Comments On "Special Ed" Sought - Please Read To Bottom
Today's news brings a welter of Washington education commentary. Bethel High School student Courtney Moore of Spanaway in a Tacoma News Tribune letter to the editor says Gov. Christine Gregoire's plan to delay from 2008 until at least 2011 the statewide WASL math test passage graduation requirement sends a harmful message: the math standard doesn't yet matter, so don't try. TNT columnist Peter Callaghan explains how the math used to justify the delay is itself pretty fuzzy. A recent post here by Stefan certainly attracted some passionate feelings on the WASL, pro and con.
Meanwhile, the governor's education ombudsperson co-authors a Seattle P-I op-ed, asserting government must better prompt parental involvement with measures including Spanish-language translations for meetings, signs and school materials; and use of Spanish-language radio. What, no Mandarin, Tagalog, or East African languages? How could that be?
The P-I reports today (4th graf, here) that the state legislature will be asked to spend money to close the "achievement gap," which exists between blacks and Hispanics at the low end, and whites and Asians at the high end. Although they fuzzily omit the who and why. The "achievement gap" has assumed a life of its own, with baked-in statist values.
But as letter writer Laura Wrzeski of Lakebay (on muy retro Key Peninsula in Pierce County) notes in today's TNT, the real problems for many low achievers start with "unparents" and their progeny's subsequent behavioral hijinx in school.
There's a price tag that comes with that. Some "special needs" students who markedly raise per-pupil costs in public schools truly have lesser mental capabilities, and need special attention. But how many have been dumped in such programs more because they're bad actors with "unparents?" Is "special ed" about 75 percent a scam? Or just 50 percent a scam? Or less - and I'm (still) an ignorant heartless bastard?
Share your thoughts in the comments here. I'm especially interested in hearing about special ed from current or former educators. Are too many kids dumped there? If so, how can that be changed? What else is wrong, or right, about special ed programs in Washington state public school districts today? And have things gotten better or worse, over the years?
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 05, 2006 10:25 AM | Email Thishttp://www.cchr.com/index.cfm/6443
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About Child Drugging
Prescribing psychiatric drugs to children is a multi-billion dollar-a-year industry that permanently damages children. While the U.S. federal government spends nearly $1 billion a month fighting the war on drugs, we ignore the worsening problem of legally prescribed psychotropic drugs.
The drugs prescribed for so-called learning disorders are completely different from routine medications that medical doctors prescribe for colds or fevers. Psychiatric drugs are addictive and mind-altering substances.
The stimulants prescribed for ADHD are listed as controlled substances under Schedule II of the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Why? They constitute a substantial risk to public health, have little to moderate therapeutic usefulness and can be potentially addictive.
The main stimulant used for “ADHD” is an amphetamine-like drug, which purportedly acts as a tranquilizer in children. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration it is more potent than cocaine.
Posted by: Right said Fred on December 5, 2006 10:52 AMThe problem is that more and more students are classified here based on minor problems. However those fringe students can have an IEP that gets them out of the program relatively quick as well, but while in the program they do get better services and more attention than the general student population.
With the WASL comes students who fail specific portions of the test and each of those students get an 'IEP' of sorts as well, which in a good school will help the kids because they will be treated as each kid being at a different education level.
sidenote: In WASL Math, at our school 7 years ago we had 3% pass the test, last year our 10th graders was at about 60% and with retakes we expect those 10th graders to be well over 85% this year, leaving only 15% needing to pass it as seniors to graduate.
Posted by: Doug on December 5, 2006 11:09 AMStupid in America
Why your kids are probably dumber than Belgians.
John Stossel | January 13, 2006
For "Stupid in America," a special report ABC will air Friday, we gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and in Belgium. The Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks. The Belgian kids called the American students "stupid."
We didn't pick smart kids to test in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey's kids have test scores that are above average for America.
The American boy who got the highest score told me: "I'm shocked, 'cause it just shows how advanced they are compared to us."
The Belgians did better because their schools are better. At age ten, American students take an international test and score well above the international average. But by age fifteen, when students from forty countries are tested, the Americans place twenty-fifth. The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from countries that spend much less money on education.
This should come as no surprise once you remember that public education in the USA is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their customers. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse.
In New York City, it's "just about impossible" to fire a bad teacher, says schools chancellor Joel Klein. The new union contract offers slight relief, but it's still about 200 pages of bureaucracy. "We tolerate mediocrity," said Klein, because "people get paid the same, whether they're outstanding, average, or way below average." One teacher sent sexually oriented emails to "Cutie 101," his sixteen year old student. Klein couldn't fire him for years, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."
They've paid him more than $300,000, and only after 6 years of litigation were they able to fire him. Klein employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what they call "rubber rooms." This year he will spend twenty million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them. In the last four years, only two teachers out of 80,000 were fired for incompetence.
When I confronted Union president Randi Weingarten about that, she said, "they [the NYC school board] just don't want to do the work that's entailed." But the "work that's entailed" is so onerous that most principals just give up, or get bad teachers to transfer to another school. They even have a name for it: "the dance of the lemons."
The inability to fire the bad and reward the good is the biggest reason schools fail the kids. Lack of money is often cited the reason schools fail, but America doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years. Test scores and graduation rates stayed flat. New York City now spends an extraordinary $11,000 per student. That's $220,000 for a classroom of twenty kids. Couldn't you hire two or three excellent teachers and do a better job with $220,000?
Only a monopoly can spend that much money and still fail the kids.
The U.S. Postal Service couldn't get it there overnight. But once others were allowed to compete, Federal Express, United Parcel, and others suddenly could get it there overnight. Now even the post office does it (sometimes). Competition inspires people to do what we didn't think we could do.
If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, cheap Wal-Mart-like schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows? If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom.
This already happens overseas. In Belgium, for example, the government funds education--at any school--but if the school can't attract students, it goes out of business. Belgian school principal Kaat Vandensavel told us she works hard to impress parents. "If we don't offer them what they want for their child, they won't come to our school." She constantly improves the teaching, "You can't afford ten teachers out of 160 that don't do their work, because the clients will know, and won't come to you again."
"That's normal in Western Europe," Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby told me. "If schools don't perform well, a parent would never be trapped in that school in the same way you could be trapped in the U.S."
Last week, Florida's Supreme Court shut down "opportunity scholarships," Florida's small attempt at competition. Public money can't be spent on private schools, said the court, because the state constitution commands the funding only of "uniform, . . . high-quality" schools. But government schools are neither uniform nor high-quality, and without competition, no new teaching plan or No Child Left Behind law will get the monopoly to serve its customers well.
A Gallup Poll survey shows 76 percent of Americans are either completely or somewhat satisfied with their kids' public school, but that's only because they don't know what their kids are missing. Without competition, unlike Belgian parents, they don't know what their kids might have had.
Every time your school district goes into contract negotiations with teachers, the teachers give up smaller class sizes right away for more money for themselves. Either smaller class sizes don't matter or else the teachers put themselves ahead of the students.
Whenever you hear of contract negotiation difficulties and the teachers are out there saying it's because of class size, they are LYING, I know this from experience, it's just a good way for them to try to get the public behind them.
Smaller class sizes do work, but only if the class sizes get down to 11 or 12 and under. In most cases it can be done WITHOUT additional monies. It only requires (say at the elementary level) that proper scheduling would have some teachers teaching 10 students in math or reading at a time, while others are busy with 35 or 40 in arts or P.E.
This can be forced onto the teachers unions by proper legislation. Class size should not be an issue, we should have 10 kids or so per teacher during reading, writing and math, but it takes some creativeness to do it, and it can be done with little or no extra money.
Posted by: Doug on December 5, 2006 01:30 PMOn top of the loss of subject teaching time, a horrendous amount of money is being poured into the WASL and its prep. A regular standardized test like the ITED or CAT or SAT or any number of other tests can be administered and corrected for a few dollars in only two or three hours of class time. Or for $70 to $90 and 20 hours of class time a school district is forced to give the WASL. The results come months, not weeks, later after the students have moved on to a new grade or even a new school. If some students need the type of untimed, unstandardized, essay test that the WASL exemplifies, let them have it. But for a massive, system-wide assessment, the WASL is an expensive boondoggle.
Posted by: home_mom on December 5, 2006 01:53 PMWho has independently validated the WASL test?
Posted by: Shalimar on December 5, 2006 02:47 PMThis committee concludes that the WASL meets the relevant standards of validity as prescribed by the national Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, and NCME 1999).
Posted by: Palouse on December 5, 2006 02:56 PMhttp://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/WASL/MathPracticeTests/HSmathematicsPracticeWASL-studentparent.pdf
Posted by: suzihomemaker on December 5, 2006 06:22 PMWhat's funny is that when we moved here 10 years ago there didnt seem to be that many private schools, but looking at Seattle Magazines full layout, that problem has been rectified, and then some.
When a city has an explosion of private schools and homeschooling - people should sit up and take notice.
The bottom line is, the kids dont really care what we're debating here - they just deserve a shot at a decent education. And parents deserve NOT to have to pay taxes on a failing school, while also paying for private school.
Washington State could not be any more ass backwards at this point.
Posted by: Lauri on December 5, 2006 07:47 PMSorry, we don't get to decide what taxes we pay. I don't drive much but I pay road taxes. I hate the war but I have to pay for that. You choose to put your child in a private school, too bad, you help educate the rest of society so they will grow up and be decent citizens.
Posted by: westello on December 5, 2006 10:08 PM1. The state Constitution defines it as a paramount duty. So, people will pay for it.
2. The social compact requires that society have a core of workers that can be trained for some type of employment. Ideally, voters should have some clue about this representative democracy and Constitution.
3. The question is whether the public school system can deliver a good basic education to a majority of its students. This last question is
important because many kids are not going to private schools and are not going to be home-schooled.
4. The real question is whether the current institutional structure is accountable for the public dollars invested and a second question of whether the same dollars can be spent more efficiency with better results?
Like it or not, everyone has a stake in the outcome.
Posted by: WVH on December 5, 2006 10:31 PMThey are scared spitless that some parent or group of parents will sue the state in a class action if their child does not graduate because of WASL requirements. One possible remedy, tutors to undo the damage of failing schools. This is big $$$. So, relax the standards and let every one graduate whether they can read the exit sign above the door or not. It is not about kids, as always, follow the money.
Posted by: WVH on December 5, 2006 11:35 PMThere are things that society can do to help achieve some of the desired effects, such as a higher minimum wage, gun control, national health care, and subsidized day care and preschool. Is SoundPolitics prepared to endorse these steps? I thought not.
Posted by: Bruce on December 6, 2006 01:10 AMPosted by WVH at December 1, 2006 01:12 AM
33. Ivan and Others of Like Mind:
1. I do not accept the guidelines of Bush's NCLB.
Specifically, what don't you accept about the definition of a failing school? Cite specific examples?
What is your specific definition of a successful school? What elements are you looking at specifically?
What is your definition of a failing school? Define the elements specifically?
2. I oppose charters but I do not do so out of fear.
Why, specifically do you oppose charters?
Would you oppose a charter school district where every school is allocated a per pupil amount and how they use it to achieve basic education in their population of students as defined by the RCW is up to them? If so, specifically, why?
3. I am not a "progressive."
We finally found something that we both can agree upon
Geez, talk about the nanny state!
As for your other "questions", most of them are actually statements, not questions, and I answered most of the questions in earlier posts, just not to your satisfaction. But if you really have a question, please state it.
Posted by: Bruce on December 6, 2006 07:28 AMConsider the GLE's below. I have only picked a few of them and these are the new GLE's that Bergeson claims represent a new level of specificity.
GLE 1.1.8 Apply estimation strategies in situations involving multi‑step computations of rational numbers using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, powers, and square roots to predict or determine reasonableness of answers.
GLE 1.2.6 Understand and apply estimation strategies to obtain reasonable measurements at an appropriate level of precision.
GLE 1.3.1 Understand the properties of and the relationships among 1‑dimensional, 2‑dimensional, and 3‑dimensional shapes and figures.
GLE 1.5.1 Apply knowledge of patterns or sequences to represent linear functions and/or exponential functions.
GLE 1.5.5 Apply algebraic properties to simplify expressions involving whole number exponents.
GLE 2.1.1 Formulate questions to be answered to solve a problem.
GLE 2.1.3 Identify what is known and unknown in complex situations.
GLE 2.2.1 Select and use relevant information to construct solutions.
GLE 2.2.2 Apply mathematical concepts and procedures from number sense, measurement, geometric sense, probability and statistics, and/or algebraic sense to construct solutions
The WASL is supposed to be a test that measures these GLE's. Curriculum is supposed to align to these GLE's. Isn't it clear that these GLE's are so vague they are useless? It would be easy to make a test with a question that could be categorized into each one of these GLE's and at the same time have curriculum that taught material that could be categorized into each one of these GLE's and end up with test questions that were totally outside of the scope of the curriculum.
The solution is to throw out our standards and replace them with standards that are clear and specific so we can have a meaningful WASL test.
Posted by: Shalimar on December 6, 2006 07:34 AMThe level of validity and reliability for reporting individual student and school results is acceptable for reading, mathematics, and writing.
The item development and review processes have contributed significantly to the content validity of the assessments.
These are all people with years of experience with these types of tests and with significant educational credentials. But I'm sure the armchair educators of SP know better.
Until another study is done on that test by people with equivalent credentials finding that the test is not measuring what it is supposed to, everything else is just conjecture.
Posted by: Palouse on December 6, 2006 08:22 AM2. It depends. I would probably support it if it banned religious schools and provided equally well for all applicants, including those with special needs.
3. No.
2. Money in Washington education is spent ineffeciently, most is wasted in administration. districts are bound by strange funding requirements, and that awful 10% for art law also applies to school funds (that whole program is full of graft).
3. Too many chiefs bossing around the indians. Too little classroom time is spent teaching the 3 R's, social agendas and special interest subjects are required and suck up valuable learning time.
4. Not enough control of staff. We have many, many examples of district inablity to fire ineffective and criminal staff.
It's a testimony to dedicated teachers and educated that our schools work even as well as they do.
Posted by: dl on December 6, 2006 04:00 PMtoo many bureaucrats/extras on stage not teaching, but shuffling paper. too much union control. fluff disclipline. too many lawyers. true dedication snuffed by the giant weight of rules and mediocre hangers-on.
precisely opposite of why private/religious schools do well. less red tape & leaner. and---TRULY answerable/accountable to those who pay.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on December 6, 2006 04:56 PMmaybe it's insensitive and segregationist, (not intended) but we have special units of hospitals that practice specialities, right? like pediatrics & heart? can't this work for education?
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on December 6, 2006 05:01 PMgranted, this may cost more, (or not) but we can do it by eliminating other silly feel-good teaching programs and some extra admin staff that do not add to the teaching objective.
the void can be filled like private schools--donations, findraising, volunteers, parents and simply "doing without" some edu-niceties. i wonder if there are any such places out there.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on December 8, 2006 05:10 AM