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How I Spent My Summer Vacation July 2, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Ed Policy Discussion, Web 2.0, networking, political activism.
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I’ve been on summer break for about a month. In less than a month, I’ll be heading back. I know that sounds crazy to you folks that just got out of school a week ago! I’m sure that in a decade or so, the feds will require all schools to run on the same calendar.

So I’m getting my mind wrapped around the idea of doing a 10th year with the SID/PID classroom. Not an easy thing, and for several weeks, I was headlong into denial/escape mode. Basically, I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading this past month. All of these books have been extensively reviewed, and they should be widely read. Here they are, with my short take:

Disrupting Class:How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. By Clayton Christensen Curtis Johnson and Mocheal B. Horn. Most of the books that I’ve been reading make the case that our method of education is outmoded and outdated. It has not essentially changed in 60-100 years. But now technology is making change possible, but in order for real change to occur it’s going to happen through the backdoor, which the authors describe as being deployed disruptively. Most change happens in areas of nonconsumption or where existing programs or technologies are not getting to. In education, that means drop-outs, or students that need to make up credit or have been kicked out of school or students who need courses not offered by their schools. This is primarily looking at making online education more universally available which is happening as several states have virtual schools, including Georgia. The authors do a good job of describing a process that is already underway. It’s a wothwhile read, but I can see it becoming really dated in a few years as online education becomes more ubiquitous.

The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner – In this book, the author describes how far behind U.S. schools are compared to other schools in the world, and how students are not being taught the skills they need in the modern world. Basically, the current system isn’t training kids for work, or for college or for basic U.S. citizenship. After he get through describing the shortcomings of the best schools in the country, you begin to wonder, “What are public schools even good for?” It is deeply disturbing in a lot of ways and gives a lot of food for thought. According to Wagner, the skills needed are the seven suvival skills. The seven survival skills are critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration across networks and leading by influence; agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurship; effective oral and written communication; accessing and analyzing information; and curiosity and imagination. Copies of this book are going to some influential people I know.

Two Million Minutes by Bob Compton. Okay, this isn’t a book, it’s a documentary. Yes, I actually ordered the D VD after watching the Youtube videos. He made a documentary following 2 students from the U.S., India and China and compared their educational practices, attitudes and habits. Like Tony Wagner, Compton points out that there are serious problems with U.S. education compared to just two of our biggest competitors. While Compton’s videos are disturbing they do not go into the source of our ills as much as Wagner’s book. While the DVD might be a worthwhile purchase for a school district, I think Compton’s Youtube channel gets the message across handily enough for most individuals. You could send it to your legislator!

Why Don’t Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham. I’m about half way through this book, and Willingham chops and cuts and slices and dices through a lot of cherished beliefs teachers have about learning styles and learning modalities. As a cognative scientist, his specialty is learning and memory. His basic premise is that 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking are fine, but students actually need to have content to think about and background knowledge to draw from in solving problems. Students don’t like school, mostly because humans are designed and setup to not think or at least keep thinking to a minimum. It takes a lot of work and effort to think, so teachers have to devise strategies to make thinking less burdensome and less painful. Out of all the materials I’ve looked at and read so far, Willingham’s book has the widest application for teachers, parents and even students. Unlike the above books/movies, Willingham’s book does have relevance for the kids that I’ll be teaching, no matter who they are or what age or grade level. Basically, cognitive scientists have done a lot of research on how we remember things and how we go about applying the knowledge we learn. So until I picked this book up, I was looking more at broader policies that will change how education is done, but this will influence how I look at teaching and learning on a day-to-day level. I’m already working on an online course that I might try to offer in the fall using this book, thus applying all of the concepts I’ve been reading about. Take a look at his videos for some quick learning. His video on merit pay alone is worth the time.

I also spent a considerable amount of time attending various webinars on the Web 2.0 comunity. These are good ways to get some knowledge without burning up a lot of time or having to travel. Steve Hargodon is into all sorts of nifty collaborative efforts, including the recently held EduBloggercon. My goal is to be able to make one of those one day. I also want to get a video up to contribute to the PBS Frontline project they have going on. And in it, I’m going to document a conversation I had with a couple of administrators last fall about my educational videos.

So the first part of my summer was devoted to a lot of thinking about education, technology and learning and most of it doesn’t apply much to the job I’m getting ready to mark a decade of doing. But my mind is shifting a bit back. Plus, my oldest son and I are gearing up for an adventure together traveling across several states together next week. I might blog that a bit. Once we get back from our trip, the preparations for school starts in earnest as I’ll have less than 10 days before preplanning!

Stay Cool!

A Few Comments on the Supreme’s Ruling June 25, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Ed Policy Discussion, IEPs, Learning Disabilities, NCLB, Services, Special Education.
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Earlier this week, the SCOTUS made a ruling concerning special education and private tuition reimbursement.  you can get a quick summary from the Washington Post here.  You can also get a summary from the SCOTUS blog and read up on it in a couple of posts from Jim Gerle’s Law blog.  He’s also got a link to the pdf file of the decision slip.

I first want to correct the first line of the washington Post article:

Parents of children with disabilities may seek reimbursement for private school tuition even if they have never sent their children to public schools, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a decision with wide-ranging implications for Washington area school systems.

That is not necessarily the case.  Basically, this case involved a student who was entering high school and his parents were concerned about the student’s lack of academic success.  So they made a referral for services.  The school counselor did some testing and found that the student was not eligible for services.  As such, no IEP was written.  The parents were still concerned during the student’s 10th grade year but the student was still not deemed eligible for services according to school testing.  So the parents eventually obtained a diagnosis for learning disabilities and ADHD.  They withdrew him from his high school and placed him in a private school that specialized in providing services for students with LD and ADHD.  It was during this time that they began filing for due process against the school for failing to provide FAPE, and sought reimbursement for the private school tuition.

The student finished his junior year at the private school and graduated from there the following year in 2004.  Yeah, this case has been dragging on for six years! And for most of that time, the student was pressing the case forward since the parental rights trnasferred to him at 18.

The school argued that the law provides for the reimbursement for students who have already been served in special education for at least one year.  But this student was never served in special education.  The WaPo article leads the reader to believe that the student never attended the public school, but in fact he did for most of his school career.  But he never received special education services and never had an IEP.  One major argument given by the prevailing side in this case was the fact that a school district could easily avoid all special education costs by simply not identifying students, which clearly flies in the face of the intent of the IDEA.

The school district argued that having to reimburse tuition for students who never had received services and whose parents unilaterally put their child in a private school would place an undo burden on the system financially.  Private schools serving special ed. students are not cheap.  This one attended by this student was a residential school, so we could easily be talking over $100,000 for this one student.  So, yeah, the district is going to fight!

Will this result in bankrupting school budgets?  I doubt it.  Remember that by the time this thing settled, the student was probably graduated from college! The time and persistence in getting through all the legal proceedings routinely takes several years.  By the time this case got only to district court level, the student was already done with school.  But the school does have a case that parents might be more aggressive about pursuing their rights.  Given the time it takes to get resolution on a case like this, a parent needs to start early in order to be assured of getting their child needed services.  Unfortunately, it is sometimes necessary to be an attack dog on a school system because the culture of discrimination and prejudice runs so deep and is so pervasive.  Don’t believe me?  Look at the Atlanta Journal Constitution blog on the subject and read the comments.  Students with disabilities are routinely scapegoated in the comments, whether or not that is actually the topic on this blog.  They actually got off kind of light, here.

Another reason why the impact of this is going to be somewhat minimal is the simple matter of there not being very many private schools who are willing to take and cater to students with special needs.  Georgia already has a law that offers a $10,000 voucher/scholarship for any student that wants one and very few ever take advantage of it.  And you can simply forget about any of my students ever being included in anything like that.  The impact on my students and their parents because of this ruling is ZILCH because there is not a private school anywhere that is going to take them, even if parents wanted to take advantage of any scholarship.  And no private school would house a student through their 22nd birthday.

You’ll hear a lot of noise from both sides of this issue, but I think it’s mostly a zero-sum game.  Parents aren’t going to be able to get tuition reimbursements whenever they want.  Even if they did get a favorable decision, it would likely be several years and several thousands of dollars after their child started a private school.  A parent would need the means to afford the tuition well in advance of challenging a school district.  The district still has the upper hand, but with stakes a bit higher they have more of a reason to work with parents instead of blowing them off.

The RTI and POI procedures, if they are followed and implimented correctly will also head-off a lot of these sort of challenges.  These procedures were not widely implimented in 2003, if at all, so there is already a procedural safeguard with documentation that is built-in to the process.  Today, there would be more than just one test and a one-time procedure for getting additional help.  IF it is implimented.  That’s a big “if.”

I encourage anyone interested in special education law to read the case, as it isn’t often a special education case makes it in front of the Supremes.  I’m betting against this being a big decision that changes the game, but I could be wrong.

The End of NCLB! June 25, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Alternate Assessment, Ed Policy Discussion, NCLB, Regular Ed, Special Education, political activism.
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YES!  You read that right!  No Child Left Behind is officially coming to an end!

The long nightmare is over!

Well, okay.  Not exactly, but it is a start, I suppose.  However, I do not forsee any substantial changes coming along anytime soon.  In fact, the Obama administration has pretty much come out and said that they are just going to be looking to change the name, dispite some of the promises he made while campaigning.  So as far as the feds go, it is still business as usual.  And it is still going to be the same in the state of Georgia, too.  Even when the state legislature tried to make room for some choice within a district, the rules imposed by the DOE pretty much make it impossible to happen, for good or ill.  Basically, the Georgia DOE has proven itself to be more and more of an enemy to public education that anything coming out of Washington!  I’m repeatedly amazed at how they manage to bungle up legislation passed by our elected officials, or block legislation designed to fix their blunders.

And pretty much all of it is hostile towards individuals with disabilities as well as the rest of the student population.  When our students increasingly demand a costumized education, the state and the feds are doing everything they can to homogenize it. When the world cries out for creativity and innovation, the educational system forces conformity and uniformity.

The rebranding of NCLB is simply repainting the same rundown shack and giving it a new name.  According to the WaPo article above, it is almost literally window dressing as the red schoolhouse is replaced by pictures hung in the windows of the building of children doing various activities.

At any rate, it is still lovely seeing the crowning jewel of the GW Bush legacy added to the ash heap of history.  Even so, the stench of its consquences still remains as a sort of toxic haze choking off any meaningful education inovation and reform.

Before moving on to other topics, I do want to elaborate just a bit on my contempt for NCLB.

In 2002, I was actually an advocate for this legislation or at least a large part of it.  I wanted highly qualified teachers and accountability.  I wanted all students to learn and I was all for using research-based instructional methods and materials.  I never believed that more money was the answer, so as a tax payer, I thought it was a good idea to make funding contingent on getting some results.  But I never really dreamed that my SID/PID students would be caught up in this.  And then I started seeing how NCLB was being implimented and it became harder and harder to defend this law.  Basically, it turned our national curriculum into “Test Prep.”  Basic bench marks and minimum requirements suddenly became some sort of gold standard, and mediocrity became the ultimate goal.  I’ve never seen antything wipe out and destroy student creativity and and teacher innovation more effectively than this law.

So while many of the things that I wanted while supporting NCLB were noble, it was a serious error putting such an important task into the hands of the federal government.  I was very wrong, and over time that wrong-ness has been reinforced every single time our own state DOE interprets this terrible law and makes it an even more hideous monstrosity.  The ideals espoused by the people peddling this law and the actual execution of it are very, very far apart.  As a former supporter of this law (and the president who wants to take credit for it) there is a very, very deep sense of betrayal.  When it became obvious that this thing was stripping autonomy away from local school systems and causing a collapse of creative and independent thought in favor of the Test Culture, it should have been scrapped or at least something new developed to take its place.  But we have nothing to show for it, an imminent meltdown in 2013 when every school fails to make the 100% AYP mark, and an entire generation that has been left behind while the rest of the world is learning how to think creatively, independently, competetively, globally and collaboratively.  And there is no plan on what to do next.

Many of you probably saw the light long before I did, and I want to apologize to you for my slowness.  I know there were people who saw much further down the road than I did, and I should have listened more carefully.  I do feel a bit of guilt for starting out on the wrong side of this issue.  But I’m speaking now.  Here’s a few ideas:

1. First, I believe that every single person involved in the architecture of NCLB should be dismuissed, and placed far away from any influence in educational policy.  Put them in a SID/PID classroom.

2. Second, a new strategy should be develped from scratch.  That means we need to start on it right away.  But the conversation should be as inclusive as possible.  The capacity for involvement are much greater today than they were in 2000.  Let’s use those tools.

3. No plan should be set in stone.  We need to be mindful of changing conditions.  NCLB was written and implimented for the 1990’s educational syatem.  The world is changing and the capacity of teachning and learning are also changing.  And they will change again.  Flexibility needs to be built in.

4. Start removing the teeth from NCLB now, so that the damage becomes less and less so that by 2013, the impact will be minimal.

5. Make student motivation part of the converation when discussing student performance.

Those are just a few of my ideas.  Feel free to make up your own, put them in a comment or better yet, send them to your favorite (or least favorite) legislator or governmental entity.

ActivInspire Training pt. 2 June 12, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Educational Technology, assistive Technology.
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For my second day of Activinspire/Activboard training, I was involved in trying to complete a project. Of course this was supposed to be aligned to the state standards, and this is where I had some problems. I’m concentrating on math because those standards are SO far away from anything my students can do. They simply are no where near doing anything with coordinate geometry or algebra. So I downloaded a few flipcharts from Promethean’s extensive library and began to modify an activity with shapes.

My kids need a whole lot more that just some objects/pictures to move around, so the first thing I did was associate some sounds with it so they could do some sound matching along with the shapes. It’s a lot of work and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to use very much of it in whatever setting I happen to be in this fall. One thing that I wanted to mention about the software is that it is platform independent, as there is Linux support for the Activinspire software. Kudos to the Promethean team for making that extraordinary effort toward making this available to a wider audience. It’s exceedingly rare for commercial educational software vendors to support Linux.

And thanks to Mark and Beth for clearing up the over-priced pen controversy in comments to my last post. I did make corrections to reflect the updaterd information. While it does make the price of the hardware upkeep a bit less onerous there’s still a large gulf, and the serious monetary outlay causes some unintended consequences that I’ll outline in a minute.

The best part of the day was probably the end when we got to see what other teachers were doing and ideas they had. I’m a total believer in getting teachers to share and collaborate more,but that might just be me, since I often feel so isolated in my own little space. Seeing what others were doing gave me ideas as to what I might try down the road. It looked to me like every teacher universally liked the Activboard and ActivInspire software. But that may change through no fault of Promethean or our own technology department.

I was talking with an elementary teacher from another county yesterday who has been teaching kindergarten for the last 4 years and taught other elementary grades in previous years. She’s a great and dedicated teacher whose student test scores are consistently higher than many of her peers, as she amazingly seems to get most of her students reading within the 1 year she has them without doing any test prep. She simply teaches her kids, the kids learn and the byproduct is that they pass the test. She is also one of the most technophobic teachers I’ve ever met.

Her school bought Activboards and is requiring every single one of the teachers to integrate the Activboard into every single lesson plan and to put the actual plan on a flipchart. Egad. I can not think of a surer to way kill enthusiasm and motivation than to require teachers (or anyone else) to do something. The Activboard is one tool among many, and is not always the best tool for every job, all the time, for every student. Technology offers a way to customize an educational experience toward individual learner needs, but school systems seem determined to force uniformity, conformity and homogenization upon every person in the building!

In order for technology to be leveraged correctly, it needs to be so transparent, in that it can go unnoticed in favor of the learning that is actually taking place. Chalkboards were the major marvel and innovation of 1801, and the model of one board, one teacher and a roomful of students looking on has been mostly unchanged since then. The technology is less important than actual student engagement. And engagement alone isn’t going to allow for substantial learning as much as an environment that is rich in feedback and reinforcement. This is why kids are so easily hooked by technology (especially video games) because the feedback is immediate and individualized. It allows for learning to take place much faster and more efficiently than raising your hand and waiting for the teacher to come around and look at your work.

This is why I advocate schools using lower cost solutions, because when they invest so heavily in hardware they have to justify the huge expense. By making its use mandatory and universal, they suck the fun out of it, and begin killing innovation and creativity which are exactly what active boards are supposed to inspire!

We also did get a chance to see and try a student response system, ActiVote. Many of our schools are getting a set of these. While they do offer a degree of participation and interactivity, it functions alot like the Buzztime (formerly NTN) system I first saw in various Atlanta pubs around 1990 where you could play trivia synchronously with other players around the country. Basically a multiple choice question is posted and kids vote on on it using their little egg-shaped clicker. Collective results are then shown on the screen. The next step, is the ActivExpression hardware, which allows short answer responses and thus more open-ended questions. This represents a significant improvement, but I’m wondering at what cost.

I like the increased focus on interactivity brought by the Promethean technology, but dislike the large cost to schools and the way schools often decide to implement it. I admit I have a large bias towards open-source software and low cost “off-the-shelf” hardware solutions. But Promethean makes the technology more accessible to technologically-challenged teachers through extensive support and making the hardware fairly easy to use. There is a bit of trade-off between the cost of the material and the amount of training required to use a tool. In my opinion, schools should invest more in the training of teachers than the technology hardware that they will use. In other words, teaching teachers to use lower cost tools often costs more than teaching them to use more expensive tools. But since schools always spend more on recruitment than retention, ease-of-use becomes the more expedient bet.

ActivInspire Class: Is the Promethean Whiteboard Worth it? June 8, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Educational Technology, assistive Technology.
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This is my staff development of the summer, which is a two day class covering a piece of software by Promethean called ActivInspire. ActivIsnpire is the latest software that is utilized with the Promethean Activboard. I’ll write a bit more about the whiteboard itself in a minute, but the class itself was mostly about using the ActiveInspire software.

The software is a really nifty package, filled with a lot of tools and features that a teacher can use to present content from the front of the class. There are some good drawing tools as well as some good interactive lessons. It is graphically and visually rich which may or may not work with my students. My SID/PID students, that is. Let’s face it: my kids are the ultimate in testing for relevance and flexibility and accessibility. I explored around and there are a variety of activities appropriate for k-12. But it might be difficult to bridge the huge gap between where my kids are (never more than 36 months) to where NCLB is requiring (no less than 14 years) so it might be difficult to actually use it. The good news is that it looks like this would work with my Wimote setup.

But this is also the depressing thing. Our school district is ordering tons of the active whiteboards at no less that $2000 each. I can do the exact same thing for less than $100. So can you, and you can do it easily and painlessly by checking out the folks at Penteractive. The Promethean pens, which don’t even contain a battery, cost over $100! (See Mark’s comment below) My IR pen was about $8.

The Wii setup might be somewhat inferior to the Promethean whiteboard. But how inferior is it? Is it 20 times worse? And I’m not convinced that the Wiimote solution is inferior at all. Consider that the Promethean board can not be used as a dry erase board or anything else whereas the Wiimote can work on any flat surface. So why aren’t more schools using this inexpensive and versatile technology? The only thing I can guess is because it looks too geeky. But it’s really not even as difficult as the Promethean board. In fact, it is actually tons easier because there isn’t anything that needs to be bolted or installed on the wall. Penteractive is actually offering support for their kits and at much less than the other commercial products.

If you are looking for an interactive whiteboard, I highly recommend investing in the Wiimote setup. At the very least, it costs so little that it is worth it just to try it out. What you may discover is that you don’t have a lot of use for a whiteboard or that you need more training or that you need more or better software to take full advantage of it. If the technology changes (and it will) the schools are not out $thousands$ per classroom but only hundreds tops. With the availability of the hardware and software, it just looks irresponsible sinking money into technology that will be obsolete in a short amount of time.

Supposing the whiteboard technology is replaced by 1:1 netbooks or smartphones, or it gets abandoned for some reason. The bluetooth and the wiimote can still be used for other things. What happens to an obsolete or broken Promethean board? Could they be used for something else? How easy will it be to dispose of or recycle them?

We are often so anxious to move the new technology into classrooms we give no thought to what happens when it is time to upgrade, replace and move the stuff out. At the least, the Wiimote offers multitouch for less than a single pen from Promethean $100 and offers more versatility.

Having said all of that, the ActivInspire software is pretty good and worth a look. Promethean offers a lot of good support for it and there is lots of premade materials being generated by other teachers all the time. My advice is to invest in the software, but not the boards which are large, bulky and expensive. For what they are charging you could get a lot more interactivity and interest from the full Wiifit game, laptop plus projector and still have money leftover.

Predicament June 4, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Blogging, Teachers, moving on, networking.
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There seems to always be some sort of drama/cliffhanger for at the end of the school year, where there is uncertaintly as to whether or not I’ll be coming back.  It isn’t just because it makes for good blogging, but it really is how things turn out.  During my 3rd year, our program spun off  one of the three teachers to another high school, and I volunteered to go.  but they chose someone else.  During year 5, the other position spun off to yet another high school.  I didn’t volunteer for that, tho.  Year 6, I applied for the behavior specialist position.  Year 7, I applied for co-teaching science.  Year 8 I applied for coteaching science again.  And this past year, year 9, I applied to transfer to another school.

When the department head read off the assignments for this fall, my name was read off and a collective groan went up from the entire department.  They all knew that I really wanted out. But it appears that I will be doing a 10th year in the SID/PID program.  This despite, the words of the supt. of HR back in March.  Yeah.  He lied.

Calling the guy a liar seems like a strong attack, but I don’t see what else I could call it.  I even emailed a follow up a month ago with my resume, certifications and a transcript showing all the things I was qualified to teach.  And it all amounted to zilch.  He never intended to work with me, and neither did the principal.  There was no follow-up and I now believe there was never any intention of follow-up.

I had a long and rather heated discussion with another administrator over this.  apparently the reasoning for me being put back into the spot I’ve been trying to get out of was the fact that there is no one else who can do it who is qualified.  Not that anyone looked very hard, but people who are HQ in the adapted curriculum are few and far between.  And those willing to stay in that field are even fewer.

Gosh, I wonder why THAT is?!?!

Could it be that the administration would rather burn someone out and toss them away rather that try to retain them?  If they spent nearly as much effort on retention as they do on recruitment, they wouldn’t have to fly clear to India to find people to fill spots vacated by people already qualified and experienced!

The predicament is that I’m a victim of my own success.  I didn’t miss a single day of work this past year.  I have never been late to work in all the 9 years I’ve been here.  I did all the right things and did them better than anyone else.  And the reward for my competence is to keep me in a position when I made it absolutely clear that I wanted to try something else.

“We just want to do what is best for the kids.”

So do I, which is why I do give them my best, but my best is getting to be less and less.  But apparently it is still better than anyone else is willing or able to give.  So I’m stuck until I become as incompetent as a certain other fellow I worked with who had to be carried out on a stretcher because he had a nervous breakdown.  Sheesh.

I’ve watched as other good (and some bad) SID/PID teachers in other schools were allowed to transfer and move.  It makes me wonder what I’ve done wrong. Or what I need to do wrong.  After watching the turnover in so many other schools, I never dreamed it would be so difficult to extricate myself from this position at this school. It is like the proverbial tarbaby.  I thought that by working harder I could earn my way out, when instead it has made me more irreplacable!  Now I’m feeling more like Andy Dufresne when he discovers that the warden will never let him out because he knows too much or maybe more like his friend Red who keeps getting rejected by the parole board.

But I think I’m more like Andy, in that I do have hope.

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

And I do have a couple of plans up my sleeve.  One of which involves a bit more schooling to pursue my interests, which mainly involve education and technology.  And then another little thing that I’ve kind of ducked and dodged away over the years.  But I’ll get into that later this fall.  You’ll just have to wait and see.  It’ll be a major thrill ride if it happens.

And finally, in addition to pursuing my interests in technology through classes and attending Classroom 2.0 webinars, I’m thinking about starting some sort of technology or video club.  Part of what gets to me is the isolation of this particular position in regards to the overall improvement plan of the school.  I spend a lot of time thinking about things like 21st century learning and using advanced technology and I can not use any of it in my classroom with my students.  The technology head of the county won’t listen to me because I have no real application of thing like social networks or wikis outside of what I try to do with other faculty members.  And honestly, most of them just don’t get it.  While they’re all on Facebook, they haven’t tried to leverage the technology to reach their students or to collaborate with each other.  And I don’t have students to try out my ideas on.  So a club might provide a sort of venue/sandbox to try some things while supporting the larger mission of the school.  Thing is, I have no experience with starting and running a club like this.  So that will be a major adventure, and perhaps a source of some meaningful change.

So hang on to your butts.  There is a wild ride ahead!  I just need to spend a big part of the summer licking my wounds and recharging.  I’ll still blog things that come up on my mind as they come over the summer, but a whole lot will be spent just learning, thinking and pondering my fate.

Preparing for Graduation May 26, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Autism/Asperger's, Curriculum, Ed Policy Discussion, NCLB, Post school Transition, Special Education.
2 comments

It’s that time of year, again.  It’s graduation time for the high school seniors.  This year, I have one student who is walking across the stage.  You might recall a student who used to inhabit this blog who went by the name of Taz.  Like the cartoon character of that name, he rarely simply walks anywhere.  He is like a tornado the way he moves, which has the potential to be a bit unnerving to people looking for an occasion that is more solemn than cartoonish.  That would be the administrators who are only now getting nervous.  I was nervous from the minute I knew his mother wanted him to walk this year.  So we’re walking the tight rope between allowing him to have his moment on the stage while keeping him from being the proverbial twister in the trailer park.

But he’ll be back.  Unlike his peers, he will be returning for post-graduate studies for 2 more years (he’s already 20).  I wish I could say that we had much more to offer hime than custodial care.  I really wish that was the case.  But NCLB has turned us into an academic factory.  The product is a finished assessment and the raw materials are academic standards, technology and creativity.   Since the general curriculum is aimed at college, that’s where we have to aim, with considerable leeway, of course.  But school resources have been totally diverted from vocational instruction to college prep.

Will any of my students go to college?  with IQ’s in the single digits…what do you think?  Are they going to use the algebra, geography and literature I’ve spent all these years teaching them?  Remember, it’s the law.  So what happens to my students when they graduate?  Where do they go?

I recently stumbled into Lance Strate’s Blog, and he writes a post that addresses this a lot better than I could ever do it.  Go over there and read it.

The exit door from my program leads to only two paths.  One, is a funeral.  I’ve done that one too many times.  The other is a waiting list, which all of my graduates end up on, if they don’t take the first path first.  And with funding drying up all over, the waiting lists are going to just get longer and longer.

EOCT Fever May 25, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Curriculum, Ed Policy Discussion, Regular Ed.
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End Of Course Tests were at our school a couple weeks ago at our school and spilled out over a couple of weeks. While these are not quite as high stakes as the CRCT for middle and elementary students or the graduation test, they are still big. They are supposed to make up 15% of the students grade. They can, under some circumstances, be used to graduate a student even when a section of the graduation test is not passed.

Here are the courses with EOCTs:

  • U.S. History
  • Physical Science
  • American Literature
  • 9th grade literature
  • Algebra
  • Geometry
  • Biology
  • Economics

It strikes me as a bit funny that there are so many courses with no EOCT. Plus, each of these courses will also have a final exam next week. So what is up with the EOCT? The EOCT is merely a practice for the graduation test. These are the courses covered by the GHSGT, and so students get a special practice test in order to assess their readiness for the graduation test — and the school’s readiness for making AYP.  Apparently, not much counts after you take the GHSGT.  Why not an EOCT in chemistry, World History or the foriegn languages?  If teaching and learning are the focus, why not teaching and learning in these other areas?  Especially since the Highly Qualified requirement still apllies to teachers teaching these other courses.

Apparently, we do have a national curriculum: Testing and Test Prep.

I’ve been doing some extra reading, and it is alarming and depressing where public education is going in the 21st century. The system that defeated the Communists and brought down the wall during the cold war is now being replaced by the system we worked so hard to defeat.

Of course, the testing schedule disrupts the schedule of everyone in the building. While I am self-contained, it still impacts me as there is no planning period, the lunch schedule is off and having to accommodate everyone else derails my kids. But no one thinks about my kids when designing the schedule.

7 Steps to a Bulletproof Annual Review IEP Schedule April 30, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in IEP, IEPs, Special Ed., Special Education, Teachers.
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IEP season is in full swing and indeed we’re but a few weeks from it being all over. This year, I have not had any LEA duties since our department head has taken over those duties full time. I’m exceedingly thankful but I don’t regret the experience and knowledge previous years and scores of meetings have lent me.

However I did have a middle school that needed a high school representative and have been busy trying to get their meetings scheduled. Whenever I speak to an itinerant teacher or therapist about this particular school and IEP meetings, they roll their eyes. They (the middle school) seem to have some problems in this area, so I’m blogging it to help them and anyone else who cares to look into it.

The Problem

Scheduling an IEP is a lot like herding cats. Everyone is everywhere and it seems like no two people are headed in the same direction. The primary responsibility for scheduling an IEP should fall on the case manager, who should be in regular contact with parents through progress reports and other avenues anyway. I remember my first try at being a special ed. teacher, I was told that I had to talk to my parents. I didn’t want to, and soon learned that if I didn’t contact them, they would be contacting me, and not necessarily under the most ideal of circumstances!

The students I teach are very involved and get many services from many people. An IEP involves bringing all of these people together on the same day at the same time, when there are many, many other meetings and people competing for their time. But it is sometimes the only time a parent gets to see and talk to everyone. How can we get all of these people together who are all running amok at this time of year?

A month or so in advance

1. Set Options and limit them. This part is done by our department head. Basically she designates a given week when we (each caseload manager) are supposed to hold our meetings. Having an online calendar accessible to everyone has been a great help, because several caseloads can occupy each week. So now it can be a bit of a free for all, but now at least there is a time frame to work from and each teacher has a guideline within to work. Of course manifestations and eligibilities can wreak havoc, but we’re talking about annual reviews, here. They happen annually so we know when they should take place. Annually.

2. Talk to the Parents. There’s some disagreement as to who you should talk to first, but I start with the parents. I let them know what week we’re doing annual reviews and get a feel for their own feelings. I want to know how they feel about attending, when the best time of day for them and what their concerns are. Basically we begin the process I’ve written about before.

3. Talk to other service providers. Get a feel for their limitations and preferences and any issues they might have. I’m just trying to get a general feeling here and I let them know the general time frame I have to work with.

4. Set up the time. Notice that I haven’t set a specific time up until now. Sometimes the planets align and service providers and parents all have a common time when they can meet. Hallelujah! But most of the time, this is not going to happen. So my first point of contact is the parent. I get them to committ to a time from the best possible options and try to nail them down. Hard. By that, I mean to say that I make it easy for a parent to say, “No, I’m not going to be able to make it.” without guilt while I also press them to commit and make their yes mean yes. I do this by reassuring them that we can talk before the meeting or after the meeting anytime about any issues. Once they sign that they are or are not attending, I set it in the calendar. This should be done about a month out, if possible. I don’t know many teachers who are doing this, but it is best practice for annual reviews. At this point, I try to get as many service providers as possible on board, but if some can’t make it, that is the nature of this beast.

Within 1 week of the meeting

5. Keep in touch! That especially means parents, but also everyone you have invited to the meeting Service providers need time to input their portion of the IEP and compile notes, grades and reports. Reminding everyone is good practice but reminding parents also helps cover yourself later as part of the due process.

6. Draft the IEP. You need to have this draft done several days in advance of the IEP whether other service providers have their portion completed or not. This will help you move things along as part of due process.

7. Send home some forms and the draft. I try to do this 3 or more days in advance. There are a lot of forms that can be done in advance, like the bus/transportation forms, consent for evaluation, and any surveys that might be due. This will speed things up and they are part of due process. Have extra forms at the meeting, in case the parent forgets, but anything done ahead will help in keeping the communication line alive and active.

When someone wants to change the date and time of the meeting.

Someone better have a good reason that is burnished in gold. Fact is, at our school with hundreds of annual reviews taking place, we do not have room to niggle about with the foolishness of small inconveniences. If that person is a parent, I’m not going to move at the last minute unless I’m dying. Even then, you can roll me up in a wheelchair because when we are a week out, we are going forward at the appointed time. If the parent wants to reschedule, I’m going to try to make it an individual conference, after the fact. The reason why I can do this and get away with it is because I have a draft of the IEP I can send home a few days in advance and the parent can rewrite any portion that they see fit ahead of time. We can do so many things in advance that the actual IEP is merely a ratification of several turns and rounds of negotiations and discussions. Note that this only works if parent contact is an ongoing thing. The most important thing is to include parents from the beginning and give them adequate time and opportunity for input. Leaving parents out has dire consequences.

What’s happening at the middle school, is that these meetings are being scheduled without following the above steps. Consequently, they are constantly being rescheduled and canceled at the last minute. Parents end up jerking the process because they are not being empowered enough at the earliest stage of the review process. The other thing that is happening is that case managers are not getting the things done on time, so they simply reschedule. For a busy itinerant, who may have hundreds of meetings, this is simply untenable. It ends up being a nightmare for everyone involved and a backlog of make-up meetings accumulates and the end of the year turns into a snake pit of frantic hell. Do not let this happen! Teachers who have gone through this more than once have no excuse. It is a violation of our own professional code of conduct as well as our contract by not having the thing written on the appointed day. By starting the process early and collaborating with everyone involved, you can make the process relatively easier on everyone.

As a parent, I like to know the general time line, even if we are a month out. Right now, we have less than a month of school left, and we have not heard a word from my son’s case manager about his annual review. I’ve tried and tried over the years to get his various teachers and case managers to draft stuff in advance, but it never happens. I totally understand procrastination but I’ve managed to simply move my own deadlines up so “last minute” for me is 2 days before the meeting. Having a draft a few days ahead would really help streamline the process plus lessen whatever anxiety Jane* and I might have about it. Having a scheduled date well in advance helps us keep the calendar clear and helps to keep us from feeling jerked around. It makes it less likely that we’ll be the jerks. A smooth process requires advanced planning. Sure, things happen and come up, but it is easier making provision for such things with advanced notice and preparation.

CRCT Fever April 17, 2009

Posted by Daniel Dage in Curriculum, Ed Policy Discussion, NCLB, Regular Ed.
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It’s that time of the year when Georgia elementary schools are going all out for the annual criterion referenced competency test (CRCT). Both of my boys will be subjected to it this next week, and both schools are totally ramping up for this.

  • - Every core subject has been giving practice CRCT tests for the past month

  • - Letters are sent home (more than one) urging parents to make sure the kids are well-rested and well-fed on test day.

  • - Rewards are offered after each test is finished

  • - Rewards are offered at the end of the week after ALL tests are finished.

  • The high school bands are going to the elementary schools on the Friday before test week in order to perform for a CRCT pep rally.

  • Review sessions and tutoring are given after school

  • Evening seminars are given to help parents and students deal with test anxiety.

  • Numerous workbooks and study guides are sold for each grade and subject area.

So what’s at stake?

  • - AYP – whether a school is seen as successful or failing

  • - Real estate values

  • - Teacher contracts

  • - Administrator jobs

  • - Whether or not a student moves to the next grade

  • In the future, there may be some bonus money at stake for teachers and administrators.

In Georgia, this CRCT business actually started before NCLB hit the scene, thanks to the beloved former Governor Roy Barnes’ A+ reform program. Yes, Barnes actually was in front of the high stakes testing movement and continues to advocate for NCLB through his co-chairing the Aspen Institute . Yes, this is the guy who has, and continues to lead the charge into high stakes testing. Based on those actions, he became so unpopular that he was overthrown in his re-election bid and swept republicans into power in Georgia for the first time since reconstruction. And now he is thinking about running again. Egad. It is true that our current beloved Republican governor has proven to be even more unfriendly and twice as inept when it comes to public education but I find it hard to believe that people could be so stupid as to bring the former weasel back. Sure, the old weasel looks less evil than the current one, but why not try to find someone who is NOT looking to pillage education?

Back to the test…

There are still a lot of doubts about the CRCT.

If you look at the first list, you’ll find that actually teaching new skills is not on there. If it’s not on the test, it isn’t going to get much time and hasn’t for at least a month. During test week, EVERYTHING becomes subordinated to those tests. No field trips. No activities. No homework (YAY!). Even the school calendar is subordinate to the tests as spring break must be early enough so that there is enough time to take the test and get the results back before the end of the year. This is what the school has been working for all year. If you think they have been working toward delivering a good education, you are mistaken unless you equate scoring well on a test as a good education. And our students are getting better at taking tests. They may not be able to count change or get along with others, but they can sure take a test.

If you look at my second list, you’ll see that student learning is NOT at stake. The test is supposed to be a measure of learning, but is not learning itself, per se. Not much learning or instruction will be taking place during testing week. But at least the high school band will get in some extra performance time during the CRCT pep rally, which is nice.

My youngest, who just recently had his last IEP ever, will do fine on his tests. He’s the sort who will just do well no matter what else happens because he’s just the sort of kid who loves learning. My oldest, OTOH, will have some issues. First there is the radical change in schedule that happens during testing week. For individuals with autism, schedules provide a safe routine whereas surprises and inconsistency breed anxiety. They’ll do some preparation to minimize this, but at least the first day there is always some extra nervousness. He gets tested in a small group and is allowed as much time as he wants. The small group might help, but he won’t need extended time. He either gets it or he doesn’t and he’s not going to labor over one problem for any length of time. What might happen is that he’ll get distracted. One of the most difficult and costly tasks is transferring an answer from the test booklet to the answer sheet bubbles. It’s too easy to get off track. I can’t remember if marking in the test booklet is an option for him, but it should be. The other problem is the fact that an open test booklet contains several problems/questions at the same time. Getting lost and skipping questions is also a danger. This is why I would be curious as to how he would do with the computerized version. I know some offer it for make-up sessions but for some kids this might actually be a preferred accommodation. It’s more difficult to skip a question or get off track transferring answers. And generally computers present one question at a time. One added bonus is that results would be instantaneous.

For parents and teachers across the country, high stakes testing is just the way the political wind is currently blowing, but I know I’m not the only one who is hoping for a change. While some testing and assessment is necessary, I think the stakes involved encourage all sorts of ways to try to game the system or even outright cheat. Entire local economies are held hostage to these tests, which I think is quite a lot to put on the backs of our school children on a single day or a single week. It just seems like priorities have gotten off track and the kids are paying for it, much like they will foot the bill for the current fiscal crisis.

What’s the wackiest thing you’ve seen surrounding these tests?