Cutting Disney Some Slack? [img=/assets/blog/200711/disney_principal_kathleen_hagstrom_cps.jpg F:L][html]It only takes a few minutes to read or listen to Jay Field's recent WBEZ segment on the effort to improve SPED scores at Walt Disney Elementary, one of the schools that's been designated as a future clone for other campuses (A Top Chicago School Struggles with Special Ed). NCLB and CPS opponents will like the fact that even Disney struggles to make AYP, and is moving from a pull-out to a push-in model. Disney critics will be surprised to hear that the school is 75 free-and-reduced, and 80 percent minority. Educators love to slag their neighbors' successes, but maybe perhaps should we cut Disney some slack? Oh, who am I kidding.[/html]
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Mon Nov 26, 2007 at 2:31 PM
Cutting Disney Some Slack?
I was interviewed by Jay Fields in relation to his NPR report aired today on W. Disney for not making AYP for its students with disabilities, but my comments were not directly included in Jay's report apparently due to time constraints. I thought the report as aired was interesting.
Jay informed me of what had happened at Disney relative to AYP on the last state report card before we conducted the interview. As I recall one the things that I raised with him was the fact that neither Disney nor any other CPS school that has students with disabilities that are not making adequate yearly progress have received any additional resources specific to the needs of these students in relation to reading or math improvement. I reminded Jay that CPS had directly cut $26 million in staff services only two years ago and was allocating no additional resources to schools to improve the reading and math skills of students with disabilities other than what regular education students may get.
Since the report was aired this morning I looked at some relevant data for Disney. The first thing I noticed was that in June 2006 Disney lost 2 special education teaching positions and one aide position due to the cuts. According to a report filed by the CPS to the US District Court on August 4, 2006 in the Corey H. case Disney took a 20% cut in special education teaching positions (case 92-03409 document 399-2 ). The 2007 ISAT results are for the school year 2006-2007 which were directly impacted by those cuts.
I found it odd that neither the Disney case manager nor the school's principal when interviewed noted these cuts when discussing the school's failure to achieve AYP for students with disabilities in the report that was aired. Were they afraid to talk about it or did they just accept it? I also looked at the report card for the school and data filed with the US District Court related to the school in June 2007.
From what I can see in the Disney report card the school appeared to have tested every student with a disability in grades 3-8 with relevant accommodations on the ISAT. I can not tell how many if any were given the state authorized alternative assessment (IAA). But given the data CPS has filed with the court I can tell that about 30% of Disney students have significant disabilities and were removed from regular education classrooms for the vast majority of the school day (61-100% of the school day) in the 2006-2007 school year. There were about 39 such students and I would suspect most of these students were in the testing grades.
Based on NCLB standards Disney if its special education population reflected the nation as a whole could have been expected to not include in its AYP relevant testing pool about 2% of its 1,536 students or 30 students with disabilities. Disney's IEP teams like most IEP teams in our state have been led to believe that only students with significant cognitive disabilities (crudely put IQs of 50 and below) can appropriately be given the IAA and removed from the AYP pool. As I said before this is a myth propagated by the ISBE itself and to a degree by letters written by US DOE officials that do not legally supersede the NCLB or IDEA the special ed law. Students are not included or excluded based on disabling conditions but on their actual abilities and criteria listed by the state on the ISBE web site. This is a determination made by IEP teams ultimately. I would suspect that Disney gave the IAA to very few students based on the information that is being given to schools.
This clearly could impact a school like Disney that was very close to making AYP for its students with disabilities.
It is not possible for me to compare Disney to the school district as a whole directly. This is because the district wide report card for CPS includes students with disabilities in grade 11, whose very weak scores pull down the overall district average. But according to the Disney report card only 27.3% of its students with disabilities were reading at or above state standards, the safe harbor the school needed to reach for these students in reading was 35%. For the CPS as a whole 21.7% were reading at or above state standards in 2007 including those in grade 11. So if we take into consideration the low reading scores for 11th grade students with disabilities we have to conclude that Disney is doing only a little better than the district as a whole for its students with disabilities.
Given how much better Disney is for its non-disabled population than for the school district as a whole we have to conclude that there clearly is a very real achievment gap at Disney for its students with disabilities as there is for the school district as a whole. This gap can not possibly be addressed with fewer resources and requires focused effort on the part of the school district to assist schools like Disney in effectively educating students with disabilitiies.
Rod Estvan
Access Living
Jay informed me of what had happened at Disney relative to AYP on the last state report card before we conducted the interview. As I recall one the things that I raised with him was the fact that neither Disney nor any other CPS school that has students with disabilities that are not making adequate yearly progress have received any additional resources specific to the needs of these students in relation to reading or math improvement. I reminded Jay that CPS had directly cut $26 million in staff services only two years ago and was allocating no additional resources to schools to improve the reading and math skills of students with disabilities other than what regular education students may get.
Since the report was aired this morning I looked at some relevant data for Disney. The first thing I noticed was that in June 2006 Disney lost 2 special education teaching positions and one aide position due to the cuts. According to a report filed by the CPS to the US District Court on August 4, 2006 in the Corey H. case Disney took a 20% cut in special education teaching positions (case 92-03409 document 399-2 ). The 2007 ISAT results are for the school year 2006-2007 which were directly impacted by those cuts.
I found it odd that neither the Disney case manager nor the school's principal when interviewed noted these cuts when discussing the school's failure to achieve AYP for students with disabilities in the report that was aired. Were they afraid to talk about it or did they just accept it? I also looked at the report card for the school and data filed with the US District Court related to the school in June 2007.
From what I can see in the Disney report card the school appeared to have tested every student with a disability in grades 3-8 with relevant accommodations on the ISAT. I can not tell how many if any were given the state authorized alternative assessment (IAA). But given the data CPS has filed with the court I can tell that about 30% of Disney students have significant disabilities and were removed from regular education classrooms for the vast majority of the school day (61-100% of the school day) in the 2006-2007 school year. There were about 39 such students and I would suspect most of these students were in the testing grades.
Based on NCLB standards Disney if its special education population reflected the nation as a whole could have been expected to not include in its AYP relevant testing pool about 2% of its 1,536 students or 30 students with disabilities. Disney's IEP teams like most IEP teams in our state have been led to believe that only students with significant cognitive disabilities (crudely put IQs of 50 and below) can appropriately be given the IAA and removed from the AYP pool. As I said before this is a myth propagated by the ISBE itself and to a degree by letters written by US DOE officials that do not legally supersede the NCLB or IDEA the special ed law. Students are not included or excluded based on disabling conditions but on their actual abilities and criteria listed by the state on the ISBE web site. This is a determination made by IEP teams ultimately. I would suspect that Disney gave the IAA to very few students based on the information that is being given to schools.
This clearly could impact a school like Disney that was very close to making AYP for its students with disabilities.
It is not possible for me to compare Disney to the school district as a whole directly. This is because the district wide report card for CPS includes students with disabilities in grade 11, whose very weak scores pull down the overall district average. But according to the Disney report card only 27.3% of its students with disabilities were reading at or above state standards, the safe harbor the school needed to reach for these students in reading was 35%. For the CPS as a whole 21.7% were reading at or above state standards in 2007 including those in grade 11. So if we take into consideration the low reading scores for 11th grade students with disabilities we have to conclude that Disney is doing only a little better than the district as a whole for its students with disabilities.
Given how much better Disney is for its non-disabled population than for the school district as a whole we have to conclude that there clearly is a very real achievment gap at Disney for its students with disabilities as there is for the school district as a whole. This gap can not possibly be addressed with fewer resources and requires focused effort on the part of the school district to assist schools like Disney in effectively educating students with disabilitiies.
Rod Estvan
Access Living
Mon Nov 26, 2007 at 5:45 PM
Cutting Disney Some Slack?
Hey, Disney does seem to do a great job with the resources it has to serve the population it does. My daughter went to Disney for Kindergarten so when I criticize Disney, I am writing based on her experience there.
Disney's artsy focus is great. I loved it, and my daughter loved it too. The problem is those gosh darned pods are so damned loud. My daughter would complain about it quite a bit. It is true that even with the noise, she did learn a lot. I have to grant the school that point. But would it be so hard to accomplish the same thing with a few walls or at least cubicle walls? Anything to cut down on the noise.
My daughter is much happier now that she is in a regular classroom in a different school. If she hadn't gotten into her current program, we'd still be at Disney, though. I wish they'd find a way to do their integration programs that was less noisy.
Disney's artsy focus is great. I loved it, and my daughter loved it too. The problem is those gosh darned pods are so damned loud. My daughter would complain about it quite a bit. It is true that even with the noise, she did learn a lot. I have to grant the school that point. But would it be so hard to accomplish the same thing with a few walls or at least cubicle walls? Anything to cut down on the noise.
My daughter is much happier now that she is in a regular classroom in a different school. If she hadn't gotten into her current program, we'd still be at Disney, though. I wish they'd find a way to do their integration programs that was less noisy.
Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 2:32 AM
Cutting Disney Some Slack?
The most amazing thing to me about the 2006-2007 special education cuts is that we are the only ones who published the final budget numbers (based on the CAFR and subsequent "Reserve" totals) that proved that Arne Duncan's "deficit" claims from January 2006 (City Club speech, Tribune and Sun-Times headlines, locked forever into memory, consciousness, talking points, and, of course, Google) through July (final budgets, after the hearings) were a lie.
Not a misunderstanding.
A lie.
Like so many corporate "school reform" things in this town.
And when that much came out as the "Reserve" grew and didn't have to be "drawn down" over the next six months, instead of eliminating the special education cuts and then staffing up the schools that needed additional special education staff, Duncan left the dollars in the "Reserves" and let the special education mess get worse. Then, to add insult to insult to injury atop injury, CPS spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the inside and outside lawyers (Dykema Gosset) who march into federal court and stall justice for the city's most vulnerable children (and their families).
Those are the scandals. Disney and NCLB are a footnote. Too bad Disney didn't think to mention the special ed cuts Rod mentions, but what are you going to do when you have to toe to the Party Line? Tell the truth -- that you needed more special education services, not fewer? Really? When you can't even suggest a one-on-one aide for a seriously challenged child with autism without breaking every computer lock in CPS?
These stories need a Charles Dickens to tell adequately. At one Board meeting after another, parents get up with disabled children and talk about these illegal (IDEA; Corey H) horrors. And they get that Smile Room BS from Barbara Eason-Watkins, Renee Grant Mitchell, or Arne Duncan.
Even before the People Soft and IMPACT debacles proved that "accountability" in Chicago was scapegoating -- and only applied when teachers, principals, and kids were being scapegoated -- the 2006-2007 budget claims, as measured against later audited realities, showed just how completely corrupt this administration -- and the media that cover it -- is.
And the victims?
Every child who should be getting more services, but is now the victim of those crazy computerized IEP formulas that Duncan's people (David Vitale, back then) locked into place.
As James Tucker, the parent who spoke against the overcrowding at South Side Occupational on October 24 at the Board meeting reminded the Board members (and Duncan & Co) for this looming holiday season, there is a much higher form of accountability than slavishly following the dictators of Daley: "As long as you have done so unto these, the least of my brethren..."
Happy Holidays...
Not a misunderstanding.
A lie.
Like so many corporate "school reform" things in this town.
And when that much came out as the "Reserve" grew and didn't have to be "drawn down" over the next six months, instead of eliminating the special education cuts and then staffing up the schools that needed additional special education staff, Duncan left the dollars in the "Reserves" and let the special education mess get worse. Then, to add insult to insult to injury atop injury, CPS spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the inside and outside lawyers (Dykema Gosset) who march into federal court and stall justice for the city's most vulnerable children (and their families).
Those are the scandals. Disney and NCLB are a footnote. Too bad Disney didn't think to mention the special ed cuts Rod mentions, but what are you going to do when you have to toe to the Party Line? Tell the truth -- that you needed more special education services, not fewer? Really? When you can't even suggest a one-on-one aide for a seriously challenged child with autism without breaking every computer lock in CPS?
These stories need a Charles Dickens to tell adequately. At one Board meeting after another, parents get up with disabled children and talk about these illegal (IDEA; Corey H) horrors. And they get that Smile Room BS from Barbara Eason-Watkins, Renee Grant Mitchell, or Arne Duncan.
Even before the People Soft and IMPACT debacles proved that "accountability" in Chicago was scapegoating -- and only applied when teachers, principals, and kids were being scapegoated -- the 2006-2007 budget claims, as measured against later audited realities, showed just how completely corrupt this administration -- and the media that cover it -- is.
And the victims?
Every child who should be getting more services, but is now the victim of those crazy computerized IEP formulas that Duncan's people (David Vitale, back then) locked into place.
As James Tucker, the parent who spoke against the overcrowding at South Side Occupational on October 24 at the Board meeting reminded the Board members (and Duncan & Co) for this looming holiday season, there is a much higher form of accountability than slavishly following the dictators of Daley: "As long as you have done so unto these, the least of my brethren..."
Happy Holidays...
Sat Dec 1, 2007 at 2:10 PM
Cutting Disney Some Slack?
interesting.... i used to work at disney and find this information very interesting. While the special education staff was very knowledgeable and caring, the climate of the whole school was not one that seemed care about students with disabilities.
they are so proud of their gifted program that they track every classroom. they will divide the 200 students in each grade into 8 classes. the top scorers are placed in the gifted program, the next top 30 are placed with the principal's favorite, the next top 30 go to the principal's second favorite, and on down until the lowest scoring 30 (which invariably contain a very high percentage of that grade's students with disabilities (identified or not)) are placed with the new inexperienced teacher, or the tenured teacher she is trying to intimidate into retirement.
Students with disabilities were tools in a game of power at disney. and for such a "top school" it sure has an amazingly high staff turnover. real leadership is not a "stack of resumes this high," its creating a community that can meet the needs of all its students.
they are so proud of their gifted program that they track every classroom. they will divide the 200 students in each grade into 8 classes. the top scorers are placed in the gifted program, the next top 30 are placed with the principal's favorite, the next top 30 go to the principal's second favorite, and on down until the lowest scoring 30 (which invariably contain a very high percentage of that grade's students with disabilities (identified or not)) are placed with the new inexperienced teacher, or the tenured teacher she is trying to intimidate into retirement.
Students with disabilities were tools in a game of power at disney. and for such a "top school" it sure has an amazingly high staff turnover. real leadership is not a "stack of resumes this high," its creating a community that can meet the needs of all its students.
