Questions about Special Ed and No Child Left Behind

       Last night, I went out to have supper with a couple of friends who work in Special Ed.  While there, of course, they started talking shop.  Special Ed is not my forte so I just listened and I learned something I did not know.  No child left behind initiated inclusion in Tennessee.  However, Tennessee does not implement inclusion the way other states do .  Here, in Tennessee, a decision was made to replace most of the self contained classrooms with inclusion models.  

     The problem with inclusion is that it excludes some of the students in Special Ed.  For example, one of the students attends a music class where the other students are playing instruments. Due to the pace of the class this child cannot keep up.  If his assistant tries to help him it disrupts the entire class.  This child is unable to transition quickly.  To stand up and sing and then sit down and do an activity is very difficult.  Or consider the child who is learning how to feed themselves.  Should that child be in the cafeteria with all of the other students in his grade who can watch him struggle.  How about a newly verbal autistic child who is placed in a gen, ed. classroom where they are expected not to talk. This child needs to be encouraged to talk or he could lose his small but significant gains. It seems we have taken a one size fits all approach to something that should be custom tailored for the needs of the child.

      We are all wondering what the original intent of NCLB is for Special Ed students.  Did the legislators who drafted this consider the wide variety of needs which must be addressed? Is Tennessee approaching this correctly?  What are other states doing?  Although I realize inclusion is cheaper, it sounds like there are student falling through the cracks who need greater support.  Are we producing citizens who can join the workforce when they are sitting in a gen.ed. class coloring pictures?

      The issue is not with the teachers.  There needs to be more tools available for them to provide the support the children need.  The issue is not with the students.  Many of them have their own gifts and they need to be honed.  They also need the opportunity to socialize with their peers.  The fault, once again,  is with a policy which is disconnected from the realities of the classroom.  These misinformed policies are putting so much extra strain on good teachers.  When I hear people discuss the need to retain good teachers, it's easy to see that one of the first things that needs to happen is our policies need to line up with the reality of actual schools.

        We would love to hear how your district is addressing Special Ed with inclusion, especially related to students with co-morbid conditions such as blind students with auditory processing issues or situations where inclusion has the potential to humiliate the exceptional ed student.

Co-written with current education professional
   

Change of Venues

    As of this week I am no longer teaching in a Public School.  I have been tapped by the Nashville Technology Council to head up their K-12 initiatives.  I spent the weekend at Phreaknic19 in Murfreesboro learning Python, Info Sec and Basic Networking.  I am looking forward to sharing what I have learned with teachers, volunteers and students across the Southeast.

    I am still an educator/trainer but my venue has changed.  This blog was originally written to give an in classroom perspective from the war on our public schools.  I no longer have the vantage point to do that well.  So if you are currently teaching in Public Schools and would like to share a story from your classroom I would be glad to share it on my blog.  When I do not have a story to publish by a teacher I will blog about some type of tech education.

I will be back in touch next Sunday.

Amy

Restorative Justice is not the only Important Tool

      Although I like the concept of restorative justice I have learned it cannot be the only tool in the toolbox of professionals working with poverty populations.  I realize someone will say you need great relationships with the students.  I don't disagree.  Relationships are vital. But these two things alone are not always enough.

        I saw someone teaching on wisdom literature.  I bring it up because she mentioned there are 3 types of foolish people.  There are people who just don't know any better.  These are the people restorative justice reaches easily.  One you teach them the right thing to do they make changes and all is right with the world.

       Then you have the other end of the spectrum.  There are a few people that no matter how well you teach the correct behavior they will not make changes.  Sometimes even discipline will not turn them around.  Thankfully these young people are not the majority.  The majority of people are somewhere in between these two extremes.

      The vast majority of people follow the expectations because they do not want the consequences.  They see someone who will not choose right punished and they decide they don't want that.  Children are not the same as adults. Students do not have the life experiences of adults and they may need more immediate consequences.  That is why I now understand that ISS may be an important part of a successful inner city school program.  I think all school systems wishing to create success for these schools will bring in something in addition to restorative justice to help provide some noticeable consequence for young people who cannpt be reached by restorative justice alone.

     

An Over Reach of a School Board with Solutions

A sick day threw off my count. I am still scrambling to catch up from the day out to care for my sick child. I am on track to have given an additional 10 hours of 'volunteer time' beyond the school day. It would have been more but I have other responsibilities that cannot wait. I will plan to be at school early tomorrow so I can start the week ready.

This week, Amy Frogge posted about the the state of Tennessee School Board overturning an MNPS School Board decision to block unneeded charters. In Metro, supply of Charter School seats far outweighs demand. These all charter seats drain a disproportional amount of money from our local schools.

When the funding model was selected to pay funds per student I understand they simply took the funding provided utilized in the district and divided it by the number of students to get an average. However, the cost to educate every child is not the same . Students struggling with poverty or with special needs are require more funding to educate. I am not sure the higher cost of educating exceptional children has been considered. Charter Schools do not serve these population. I think there could be a two fold solution.

First, it seems over reaching for a non elected board to overturn a decision by an elected board. If the state school board is going to overturn local decisions of elected representatives, then this state board does not need to be an appointed board. We need to hold elections for these positions as soon as possible. Any decisions this non-representative board has made need to be on hold until the people can weigh in, by choice of representatives.

Second, the children should be weighted by cost to educate. Since Charters choose the students who are the least expensive to educate and further cut the cost by violating copy write and refusing to provide supplies such as textbooks and computers, they should only be paid for the education they are providing. Education using public funds should not be a fiscally profitable endeavor. A formula can be created to make educating children here a truly non-profit effort. If we only pay for the seats the children are using and if we only pay for the cost of the education these students are being provided Nashville will become a less inviting market for profiteers.

If control is returned to the voters through properly held elections then local gate keeper can stem the waste of taxpayer funding. This money is flowing through these 'non-profit' front school companies to line the pocket of people out of state. Please contact your local representative to let them know what has happened here. Together we can stop the starvation of our local public schools but only IF we speak up.

An Idea for a Request for Proposal to Evaluate Teacher Evaluations

Current Update: For the first three weeks in an inner city school I averaged 55 hours per week. This week I am down to 51 hours.

      During this month, I have met several teachers of note. They go above and beyond the expectations of a typical teacher. These women and men create posters for every standard they teach and post them in their classrooms. They study responsive classrooms and other pedagogy and share the things they learned with one another. For many teaching in this school is their profession, hobby, evening plans, and subject of study.

      Often students are seen working in small groups during class, after school and during the teachers' duty free lunch. These folks have multiple degrees and honors posted in their room and they are well loved in the community.

      Many of them are rated as a one out of a scale of five under Tennessee's rating system. Ratings are based on test scores. These ratings do not reflect the levels of professionalism, ingenuity, and sweat I observe these teachers investing in their school every day. I have a suspicion the issue could be the test, not the teachers.

      Here is my suggestion for a RFP, I propose we test whether the teachers are truly at fault for the low test scores in these poverty schools.  I propose the faculty and administrative staff for this  school switch buildings and clientèle to one of the upper level schools for one year.  I hypothesize, if the schools were swapped, the test scores for the teachers at my current school would go through the roof and the teachers who had high scores would suddenly have low scores.

    If I am correct we would know the issue is not teaching, the churn of teachers is not improving education; and we may need to step back and re-evaluate how we evaluate.  

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 Thank you to the teachers who are fighting this difficult fight.  You are all heroes to me.

Lets talk about Play

Children use play to understand their world. They set up a scenario to work out the details of something they may not quite understand. They choose roles and then they act it out. Sometimes it's silly stuff they see on TV. Other times it is real life situations and issues. 

It makes sense that you can see what things are occurring in the children's lives by watching them play. Professionals have used children's art and play to determine if there is stress, issues or dysfunction. Play is important for children and can be diagnostic.

I notice play is changing. My son asks my daughter if she would like to take a test. He draws something on the page and asks her to tell him what it is. She will tell him what the picture is and he will tell her she is wrong. He will identify the picture by the color. 

“ No, It's blue.” 

The questions change but the outcome is always the same.

 “No your answers are not correct.” 

 The target keeps changing so there is no pattern to follow and no way to get the right answer. It's clear the answer changes after she has answered.  The answer changes to insure she will not get it right. This game is similar to the “impossible quiz” on line my students love to take. If you would like to give it a try you can find it at addicting games.

Remember children use play to grapple with difficult situations. Why are the children playing these type of games? What are they mimicking to try to understand? It's clear to me they are attempting to manage the stress of the high stakes testing  The pressure from testing is affecting children in so many ways including play. The outcome is a weaker more narrowed education and stressed kids. Could we please consider the warning signs?

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Unsung Hero

In my journeys as a teacher I have been able to meet many remarkable educators.  Today I would like to highlight a teacher who goes above and beyond.  She gives up her lunch and planning to meet with parents.  She is often working with students after school and she is usually one of the last teachers to leave the building.  The 50 to 55 hour weeks is not unusual for her. She has managed this schedule for months.

The community, parents and students respect her.  She has become part of the foundation for this school in her community.  She deserves to be celebrated.  She has asked me to keep her name confidential because...

She told me this would be her last year teaching.  The workload has gotten so much heavier and she said she often feels like a failure.  Her feeling do not match reality. She has brought nearly all of her students up to passing under the new grading for learning standards.  I have seen how much effort she put into her students success. Her successes are just not being measured in appropriate ways. She works so hard but the bar has been set too high with no means to reach it.  She is being held accountable, accountable for things which limit her students success, accountable for circumstances she is unable to change. See this former blog post to understand the things we cannot change. http://teachersandcompany.blogspot.com/2015/01/map-comparison-level-of-poverty-to.html

Sometimes people need some external appreciation or they are more likely to suffer burnout.  There is no real mechanism to acknowledge the teachers who strive to help students the way this she does. She goes far above and beyond her job description. She has so many markers of true excellence which go unnoticed as the reformers drive profit motivated changes in local education.  The people who have the greatest chance of making a change in a students life are driven over and driven off.

If we do not wake up and stop these harmful changes we are going to lose the people who make a real difference for our children.  Please oppose profit driven reform and support the teachers who are willing to fight this difficult battle for the sake of our community's children.

Enjoy your Fall break.  I'll see you in a week.

Right now I am reading/listening to Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.  It's essential for anyone who wants to understand how people find success and the recipe for success. It was not at all what I expected it to be. You can find a copy at  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0316017930&link_code=as3&tag=teachersandco-20&linkId=KA5RR6OWXG7OGJQC