since I took this job) but regarding the first round of input on the Special Education Rules, we did a lot to communicate and get input, including holding meetings around the state, notifying special education directors, superintendents, support organizations, adovcates, special education lawyers and many many more people.

Regardless, there is now another chance to comment.

Visit this website to see a short video on the changes made since the first draft, to see the content of the actual rules, to learn how to participate in upcoming input sessions and to find addresses for written input.

Let us hear from you.

And Just Me…I don’t know where you get your information, but it’s not right.

Dana (Communications Dir. for GaDOE)

By HS Teacher Too

March 2, 2007 3:07 PM | Link to this

Just Me — can Georgia really decide to get rid of Special Education, when it’s a federally mandated (if not entirely funded) program?

V for Vendetta — I couldn’t have said it any better. I share your venomous taste for SpEd in general. To that end, I adamantly, wholeheartedly, 100% do NOT believe in special education except for the kids who profoundly need it, and in those cases I do not see inclusion as the way to go. I won’t sit here and write stories of my experiences, because I don’t have enough time. But put simply, special education is a waste of money, resources, and time. And trees. Oh my gosh, the paperwork… to do and say nothing!

I had a colleague a few years ago who went on an educational fellowship to Japan. He once told me that people wonder why we compare so poorly to countries like Japan, and (to paraphrase) among other (countless) reasons, they don’t have special education. Having a hard time? Work harder is just their culture/ethos/etc.

By HS Teacher Too

March 2, 2007 3:16 PM | Link to this

Sorry my last post was a little bit of a diatribe. To answer the question, I can’t say if it is always an us-v.-them situation, but I have sat in on my share of staffings and IEP meetings in which the parents certainly did feel that way.

As a teacher, my perspective was always one of “well, I can’t change the requirements, so I may as well deal with them …” unless the requests on me were what I considered to be ridiculous or grossly unfair, and in those (rare) cases, I stood my ground.

But on the whole, I would say that most of the time the parents seemed to feel comfortable with the level of services their child was receiving. Whether that was due to smooth talking on the part of the school or just the fact that the services were so minimal and unobtrusive to begin with, I can’t say.

By hs sped

March 2, 2007 3:18 PM | Link to this

Dana-I haven’t been to the website, but will try to visit it. Tell us about RTI and the upcoming way to make students eligible for LD services based upon their processing speed as opposed to a discrepancy between IQ and achievement. Thanks.

By JustMe

March 2, 2007 3:26 PM | Link to this

HS Teacher Too -

I got this information through a seminar at GSU with some of the top officials at the GA Dept of Ed.

The federal ‘requirement’ for special ed is changing under the NCLB umbrella. And, this will be how GA responds.

Believe me or not believe me, time will tell the truth….

By catlady

March 2, 2007 3:39 PM | Link to this

I find Dana’s comments interesting, since they directly conflict with what our special ed director has told us will be implemented (very little real special ed, almost everyone except profound being included in the regular classroom, as justme said). Why the discrepancy? In our county, we cannot get kids tested because, due to the new “tier” system for SST’s, no one qualifies for sp ed testing because they are being “successful” from our modifications, such as giving a 5th grader first grade work (Hey, they can do it so they are successful so no further testing is needed). Why is the official line so different from what the county is telling us? Is it just my county?

To the original question, my impression is that our county, perhaps due to parent lack of education and apathy, gets along well with its special ed parents. I know we spend an ungodly amount of money (BD consultant at $700 per day, psychologist for testing at $100 per hour, etc).

By whataboutgifted

March 2, 2007 4:26 PM | Link to this

You know, I get dern sick of all this sped garbage. When are the folks in public education going to wake up and realize the the people producing the jobs in this country are the gifted and give them at lease a smidgen of services instead of making them feel like they have done something bad because they on the right side of the bell curve.

Who is going to give the speds jobs if the gifted aren’t able to achieve to their potential?

By Dana from DOE

March 2, 2007 4:50 PM | Link to this

Cat, HS2 et al:

I think we’re talking about a language issue here. Definitely, there is more of a move toward an inclusion model in public schools. I’m not an expert (or even close when it comes to Special Education) but apparently there is a belief that this is best for the development of these students. However, we aren’t going to “get rid of special education.” If Federal language changed, we’d have to abide by it, but I’m not aware of anything that radical coming down the road.

HS Sped: Please DO look at the website and give us your feedback. You are the expert! As for your question, that is above me, but I’m sure it’s addressed in the rules. If not, email our special education folks and they can definitely answer it.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dana

By SMA

March 2, 2007 5:28 PM | Link to this

Dana, if you don’t know what you are talking about please stay out of this. Take a look at how much more intelligent other comments sound than yours. Figures that you would work at the DOE. I don’t know how people who contribute as little as you do look at themselves in the mirror. If the DOE cannot solve our problems then get out of the way and let these other folks who obviously have a clue solve them and get on with the business of education. Read the rules, look at the website. Disgusting.

By OldSchool

March 2, 2007 5:30 PM | Link to this

Dear Dana from DOE, I’m a 32 year veteran teacher who has NEVER had any training in how to adapt my course (drafting) or my teaching methods to meet the needs of my special ed students. I’ve never had a meeting with any special ed student’s teachers prior to enrollment in my class to try to determine if the student and drafting were a pretty good match. The results are me beating my head against a brick wall trying to “adapt” my course and all of its requirements to the needs of a student who can’t read, can’t do basic math, can’t measure…much less read an Architect’s or Engineer’s scale.

And I’m supposed to prepare these kids to enter the job market with the drafting skills they need to succeed?

Inclusion my left hind foot! Give me and my special ed students a break!

By Lisa B.

March 2, 2007 6:13 PM | Link to this

Dana,

I am glad someone from the DOE reads this blog. The comments are often enlightening.

By V for Vendetta

March 5, 2007 8:33 AM | Link to this

My question is this:

Obviously Dana showing up here shows that there are some in the DOE who DO read this blog. This fact has got me thinking. If the people in power DO see what those of us in the trenches are going through on a day to day basis, why do so many of the ideas, regulations, and practices contradict everything we say? Obviously this happens on a county level as well, but if people from the DOE are reading this blog I can almost be certain someone from my county is perusing it from time to time.

I find this revelation to be a bit disturbing. It shows me that the counties and states care more about expensive and meaningless statistic generating survey groups and vaccuous analysts than they do the people actually WORKING for them. We are constantly debating why this state ranks near the bottom in education (almost every other day we seem to have a conversation related to that topic). It would not take a gifted student to determine that what we are doing is not working. It would not take a gifted student to determine WHY what we are doing is not working.

This saddens me. I feel like there are a lot of people on this blog who enjoy their job but are frustrated enough by the ineptitude around them to seek employment in another field. It would seem at a glance that improvements could easily be made. It would be years before the results manifested themselves in student achievement, but the foundations could be formed right now.

Will this ever happen? Probably not. The educrats will continue to look for an easy solution. They will continue to trust the numbers and statistics generated for them by the expensive outside observers and ignore the “experience data” provided for them right here on this blog. The solutions are right in front of them. As a teacher, we call that being able to cheat on a test. Imagine a student who cheated on a test and still failed. Man, that sure would be dumb.

By Dana from DOE

March 5, 2007 11:12 AM | Link to this

Lisa, SMA, V, etc.

I do look at this blog regularly, but I kind of have a vested interest — I helped start it. I was Patti Ghezzi’s editor when she came up with the idea and helped her get it going. I even wrote a post once.

Lisa and V: I think, at times, there is very enlightening discussion on this blog. Other times, it’s just the same screed over and over.

SMA: If you read my first post in this string, I make it clear I’m the communications director, not a policy expert or a special education expert. I posted to make sure people knew that we did as much as we could to get input on the first draft of rules and that there was a second draft of rules posted and we wanted comments.

However, our Division of Exceptional Students is staffed by very smart and accomplished people who are strong advocates for special education. If you have a question about Special Education, they are the people to ask.

To that end, I have no problem looking at myself in the mirror, although it does tell me I’m overweight and getting old.

Have a great week.

By HS Teacher Too

March 5, 2007 12:06 PM | Link to this

JustMe —

Hoping my question to you didn’t come off as an attack. It really was just a question …

BTW, I agree with you 100%, whatabout gifted!! You know, I’d like one day to look at my kids’ teachers and ask them if they were ever SpEd … !!

By MomToTwo

March 5, 2007 12:58 PM | Link to this

The difficult thing for many to remember is that Georgia DOE has to stay within the confines of federal law (although exemptions can be made if GA were to choose not to receive federal funding). That said, inclusion, if done right, can work. Many states have implemented successful models. Inclusion is not throwing a child with special needs in to a regular ed classroom without support. It is also not putting all of the special ed students in to just 1 or 2 out of 5 or 6 regular ed classrooms. They need to be spread out!!!

By Newbie

March 5, 2007 8:53 PM | Link to this

I am a parent of one student labeled “sped” (who happens to have an IQ that is in the “gifted” range) and one student labeled “gifted” (who happens to have a reading disorder that puts her in the “sped” category). Y’know what? I feel like it’s an “us versus them” situation both ways.

I never felt as if my “sped” child was getting what she needed to perform as well as she could (and it really wasn’t much - just extra time to do tests because she thinks more slowly than other kids, but she still gets there and permission to type rather than hand write her papers, because she has poor motor function - schools still couldn’t manage to provide these things).

I don’t feel like my “gifted” child is getting what she needs (because the teachers are having to deal with the widely varying levels of motivation and self-control in the class, if you get my drift, which makes her have to fight harder to concentrate as she needs to to compensate for her reading difficulties).

Why do I have to feel this way? After 16 years of parenting children in public school, I am convinced that if it were just the parents and the teachers working together, without all the bureaucrats and paperwork blizzards, we’d all be a lot closer to getting what we (and the kids) really need.

And that’s my $.02

By Lisa B.

March 6, 2007 5:33 PM | Link to this

Newbie,

I agree with you. Your post is one example of the frustrations that regularly occur for students, parents and teachers. Common sense often seems to have left the school building.

By Julie

March 7, 2007 10:30 AM | Link to this

Special Education is needed. Question is, is what is it, which is also the problem. Special education is specialized instruction that allows a student to learn in the way they learn. Students who do not learn the way 80% of the population may end up needing a different approach. Take me for example, I learned to read through ‘osmosis’ aka “whole language”, which is how 80% of the population learns. I do not even know if we can call whole language a method of instruction. I just looked at words on signs, in regular class - I seldom read and in spite of that, I was a spelling bee winner. So some of us just seem to be able to figure out those squiggly symbols of language called the alphabet. We also hear the sounds in language and it makes sense to us. Some kids cannot even hear a rhyme, not that their hearing is poor, but they cannot differentiate between the sounds. So a visual or sound problem, or both can cause a reading disability. Take my daughter who is much brighter than I am, she could not differentiate a “G” from a “6” for a very long time, well past the 80% who got it by third grade. She was still getting the two confused in middle school. Was she severe? Who knows.

Did she need specialized instruction? YES. But unless educators are trained to know the difference, they tend to think it is “unnecessary”. After all, you can’t know what to do if you do not know what the problem is nor have the specialized skills to address it effectively. Most reading teachers in Georgia do not. Recent research funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation indicates that GA reading teachers are not taught what they need to know in order to effectively address reading problems.

About the teacher saying SPED is “unnecessary”, we all know there are many conditions we have not believed existed until we found effective treatments for them. Unfortunately the teacher who does not think SPED is not necessary is archaic in her thinking.

Even Ms. Cox, our state superintendent of schools does not know. Otherwise she would get effective reading programs into place. She does however; know the definition of “Lexile level”. Lexile levels are an assessment tool to determine just one aspect of the grade/difficulty levels of written material. Tools are only as useful as the person trained to use them. Tools in the hands of amateurs, are a joke. Hence we have a bunch of jokesters trying to teach reading in Georgia with their ‘leader’ guiding the way.

Just a hint of what they can do besides using a lot of meaningless rhetoric to throw off stake holders. First, when developing standardized state testing for reading, leave out all the context cues. A good reader does not need to guess by using ‘cues’. That is an archaic thought, by the way. More on that another day. Second do not use stupid questions on these tests. Here is an example of a CRCT question: What change should be made to the phrase “stir it around” in the sentence below? Put the rubber banded shirt in the dye and stir it around with an old stick. a. stir it round and round b. stir it about c. stir it d. stir it all over This question can cause brain damage (I mean this facetiously of course). Third, become better at knowing what works. Reading Recovery does not work. It is a whole language program disguised as something other. Some districts are using this. http://www.thereadingpeople.org/docs/reading_recovery.PDF Is it an ‘us against them’ issue? No, it is a an us against ignorance and incompetence issue.