Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 9:46 AMBy: Eight years old and still behind New From Catalyst So, a little girl who was retained in kindergarten, hopefully, it was an all day program and who is now eight years old and just now is being referred for a FIE. Sad, sad, and all too prevalent in CPS.

Maybe, if she had received services when she repeated kindergarten she would not be so far beind acaemically not to mention her self-esteem. She would have had intensive small group reading instruction from a certified special education teacher for three years. She has lost three years and CPS has saved the cost of special education services.

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 11:22 AMBy: Rod Estvan on avoiding special ed New From Catalyst I thought Sarah Karp’s Catalyst article on the Chicago Public School’s implementing a response to intervention (Rti) pilot program was well done and given her space limitations reasonably detailed. By way of disclosure I am a member of the Illinois Attorney General’s advisory committee on special education whose letter was discussed in the article and I also talked with Sarah about this issue.

I thought that Sarah did a very good job in pointing out a critical problem with Rti which is a lack of support staff to help regular education teachers implement it. Access Living has opposed the implementation of Rti in Illinois in part because it has not been funded appropriately by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and in part because no appropriate rules were developed relating to how long a child suspected of being disabled could remain in this remedial situation with out the legal protections afforded by the federal special education law IDEA.

I do not think ISBE has failed to appropriately fund implementation of Rti because it is not necessary, but rather because the General Assembly and the Governor will not approve any additional funding for it.

I would like to clarify something that Sarah wrote. She stated: “Now, CPS and other districts throughout the state will be required to institute a similar process intended to make sure special education referrals are accurate and timely. In addition to using teaching intervention strategies, schools will have to track hard data on children’s progress before referring students to special education. Under a policy adopted by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), school districts must institute the new approach, called Response to Intervention or RTI, by 2010.”

Specifically Sarah is discussing IL Admin rule 226.130. Access Living in our comments on the draft Rti plan in 2007 indicated that the ISBE plan was required by the Administrative Code to “quantify the estimated cost of the professional development and other necessary resources” for RtI training. We believed that the draft plan failed to quantify those costs and we believe that the final plan continues to fail to quantify those costs. The final plan was issued by ISBE on January 1, 2008 and discussed in greater detail where school districts in our state should go in order to recoup those professional development costs which were not estimated by ISBE.

The ISBE informs school districts since it has not mandated specific Rti interventions districts should look to use up to 15% of their allocated IDEA Part B flow-though funds to support implementation of RtI training and implementation. Districts should look to use federal funds for low income students, NCLB reform funds, or funds targeted to support services for English Language Learners. Most importantly ISBE reminded school districts that “district general funds can be used.”

To put it simply ISBE tells CPS and other Illinois school districts to look any where and everywhere for money to train all school staff, not just special education staff, in Rti interventions. ISBE assures districts it “will continue to pursue funding from other sources,” but ISBE itself will only provide coordination for professional development at the school and district level.

Clearly urban and many rural school districts in our state currently do not have anywhere near sufficient supplementary funds to address the needs of low income students, English Language Learners, or school level reform efforts required under NCLB, yet these are the very funds ISBE asks CPS and other school districts to utilize to carry out professional development that involve the full teaching staffs of schools.

The failure of ISBE to secure funding from the General Assembly for Rti training and to puts this burden on districts is based on its “understanding” that “particular interventions” are not mandated for CPS and other districts by ISBE seems to be a slight of hand maneuver. The lack of funding will inevitably lead to a lack of effective training at the school level. Which will it turn create vast levels of confusion as to what constitutes an effective intervention for regular education teachers who will be required to implement interventions for students in their classrooms throughout our state.

Rod Estvan
Access Living

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 1:14 PMBy: cermak_rd New From Catalyst Or do they? Does it really matter whether a student receives special ed services or not? I thought that special ed was designed to teach the student how to live with or overcome their learning disability and then get them back into regular ed (if possible, obviously some disabilities are worse than others). This article says that that doesn't happen very often. That by and large, students who are in special ed stay in special ed until they ultimately graduate or drop out. Which, if they drop out, is the same that likely would have happened to them if they didn't receive special ed services.

So has anyone ever done longitudinal research to show what the outcome to the student is to receiving special ed services? Is there a higher likelihood of graduation? A higher likelihood of having a successful career or a college degree? A better chance of being able to get and keep a job? A less likelihood of becoming a crook?

I'm not against special ed, it's the law and it's humane. I'm just curious.

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 2:16 PMBy: effective sped New From Catalyst Cermak - The special ed would have to be effective for a study to show what you're looking for. If you want to measure ineffective special ed, well, my child experienced that in his schools in CPS. Not sure how a study would be done. A lot of the data on sped kids in CPS are false. So, really, what could be measured?

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 2:20 PMBy: Rod Estvan New From Catalyst Since 1975 when the first version of the current federal special education law was enacted the issue that cermack_rd has asked about has been studied. The short answer is that special education has shown postive impact for young people with disabilities who are of higher social economic status and it has been less effective for lower income students with disabilities. In Illinois before 1975 students with serious cognitive disabilities (IQ below 50) had no legal right to any type of education based on an Illinois Supreme Court decisions. These children were educated by various private schools at the expense of church or family, placed in state institutions, or sat at home. CPS to its credit did educate some of these students, but not all before 1975.

Nationally the data is very impressive including graduation rates and competitive employment, but when you look at cities like Chicago, New York, LA, etc it is has been shown to be far less effective. Cermack_rd is also correct that most students do not get out of special education. There was and is an assumption in special education that many students with disabilities can be educationally fixed, or made functional.

In general even for learning disabled students modern brain studies (MRI studies in particular) are indicating that these may not be fully correctable conditions. We can teach students to compenstate for various disabilities rather than hope to fix them. Hence, these students in order to survive in our nation's competitive school system special education has become an on going support system at the prek-12 level.

Frankly at this time given the state of cognitive science our special education identification system is in a very primitive state. What we do is look at the outward manifestations of things like learning disabilities, behavior disorders, cognitve disabilities, and even autism and come to a conclusion if a child has a disability. The testing we do is basically measuring outward expressions of disablities.

While there are somewhat scary implications to it, it does seem that eventually the whole system will move to a genetic identification system combined with looking at the outward manifestations of disabilities. One thing is for sure when you combine most disabilities with poverty you have extremely difficult students to educate.

My own disabled daughter is a case in point. She graduated from CPS two years ago, had reasonable services plus massive support from home, and even she could not survive college going in with a 16 ACT score. She just gave up. It took her a long time to land a job and then it took the support of the Illinois Department of Rehabilitative Services for her to make it in the competative job market. She is currently working for Hyatt.

Most low income students with disabilities we at Access Living work with who have graduated are unemployed and their families really are at a loss to help them.

Rod Estvan
Access Living

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 4:17 PMBy: Donna Rosenbery New From Catalyst The problem with RTI/ SBPS/ Intevention Assistance or whatever it has been called in previous years in federal or local districts has always been the individual attempts to implement the spirit AND the letter of the mandate. No matter what we call RTI, it is a protection put in place to prevent people from labeling children who have not had appropriate interventions prior to assessment. I am a CPS school psychologist and have often found this to be a barrier to services. I have not found it to be unsurmountable, as I have informed all of my case managers (my regular colleagues and those who I assist by subbing in redeployment) that we as professionals and parents always have the right to speed up the assessment process to help the child who is not benefiting from interventions or other modifications. Assessments for RTI require meaningful classroom/ standardized and observational summaries as each one will not give you an accurate picture of achievement. The good thing about RTI...it keeps kids out of special ed. who do not need it....The bad thing about RTI is that is delays entry to special education for those who need it.......it is up to the professionals and parents to remain diligent in following up on data interventions so we know when to refer. I agree that kids do not always receive what they need while waiting for formal SPED services. I am fortunate to work in settings where the teachers can give kids services prior to entry. It all boils down to the individuals working in your building, and I have to say, if I have pushed a referral through the system with good reason, I have never been denied consent. I know this is not universal but it requires having the courage to make some waves at times. Children first, Children first....if we keep repeating this we will do well by our students.

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 6:00 PMBy: Average intelligence is NOT an IQ of 72 New From Catalyst I am a special education teacher and I have always been amazed at the high numbers of children who are labeled LD but who are really autisitc, cognitively disabled or emotionally disturbed.
When one examines test scores of children with learning disabilities one needs to take this into consideration.

Also, one needs to research the drop out rate amongst special education students and investigate the age at which they were identified and if they had educational consistency including whether these students had a majority of certified special education teachers or did they had years of subs?

I am wondering if this type of research has been done. When I went into special education one needed to have average or above average intelligence as measured on an IQ test.
Now half of my inclusion program consists of LD children with IQs in the low 70's. They get to our local high school and are totally lost. They do not get the services in the high schools that they get in the grammar schools. CPS needs to assign more special education teachers to the freshman classes. Maybe this would stem the drop out rate.

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 9:19 PMBy: Marricat New From Catalyst Unfortunately, it's not just Chicago, it's a national change. When I was in school, the definition of LD was average to above average in intelligence and students showed a weakness in just one area and a strength in another. When I challenged some psychologists in this area, I was told that now a student can be both cognitively delayed and LD if the student has a discrepency between what the student is capable of doing and what they are doing. Under this new definition, a student can be weak in all areas. I think some of the original researchers would turn over in their graves with the new direction and it is one of the reasons that they are trying to keep students from being tested (RTI, etc). Since the definition is so vague, too many students are fitting into it and it is becoming too expensive.

Fri Jul 18, 2008 at 12:34 AMBy: IDEA Definition New From Catalyst IDEA Definition-
“Specific Learning Disability” means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations.
The term does not include children who have learning problems which are the primarily the result of:
visual impairments
hearing impairments
motor handicaps
mental retardation
emotional disturbance
environmental disadvantage
cultural disadvantage
or economic disadvantage.

Fri Jul 18, 2008 at 7:59 AMBy: What is LD? New From Catalyst If a child is clasified LD but appears to be otherwise it may take a mountain to get the child retested and reclassified. Many teachers give up due to lack of support. If the child has a non-certified teacher this child may never get retested.

Meanwhile, this LD child will only get the services an LD child would get and CPS saves money. Just try gettting a one on one aide or ESY services for an LD child.

A learnining disability is not the primary disability if a child is banging his head, eating non-edible items or hearing voices!