Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

No matter what laws, court rulings, or research studies say, inclusion is in danger of collapsing or becoming a hollow, ineffective, and perhaps harmful option for placing and educating children with disabilities. This is due, in part, to budget cuts and the corrosive effects of public policy on teachers.

First, we’ll list some of the more critical factors needed for inclusion to work. Then we’ll discuss how public policy is undermining them. Finally, we’ll suggest what you can do to support meaningful inclusion.

Critical Factors

For inclusion to work, it needs teachers who:

• Have classes of manageable size, allowing them to individualize instruction and follow Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).
• Have classes with only a few children with serious learning or behavioral problems.
• Have ample time to discuss and plan for children’s needs with parents and colleagues.
• Continuously improve their teaching through professional development opportunities that frequently include in-class consultations and demonstrations.
• Get the help they need from knowledgeable, readily available support personnel, such as reading specialists, language specialists, and school psychologists.
• Get the supports they need for teaching, such as books, software, and planning time.
• Feel appreciated and respected.
• Know that if they do a good job, they will be supported, respected, and will retain their positions, even if their children’s or school’s test scores are low.
• Get the support they need from their children’s parents.

Undermining Inclusion

Daily, newspapers report the layoffs of teachers and support personnel and the erosion of educational supports teachers need to ensure quality instruction. Just look at these symbolic stories from across the country:

New Jersey: The tri-county region’s largest high school district proposed eliminating 133 school and security positions … and cutting several programs …. ‘This is by far the most challenging and disheartening budget the board and administration have prepared in recent memory,’ said [the] superintendent of schools. (Courier-Post, 2010)

Illinois: Special-education advocates fear that as the state’s budget crisis filters into classrooms, more school districts will skimp on services to children with disabilities…. Rodney Estvan, education policy analyst…. fears that districts will start to cut programs affecting all children… pitting parents against each other…. Others worry that more students with special needs will be placed in regular education classrooms without proper support…. On Monday, [the Illinois] state schools Superintendent … [allowed] districts to request a waiver to a law requiring that at least 70 percent of students in a regular education classroom not have special needs. (Black, 2010)

California: Two thousand [of Los Angeles’] teachers gone last year and more are on the chopping block right now…. The District was forced last month to send out nearly 5,200 [layoff] … notices to teachers, principals and other school-based staff…. [Los Angeles will] shorten the school year by five days … [to] preserve class sizes that are already too high. Teachers are losing instructional time…. Many of those lucky enough to keep their positions are subject to numerous unpaid furlough days [and] a steep reduction of work time. (Cortines, 2010)

Unfortunately, with widespread layoffs, classes will be larger and enroll more children with disabilities. Often, support personnel will be unavailable to help teachers help children with disabilities. If support personnel are available, they may well rush through their meetings with teachers, feeling pressured to meet with other teachers who also need their help—now. Larger classes, less help, and more children with disabilities per class will force many teachers to attend less to the needs of children and spend less time discussing children’s needs with parents and colleagues. It will force teachers to multitask far more than they should, leading to mistake after mistake. This situation will aggravate the difficulties and frustrations of children with disabilities. It will aggravate, even anger, many parents. It will overwhelm and fatigue many teachers, causing burnout. None of this bodes well for the success of inclusion.

Even in good times, school budgets inadequately supported professional development. Today’s draconian budget cuts have drastically curtailed even the meager opportunities of past years. Without ongoing professional development, few general education teachers will develop and refine the knowledge and skill they need to help children with reading, writing, memory, social, behavioral, and other difficulties. Without teachers continuing to improve their knowledge and skills, children with disabilities will suffer. Consider this in light of the push for ever higher academic standards, the layoff of support personnel with expertise critical to the success of inclusion, and the emphasis on testing, testing, and testing—and, oh yes, more testing. Insufficient opportunities for professional development, along with less help from support staff, bode poorly for the success of inclusion.

Also boding poorly for inclusion is disrespect for teachers voiced by instigating politicians and vocal citizens. In this time of school budget defeats, budget cuts, and teacher layoffs, bursts of nasty comments about teachers often hurts their morale. Look at reader comments in a smattering of newspapers from around the country and you’ll quickly see that many people despise teachers. In New Jersey, they complain that teachers have it easy—they get extravagant salaries and pensions, they baby sit, they get summer pay for vacationing.

New Jersey’s Governor Christie is no better. He continues to blast teachers, saying that those who don’t agree to salary freezes and perhaps givebacks are causing their districts’ financial problems. He criticized their ethics. As one New Jersey newspaper wrote:

Gov. Chris Christie today escalated his war of words with the state teachers’ union, accusing union representatives of ‘using the students like drug mules’ to carry information about whether their parents planned to vote. (Heininger, 2010)

Scapegoating teachers, publicly trying to beat them into submission, trying to anger and demoralize them for a political victory, will hurt inclusion. For inclusion to work, teachers need to focus, reflect, and feel optimistic—not feel stressed, defensive, and pessimistic.

Adding to teachers’ stress and defensiveness are attacks on tenure, attacks tied to children’s test scores. Ending up with low test scores can get excellent teachers fired. When thinking about this apparent contradiction, keep in mind these points: (1) teachers can influence test scores, but scores are influenced by many other factors over which teachers have little or no control, such as the children’s health, nutrition, attendance, sleep habits, values, parents, and academic history; (2) tests often measure—inadequately—what they claim to test; (3) many standardized testing programs ignore areas of learning critical to children’s success, such as motivation, creativity, reasoning, social skills, interpersonal problem solving, self-confidence, science, social studies, and oral language abilities; (4) compared to average teachers, superior teachers often get classes with far more difficult-to-teach children, children who start the year with test scores far below grade level. Superior teachers often get more difficult-to-teach children for a simple reason: they’re usually best at helping them. Punishing these teachers for poor test scores bodes poorly for inclusion.

Tying teachers’ tenure and job security to test scores is fast becoming a national trend. As a column in the Washington Post noted:

The Obama administration’s Race to the Top program demands that teachers be evaluated by student test scores. Florida’s legislature passed a bill in April to end teacher tenure and base pay increases on test-score improvement; although Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed that attempt, legislatures in Colorado, New York, Oklahoma and other states have also modified regulations regarding tenure with an eye toward Race to the Top. (Kerr, 2010)

Here’s what Colorado’s new law says:

Teachers could lose tenure if their children don’t show [test] progress for two consecutive years…. Teachers can appeal dismissal all the way to the state Supreme Court.” (Slevin, 2010)

Laws like this may have an unintended consequence: They may cause general education teachers to fight the placement of children with learning or behavioral problems in their classes. Because such children are often very difficult to teach, because they often require far more attention, time, and help than average achieving children, and because with even the best of teaching, many of them may show little progress, they threaten the job security of excellent teachers. This bodes poorly for inclusion.

Related to the attacks on tenure is the Obama administration’s support for closing schools that do poorly on standardized tests, firing the teachers, turning the schools into charter schools, and perhaps rehiring up to fifty percent of the teachers (possibly at lower salaries). Policies like this send a chilling and unjustified set of messages to teachers: “Don’t teach in poor schools: if you do, you’ll soon get fired, no matter your effort, skill, and dedication. Teachers, and teachers alone, are responsible for children’s poor test performance; forget children’s hunger, chaotic sleep, poor health, lead poisoning, poor pre-school language development, information processing problems, unstable families, violent homes, violent neighborhoods.” Simply put, if good teachers avoid or flee poor schools, in these schools inclusion may well harm children.

Suggestions

I’ve seen poor teachers. But I’ve also seen poor bakers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, attorneys, psychiatrists, radiologists, and parents. My experience observing and speaking to hundreds of teachers is that most are good and try to keep improving. And many are excellent and have devoted their lives to helping children. Attacking them will not make them better and will not aid inclusion.

If inclusion is going to work, if it’s going to be more than a hollow promise that hurts rather than helps children with (and without) disabilities, children need optimistic, enthusiastic, well-educated teachers who get the support they need to help their children. It’s up to the public—you—to support them, to talk and write about the good they do, to lobby for the support they need to excel, to lobby for the support they need to help all children, including those with disabilities. Alone, laws, court rulings, and research cannot make inclusion succeed—it takes good, well-supported teachers.

References

Black, L. (2010 June 17). Special-ed advocates fear children will suffer in budget crisis: Larger classes, fewer teachers feared. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 6/17/2010, from www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northnorthwest/ct-met-ombudsman-sidebar-20100617,0,3929918.story.

Cortines, R. (2010 April 14). California’s Bad News Budget Threatens Education Reform. Huffington Post. Retrieved 6/17/2010, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ramon-cortines/californias-bad-news-budg_b_537888.html. [Note: The author is the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. This is his written testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee.]

Courier-Post (2010 April 2). Lenape plans to cut 133 jobs. Retrieved 6/12/2010, from www.courierpostonline.com.

Heininger, C. (2010 April 19). Gov. Chris Christie accuses N.J. teachers’ union of ‘using students like drug mules’ in school elections. NJ.com. Retrieved 6/17/2010, from http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/gov_chris_christie_accuses_nj.html.

Keer (2010 June 18). The right way to assess teachers’ performance. The Washington Post. Retrieved 6/18/2010, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/17/AR2010061704565.html.

Slevin, C. (2010 June 12). In bold move, Colorado alters teacher tenure rules. Associated Press. Retrieved 6/12/2010, from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100612/ap_on_re_us/us_grading_teachers.

Howard Margolis, Ed.D. (c) Reading2008 & Beyond           www.reading2008.com