I  came across this biting criticism of charter schools and children with disabilities recently on the Education Week website.  The part that caught my attention was that the editorial was written by the former Director of The US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs under former President Bill Clinton.  It’s not uncommon to see this type of criticism of charter schools (usually for very good reason) but the author’s credentials created enough curiosity for me to read the piece.

The interesting part of this debate is that Special Education services do, almost by definition, require additional funding and spending by schools.  This is less because the Special Education students are so expensive to educate than it is that the schools are simply not set-up and prepared to teach them.

As I’ve pointed out before it’s maddening how many programs, supports or “interventions” used in Special Education programs around this country are stuck away in the Special Ed rooms when, if they were rolled out to more students in the school, they could be such powerful tools for ALL children.  If this were to happen the economies of scale involved would quickly reduce the cost of many of these tools and interventions and would ultimately reduce the cost of educating many of these students.

Of course for that to happen, schools would have to see their role as truly being responsible for EDUCATING ALL students in their schools instead of using their special education programs to silo many of the kids that have been pre-determined to not be WORTH the effort.

The saddest part of this debate is that while the public schools love to launch blistering accusations against the charter schools for dumping these students, it always seems to me that their frustration is less that the charter schools are “dumping” and more that they can’t do it too.

But I digress …. enjoy the editorial then please tell me what YOU think.

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We had the great honor on October 25th of last year to interview Peter Wright from Wrightslaw.

Pete is a pioneer in the area of Special Education Law and truly one of the ultimate child advocates in this country.  We had the joy of being able to host a Wrightslaw conference in 2008 and were stunned at not only the overwhelming response the conference received but also the great generosity that Pete showed in working with us and helping parents at the conference.

Unfortunately, this interview was one of the one’s lost from the blog when our servers were hit last year with a series of unfortunate events.  So we’ve reposted the interview again for your learning and listening enjoyment.

The timing of this repost is fantastic because it just happens to coincide with the release of the top information shared on the Wrightslaw website last year.  So if you’re new to Wrightslaw you’ve got a great outline to start your education below.  Of course, even if you’re not new to Wrightslaw and Special Education Law you can’t go wrong with the outline presented below either.

Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement regarding a soon to be announced Wrightslaw conference in the Detroit Metro area.

The Wrightslaw Top 10 Informational Articles From 2009

1. Tests and Measurements for the Parent, Teacher, Advocate & Attorney
2. Wrightslaw Game Plan: SMART IEPs
3. Functional Behavior Assessments: What, Why, When, Where, and Who?
4. Response to Intervention: Guidelines for Parents and Practitioners
5. IEPs for Children with Behavior Problems
6. Key Differences Between Section 504, ADA, and IDEA
7. Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) & FAPE
8. Supreme Court Issues Pro-Child Decision in Forest Grove School District v. T.A.
9. 10 Tips: How to Use IDEA 2004 to Improve Your Child’s Special Education
10. Reading Tests: What They Measure…and Don’t Measure

Hot Special Education Topics From 2009

1. Response to Intervention (RTI)
2. Discrimination: Section 504 and ADA
3. Individualized Education Programs (IEPs)
4. IDEA 2004
5. Behavior Problems and Discipline
6. Special Education Caselaw
7. Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Asperger Syndrome
8. No Child Left Behind
9. Inclusion, Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), Mainstreaming
10. Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD)

Top 10 Education / Special Education Law Cases Discussed in 2009

1. Bd. Ed. Hendrick Hudson Sch. Dist. v. Amy Rowley
2. Honig v. Doe
3. Forest Grove School District v. T.A.
4. Fitzgerald v. Barnstable
5. Burlington Sch. Comm. v. Mass. Dept Ed
6. Henrico v. R.T.
7. Florence County Sch. Dist. IV v. Shannon Carter
8. Jarron Draper v. Atlanta Independent Public Schools
9. Cedar Rapids v. Garret F.
10. Irving v. Tatro

Top 10 Blog Posts From 2009

1. Does a Child Need an IEP AND a 504 Plan?
2. How Can I Develop SMART IEP Goals for Behavior Problems?
3. Should Poor Organizational Skills be Accommodated in an IEP?
4. When Schools Punish Sick Children Who Miss School: A Game Plan
5. IEP FAQs: Can More than one Disability Be Listed in an IEP?
6. Should Your Child’s IEP Include Extended Year Services (ESY)?
7. Is ADHD a learning disability? I’ve been told “no, it’s not.”
8. IEP FAQs: Is There a 10 Day Timeline for IEP Meetings?
9. Getting Help for a Child with a Behavior Disorder
10. Handcuffs? Bruises? Disability Rights Files Suit Against Wake County Schools

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You Missed A Show?

Missed a show?  How could you?

Okay, besides you have a family and the show is on early Sunday mornings.

Then here’s your chance to catch up.  I’ll be posting full breakouts of all the shows we did in 2009 but in the meantime check out any of the shows that you might have missed below:

1. Dr. James Gregg – Is Chiropractic Right For Your Family?
2. The Swine Flu & The Vaccine – What’s The Story & Is It Safe?
3. David Kirby – Vaccine Safety & The Impact Of Factory Farming On Our Diets
4. Peter Wright From Wrightslaw.com – Special Ed & Special Ed Law
5. Twitter – Why, How, Should We Care w/ Leslie Poston Co-Author Of “Twitter For Dummies”
6. John Gatto – The American Education System
7. Dr. Arthur Benjamin – Math Magic & Improving Math Education
8. Barbara Coloroso – Fighting Back Against Bullying
9. David Allen – Author Of NY Time Bestseller “Getting Things Done”
10. Dave Farrow – Guinness Book Memory Master Record Holder
11. Kim Stewart – Eating Between The Lines (Coming Soon)
12. Marianne Syzmanski – Toy Tips For Children
13. Carol Kranowitz – The Out of Sync Child & Sensory Integration

Many (and soon) all off these shows can also be downloaded at Itunes in the Podcast section under “My Great Kid”.

Thank you for listening to the show and following this blog and please let us know if there are any topics, or guests, you would like us to speak to in the future.

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“Parents will always be catalysts for education reform.”

def: Catalyst: An agent that precipitates -or- accelerates fundamental change

In what is sure to be a phenomenally informative show, this Sunday on the  “My Great Kid” Radio Program (Sunday 8:00am-9:00am, WAAM 1600am or online at www.waamannarbor.com;  A podcast will be posted after the show) we will be interviewing Peter Wright the founder of Wrightslaw.com and one of the nation’s most influential attorneys.

If you have a child with “special needs” or if you have a child who’s having trouble in school you literally cannot afford to miss this show.  If you have a friend that this applies to please tell them about the show.  Mr. Wright’s advice, website, books and conferences have been a critical part of my son receiving the education that he’s entitled to under the law since his earliest days of  Early Intervention.

This man is literally the guru of Special Education Law.

To learn more about Pete click here.

If you have any questions that you would like to have asked please send them to me at  steve@mygreatkid.com or post them to my Twitter page @MyGreatKid or call in live during the show at 734-822-1600.

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Thanks to Keith Schoch over at Teaching That Sticks for pointing me to the OUTSTANDING op-ed by Steve Peha (from Teaching That Makes Sense. ).

I have to admit that at first I was a bit uncomfortable with the using the word “Genocide”, it seemed a bit extreme.  However,  let’s look at the definition:

violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group – USHMM

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part – ICC

Hmmmm, looking at it according to the definitions and defining it as “academic genocide” maybe that’s not too strong.

THOUGH, it’s important to realize that it wasn’t me,  (or even Steve Peha) that used it …. it was Judge Howard Manning:

Halifax County’s public schools do such a bad job of educating students that they are committing “academic genocide,” a state judge said in ordering a hearing next month on who should run the schools.Manning based his statements, in part, on the system’s scores on end-of-grade reading tests. More than 71 percent of elementary school students are not proficient in reading, and more than 74 percent of middle-school students are not proficient, Manning wrote.

“This is irrefutable evidence of a complete breakdown in academics” in the Halifax County schools, he wrote.

Manning manages a public school funding lawsuit known as the Leandro case, after one of the plaintiffs. He has focused much of his attention on high school improvements since the state Supreme Court in 2004 largely upheld his ruling, which found the state is required to provide a “sound basic education” to all public school students. The judge’s order for a hearing is another outgrowth of the Leandro case, originally filed in 1994. Halifax was one of the five original school districts in the case.

Full Story Here

Unfortunately this problem isn’t limited to Halifax and is even worse for children with “special needs”.  This doesn’t seem that hard … if the child isn’t LEARNING the system isn’t WORKING!

For two related posts about what to do when the school isn’t teaching your child how to read check out : Waiting To Fail and Not One Size Fits All over at the Wrightslaw Blog.

Here’s the facts.

There are a lot more children with Autism and related learning challenges in the public school these days than ever before.  Schools are doing a terrible job training teachers how to handle -  much less educate – these children and the result is these children are getting abused.

They are being abused physically.

They are being abused emotionally.

They are being abused mentally.

They are being abused intellectually.

Am I saying that teachers and administrators at schools are purposely abusing these children – yes, that’s precisely what I’m saying.  Teachers and administrators, because THEY don’t understand and because THEY don’t know what to do, are doing things and creating environments for children with special needs that they would find abhorrent if they used them on other children in the school. However, because they are the special ed kids and the troubled kids and the problem kids it’s justified and excused until it’s finally accepted.  Oh yeah, it’s also usually hidden from the parents too until something bad happens or there’s enough physical trauma that it comes to light.

The saddest part is that if schools did a better job with many of these children when they were younger they would find that many of these children wouldn’t be as frustrated, aggressive and confrontational when they get older.

While I can think of no other description besides abusive to describe what is happening to many children in the school today (right now even as you are reading this) that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily being abusive on purpose.  If they’re not doing it on purpose that what could their reasoning be?

• Ignorance – they don’t understand the children, their needs, the reason for their behavior or how to react to it
• Apathy - these kids cause problems so frequently for them that they eventually reach a point where they care more about getting the kids out of their hair then they do about what happens to them
• “Special Ed” Syndrome – they’re special ed kids so they really don’t even understand what’s going on anyway and besides their long term potential isn’t as important or promising as the “regular” kids
• “It’s the system” – it can’t be wrong if it’s the way things have always been done …. can it?

School "seclusion room" with cord used by a student to hang himself. Does this room look like a school or a cell?

The story highlighted here of Jonathon King is a more extreme case ….. but only because he ultimately hung himself.  With schools across the country using these “seclusion rooms” with no oversight, no guidelines and with untrained, uneducated people supervising them how many other extreme cases are occurring but not being reported.  If Johnathon hadn’t had the cord to hang himself in the room would his case have been less abusive?

To me the answer is clearly no …. it’s still abusive, we just wouldn’t know about it.  How about these other cases highlighted in the story:

• A Tennessee mother alleged in a federal suit against the Learn Center in Clinton that her 51-pound 9-year-old autistic son was bruised when school instructors used their body weight on his legs and torso to hold him down before putting him in a “quiet room” for four hours. Principal Gary Houck of the Learn Center, which serves disabled children, said lawyers have advised him not to discuss the case.

A nine year old locked in a room by himself for four hours? Abusive or reasonable?

• Eight-year-old Isabel Loeffler, who has autism, was held down by her teachers and confined in a storage closet where she pulled out her hair and wet her pants at her Dallas County, Iowa, elementary school. Last year, a judge found that the school had violated the girl’s rights. “What we’re talking about is trauma,” said her father, Doug Loeffler. “She spent hours in wet clothes, crying to be let out.” Waukee school district attorney Matt Novak told CNN that the school has denied any wrongdoing.

Locked in a closet for hours for pulling her hair and wetting her pants. Abusive or reasonable?  A child who needs help or punishment?

• A mentally retarded 14-year-old in Killeen, Texas, died from his teachers pressing on his chest in an effort to restrain him in 2001. Texas passed a law to limit both restraint and seclusion in schools because the two methods are often used together.

Pressing so hard on a child’s chest that you kill.  Accident or abuse of power?

Other interesting quotes from the story ….

“Teachers aren’t trained to handle that,” said Dr. Roger Pierangelo, executive director of the National Association of Special Education Teachers.

“When you have an out-of-control student threatening your class — it’s not right and it can be very damaging — but seclusion is used as a ‘quick fix’ in many cases.”

It can also screw them up for life and lead them to commit suicide, become more abusive and more dangerous.  Maybe, we should look for the right fixes instead of just the quick ones.

Former Rhode Island special education superintendent Leslie Ryan told CNN that she thought she was helping a disabled fifth-grader by keeping him in a “chill room” in the basement of a public elementary school that was later deemed a fire hazard.

“All I know is I tried to help this boy, and I had very few options,” Ryan said. After the public learned of the room, she resigned from her post with the department but remains with the school.

You lock a child in the basement of the school …. and you thought you were “helping him”?  If that’s the attitude of the  STATE SPECIAL EDUCATION SUPERINTENDENT God help the parents and kids in RI.  Maybe she truly felt that she had few options but here’s one that I can think of …. don’t lock kids (any kids) in the school basement.

Michigan requires that a child held in seclusion have constant supervision from an instructor trained specifically in special education, and that confinement not exceed 15 minutes.

When a child needs help you help them, you don’t punish them.

I wonder how many of these same school officials and teachers, if they heard about the parent doing this to the child at home, would have called social services on the parents for abuse?

Funny enough this story comes out at the same time these stories are hitting ….

• Education Week: Parents of Children With Autism Pessimistic, Survey Says
• Autism study finds parent are pessimistic — chicagotribune.com
• Autism Strains Families’ Pocketbooks, Emotions – On Parenting (usnews.com)

An Interview with Laura Johnson from the University Of Toledo.

I really don’t like the way that she phrases and refers to some of the topics in this interview HOWEVER, I do think that some of the strategies and insight that she brings to the topic are not only interesting but VERY RELEVANT as a way to educate children.  This is a beautiful example of a teacher that uses visual teaching cues to E-D-U-C-A-T-E a person.

Most importantly it shows that visual thinking is not just a way for “special education” kids to learn but rather a very relevant way of thinking that is present throughout society.  Imagine how much different schools could look if “visual learners” and “visual thinking” were widely recognized as a valid way to learn instead of just a backup method for the “special kids” and “dumb jocks”.

Visual Teaching – Autism and Football?

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“Can a child have an IEP for speech and a 504 for academic interventions?”
There is nothing in the law that says a child with a disability should have an IEP for some needs and a 504 plan for others. It’s confusing, it’s more work, and it’s unnecessary.
A school that does not understand the requirements for [...]
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When you have a disagreement between the teachers and the school psychologist about whether a child qualifies for services, you must consider the real question that needs to be answered. “Does the child have a disability that adversely affects educational performance?” If the answer to the question is “yes,” then the child is eligible under [...]
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In July, US DOE reported that only thirteen states met their own “self-imposed” requirements for educating children with disabilities. Not very promising, but a slight improvement from 2007 when only nine states met their requirements.
IDEA 2004 established a requirement that all states develop and submit a State Performance Plan (SPP) to the U.S. Department of [...]
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