Spec Ed 781 Advanced Studies in Special Education

1. Spec Ed 781Advanced Studies in Special Education Summer 2005 Dr. Chiang

2. Major Components of the Course • Understanding Current Special Education Issues • Awareness of critical issues & implications • Research one selected topic to share with the rest of class by Powerpoint presentation • Familiarity with Educational Statistics • Basic descriptive & inferential statistics • Using SPSS to analyze data

3. Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, May 2001(http://www.edexcellence.net) A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and Their Families, July, 2002 The Death of Special Education, January 2001 Learning Disabilities: Severity, Inclusion, and Complexity, October 2000 Redefining LD as Inadequate Response to Instruction: The Promise and Potential Problems, 2003 Responsiveness to General Education Instruction as the First Gate to LD Identification, 2003 Required Reading

4. Chapter 1 • Special education complicating education reform • school choice • standards & accountability • A bright-line test to determine LRE • the importance of 1994 Title 1 reauthorization • current federal special education funding formula • December 1 unduplicated state headcounts (need-based funding) • Limited census-based funding

5. Chapter 1 • What is the current federal share of special education spending? • Disabled children cost about twice as much to educate as the non-disabled. Are you aware of this? How can we defend this cost? How can special education be made more cost effective?   • Comment on LD as a “sociological sponge to wipe up the spills of general education.”   • How can you defend against the criticism that special education complicates education reform?  • What flaws, if any, are there with the two-part test in determining what an “appropriate” education is?

6. Chapter 2 • Three unintended negative consequences of IDEA • Extraordinary growth of special ed enrollment due to funding incentive • Expanding cost of special ed at the expense of regular ed • Application of accommodation strategies resulting in a lifetime of entitlement

7. Chapter 2--continued • Five reasons for the out-of-control growth in special ed: • pressure from advocacy groups • continued growth of LD • the incentive to over-identify • recent education reform & high-stake tests • much less stigma attached to special ed • Accommodation & “differential advantages”

8. Chapter 2--continued • Three special ed reform recommendations: • Disentangle special ed sub-populations • Reform special ed funding • Empower students to overcome their disabilities • Three restructured special ed categories: • children w/ significant sensory, cognitive, & physical disabilities • children w/ neurological dysfunction • children w/ behavioral problems • Criticism of census-based funding & possible solutions

9. Chapter 2 • In what ways have the 1991 federal policy clarification of ADD/ADHD and 1999 codification of OHI changed the special education landscape?   • Why have there been not more students exiting from special education programs upon re-evaluation? (Less than 12% currently, most of whom from Speech Language Impairment)   • Has special education over emphasized due process while overlooking student outcomes? If so, how can this problem be appropriately addressed? • Should school disciplinary rules be differentially applied to special education students or not? Defend your answer as persuasively as you can.  

10. Chapter 2 • Are we indeed systematically or inadvertently promoting a lifetime entitlement to special accommodations for students with mild impairments of LD, OHI, EBD? Why and why not?  • Develop your arguments in support of or opposing the three-category (instead of the current 13-category) classification system in special education. With this proposed new system, what role changes, if any, can we expect of the general education teachers?

11. Chapter 4 • Three basic hotly contested special ed policy issues: • testing accommodations • discipline and a double standard • scarcity and resource allocation • “value dilemmas” (Hallahan & Kauffman, 1994) -- “the tension between working toward eradicating or reducing disabilities while at the same time working toward helping the public to attach positive value to those who have a disability”

12. Chapter 4-continued • “It is plainly impossible to reward what we ultimately decide what is meritorious without implicitly penalizing those who lack the skills and virtues we value.” (p.79) • Impacts of placement decisions (EBD, OHI for ADD, LD), manifestation determination and different discipline policies: “forces districts to decide that a person is or is not a member of a protected class and then attaches certain strong privileges… to the class status.” (p.81)

13. Chapter 4 • Kelman argued that current special education policy issues have little to do with discrimination. Specifically, he cited three “hotly contested policy issues” -- accommodation, discipline, and resource allocation -- to argue his case. Counter-argue Kelman’s case by taking up these three issues one at a time. • Accommodation counterargument:  • Discipline counterargument:  • Resource allocation counterargument • To what extent are students with disabilities (especially marginal disabilities such as SLD and EBD) responding to interventions in your district/school/class? In general, are their responses satisfactory? If yes, to whom? If not, why not?

14. Chapter 7 • Implications of inclusion • “watering down the curriculum” • use of paraprofessionals • parental expectation & conflicts • “access to” and “progress in” general ed curriculum, what does it mean? • growth of special ed=school failure? • Districts reimbursed from federal Medicaid funds (since 1988) for certain special ed expenses (PT, health aide) for qualified children. Nationally, such reimbursement has increased dramatically.

15. Chapters 7 & 8 • One approach to control the growth of special education is to use it as a last resort after many options are tried. Discuss the feasibility as well as the potential problems of such an approach. • Within an inclusive setting, how can instruction for students with mild disabilities be delivered without watering down the curriculum? • 1997 Reauthorized IDEA requires special education students to have “meaningful access to the general education curriculum.” What is your interpretation of this requirement?

16. Chapter 8 • Implications of • extending the category of SDD to the federal maximum age of 9 • decentralizing special ed to state, district, or school level • lawsuits, IDEA complaints, due process hearings, and mediations

17. Laurence Lieberman articles • Students with LD are not the best candidates for inclusion, why? • continuum of severity vs. complexity • elementary vs. secondary school • What should be special ed’s “starting point”, the individual student or the general ed environment (curriculum, standard, & assessment)? • disability vs. handicap • accommodation (getting around disability) vs. remediation (going right at disability)

18. Lieberman • Do you agree with his claim that inclusion for students of learning disabilities “may be a simple (and risky) way of dealing with a very complicated problem”? Explain your position. • He asserted that “a disabled child was not disabled because he was failing in school; he was failing in school because he was disabled.” Interpret his assertion and share your own thoughts on this statement.  • Has the “I in IDEA and the I in IEP” indeed become “virtually nonexistent”? Support your observations with evidences. • Explain Lieberman’s view on prevention of special education (handicap vs. disability).

19. Response-to-instruction model • Four required components • On-going progress monitoring assessment procedures • Adequate info about effective instruction • General education commitment to supplemental programs for at-risk students • A means for screening & tracking the progress of a large number of students • Two approaches to eliminate environmental variables as a viable explanation for academic failure • Problem-solving by manipulating instruction via adaptations to general education • Intensive prevention trials and indexing student responsiveness • The dual discrepancy of level & slope (growth or progress) and treatment validity

20. Chapter 12 Facts about LD • Early intervention and prevention can reduce up to 70% of children with reading problems in special ed or compensatory programs. • The largest increase among LD is between age 12 and 17 (upper elementary to middle school).

21. Chapter 12-continued Rethinking LD: • Develop new definition for LD/reading, LD/language arts, LD/reading comprehension, LD/math etc. • Environment, including instruction, can impact development of neural systems. • The IQ-Achievement discrepancy makes early identification difficult and results in a “wait-to-fail” model. • The current negative definition (in terms of the exclusion clause) has many drawbacks.

22. Chapter 12-continued Rethinking LD: • “LD has served as a sociological sponge that attempts to wipe up general education’s spills and cleans its ills.” • Target resources at early, intensive, evidence-based interventions rather than expensive eligibility determination practice. • Many children identified as LD are actually “teaching disabled.” Improve the capacity of teachers and schools to implement sound early interventions, not change criteria. • Expand the use of SDD to age 9.

23. Chapter 12 • The authors claimed that the IQ-achievement discrepancy, when employed as the primary criterion for LD eligibility decision making, may well harm more children than it helps. What are the problems with the IQ-achievement discrepancy? • The authors made an evidence-based argument for early identification, prevention, and early intervention. What specific evidences did they cite?

24. Conclusions 8 policy failures identified for special education: • Preventable & remediable conditions grow into intractable problems. • It keeps expanding such its goals become unattainable, its operation impossibly complex & costly, and its purpose clouded. • Its one-size-fits-all approach has created a legal & policy straightjacket. • The IDEA creates perverse incentives for educators and schools.

25. Conclusions-continued 5. Parents have perverse incentives, too. • As the largest unfunded federal mandate in K-12 education, it distorts the priority & fractures the programmatic coherence of schools and school systems. • Different rules for disabled children foster a “separate but unequal” education system. 8. It collides with standards-based reform, exempting many students (and indirectly educators/schools) from meeting state or district academic standards.

26. Conclusions-continued Six Principles for Special Ed Reform: • Make the IDEA standards- and performance-based, wherever possible. • Streamline number of categories into a few very broad groupings. • Focus on prevention & early intervention, wherever possible. • Encourage flexibility, innovation, & choices. • Provide adequate funding to ensure program success. • End double standards, wherever possible.

27. Chapter 3 • Three types of accountability models: • compliance (bureaucracy, regulatory), emphasizing process & documentation • competition (market), emphasizing outcomes or results, and consumer choice • community (clan) emphasizing shared norms and values (e.g. Catholic schools) • In special ed, the accountability system tend to combine elements of more than one model. How so?

28. Chapter 3--continued • Three factors contributing to the compliance model is special ed programs: • sympathy • organizational culture • fear of litigation • The OSEP’s monitoring system leaves the fox to guard the henhouse. How so? • To what extent does IDEA ‘97 address effectiveness & accountability?

29. Chapter 5 • Special ed incidence rate and • poverty • race (percentages of minority students) • per pupil expenditure • Urban districts have lower % of special ed students because • they lack resources(??) • they are less competent in identifying • minority parents’ reluctance to place • social integration (?)

30. Chapter 9 • Increase in special ed preschool (3-5) enrollment • Major causes of rising special ed costs: • changes in medical practice • deinstitutionalization & privatization • increases in children in poverty & families experiencing social and economic stress

31. Chapter 10 • Possible amendments to IDEA (due process): • Limiting attorneys’ fees • Establishing an IDEA statue of limitations • Train judges as hearing officers • Limiting the duration and scope of the process

32. Chapter14 • Three principles guiding redesign of special ed policy: • an obsession with results • have access to a big toolbox • residual rules that provide a safety net • To substitute for compliance model, create a system of performance incentive for • effective intervention • effective remediation • effective prevention

33. Chapter 14-continued • What is • “gaming the numbers?” • “information-based approach?” • “one-size-fits-all” compliance system? • Which procedures are dispensable (not included as residual requirements)? • each student has an IEP • specific components of IEP • placement in LRE

34. Chapter 14-continued • Which procedures are suggested to be residual base of essential compliance obligations? • identify and assess • establish annual goals & report the results • involve and inform parents • monitor compliance