Where is the discussion on inclusion?

Hawaii continues to lag woefully behind the rest nation on educating children with disabilities in the general education classroom.  We have been looking at this depressing data for the last decade, yet we remain entrenched in old ideas and old models.   There is clear evidence from the recently released Smarter Balanced Assessment scores that students with disabilities are not achieving anywhere near their disabled peers.  Therefore, it seems abundantly clear that schools remaining stuck in old models of education is no longer just poor leadership but is now clearly discrimination.

Yesterday, I heard Jon Sapier from Research for Better Teaching speaking on Making Student Learning Visible (MTSV).   This is not brand new information – he has been speaking on this since at least 2010, but the way he has structured and clarified the key features, steps or hallmarks of MTSV is new to me.   A point he made about the lack of data on fixed intelligence gave me renewed hope for the potential of presenting a new perspective to Hawaii’s educators.  Armed with a fresh perspective, and lack of achievement with the current model, do we finally have the stars aligned to move to schools becoming inclusive communities?

Here is what Dr. Jon Sapier explained:  The United States has fully embraced the incomplete notion that intelligence is fixed.  The hallmark of that fixed mindset philosophy is the bell curve.  We all know it well. We may have seen it presented at a special education IEP meeting, or during our own educational journey through developmental psychology.  We can recite by heart the different levels of ability clearly and definitively shown on the chart.   Furthest to the right, the group with the smallest sliver of brilliance is the RS group.  RS – Really Smart.  Moving now to the left we have the larger group of SS – Sorta Smart.  Then moving further left below curve we have the KD group – KD? Kinda Dumb.  And finally, you know what lies at the tail end – FAI  – Forget About It.     These labels intentionally make fun of this system as there is no empirical data to show that intelligence is fixed as this artifact maintains.   

Don’t agree – ok check this out.   First recall that Alfred Benet who created the first IQ test in the late 1800s early 1900s said it should not be used to categorize people. Hm.  The study and measurement of intelligence has been an important research topic for over 100 years IQ is a complex concept, and researchers in this field argue with each other about the various theories that have been developed. There is no clear agreement as to what constitutes IQ or how to measure it. There is an extensive and continually growing collection of research papers on the topic. Howard Gardner (1983, 1993), Robert Sternberg (1988, 1997), and David Perkins (1995) have written widely sold books that summarize the literature and present their own specific points of view.  Our MCH LEND Psychology Trainees could certainly provide us more on this - but for basic understanding for educators - get this - there is no agreement among the on what IQ is  - so for our purposes, we need to keep an open mind. With me so far? 

Now there is compelling data that came out a study done in Tennessee between 2005 and 2014.  The researchers took the testing data from 3rd grade students across the state. They then selected all the 3^rd grade students who performed at the 60% on the state achievement test.   60% was a solidly proficient performance level. They then gathered data on those students over the next 3 years measuring their achievement on the same state test.  Along with student testing data, they triangulated data on teacher effectiveness.  They determined effectiveness by several measurers including their own accountability system and student outcomes from state testing and grouped teachers in 3 categories:  Highly effective,  Effective and Ineffective.   The group of students from the original 3^rd grade group – who had the same achievement scores on the state test, remember -  performed significantly differently based on what sort of teacher they had over a period of those next 3 years.  Those who had highly effective teachers for 3 consecutive years performed on average at 96% on the state test.  Those who had effective teachers remained at about their same 3^rd grade level performing at an average of 56%.  Finally those who had Ineffective teachers for 3 consecutive years scored at less than 45% on the state test. Again, remember these kids were all equally proficient in Grade 3.    Still not sure?  Researchers at another university repeated the research in a different locale and got the same results.  There are 50 percentage points different between the achievement of those students who had highly effective teachers for 3 years and those who had ineffective teachers for 3 years.  That is compelling data for reconsidering our belief in fixed intelligence.  And urgent data on how crucial teachers are for student achievement. 

Ok, if you are still reading, you are curious - good, me too.  Now, back to educating children with disabilities in the general education classroom.  Please do not misunderstand me, I am not saying that special education teachers are ineffective – they are teachers with an equal possibility of being effective or not - that is not my point.  My point is that assuming that students with disabilities are incapability of achieving beyond some arbitrary number we have given them that indicates their “Potential” is damaging and discriminatory.  And we discriminate when we arbitrarily place them in special education classes based on their potential and continue this practice confirming our own wrong beliefs when they remain flat in their performance.   Of course they are flat in their performance, they have no peer role models,  the curriculum provided is not the same as their non-disabled peers are receiving, the norms and expectations in a special education class are not the same as in a well managed general education class. And data shows all students do better in mixed groups – again ALL students do better.  

More next blog on change at Kahului Elementary School.  

Signing off, Listening Lesley 

Universal Design for Learning

Thank you for attending the presentation on Universal Design for Learning.   There are SO many amazing new ways to create an accessible classroom.  Here is one that I did not share with Grade 5.   Click on the play button to activate.     This is a product called VOKI.  www.voki.com.   Another way to get kids attention!
Below my Hillary Clinton avatar are the websites I showed you today.   Please share any of the new ways you are making your classroom accessible to all learners.   Enjoy!


Click Universal Design for Learning - UDL Center
All the UDL technology -  UDL TECH

Resources for Para Professionals and their Supervisors

Scholarly paper on the needs of para professionals working with youth with disabilities and includes some links to other resources.

http://www.behavioradvisor.com/ParaPros.html

Data Dashboard for Maui District

I love dashboards!  For example, if you do online banking with American Savings Bank, today you will find their new dashboard feature that gives you total and immediate access to all your account services.  I would love to work with a tech guru to create a functional immediate access dashboard for Maui District that would allow us to keep the pulse of our compliance indicators and any other data we want to be reviewing daily.  Anyone have an idea on a platform or means to keep the data current and available to many users?

Is Optometric Vision Therapy a Valid Treatment for Learning Disabilities

If you have interest in researching the validity of Optometric Vision  Therapy the opening paragraph and conclusion from a research paper I wrote on this topic are pasted below.  A Link to the full paper and references can be found by clicking this link.  .   Power Point Presentation can be found here. 

Optometric Vision Therapy, also referred to as Vision Therapy, or Developmental Optometry, is based on the theory that misaligned or untrained vision can prevent written language from transmitting correctly and seamlessly to the brain for processing and thus causing learning disabilities.  Vision therapists believe that many students and adults who struggle with learning and even those who are identified under IDEA as being eligible for special education as  learning disabled or attention deficit have been misdiagnosed and are actually suffering from misaligned vision or convergence insufficiency (Press, 2002) (COVD, 2010). The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Ophthalmology finds the research touted by Developmental Optometrist to be flawed and emphasizes that learning disabilities are complex neurobiological deficits requiring  multidisciplinary and phonological remediation techniques. (Pediatrics, 2009)  This paper will explore the controversy over Vision therapy and make recommendations for educators and parents to consider. 

Parents, Doctors and Educators should proceed very cautiously if considering vision therapy.   Educators and Doctors are professionally required to rely on research based interventions and therefore should not make recommendations for vision therapy at this time.   Developmental Optometrists would be wise to conduct the peer reviewed research that may validate their own successful findings.  If vision therapy is indeed a successful remediation for learning disabilities, then Developmental Optometrists are cheating children and adults out of a successful future by not insisting on reliable data to validate their own claims.  Parents should be wary of the “guru factor” associated with Vision Therapy.   This term describes the alternative therapies that maintain a dedicated following without valid and reliable data to support efficacy of the therapy.   For example,   when the alternative therapy is not successful it is the fault of the client or of the clients  parents – not of the therapy itself.   And conversely, when the therapy succeeds, all other simultaneously administered remedies are ignored as contributing to success but the alternate therapy stands alone as the single successful factor.   

Preventative, not reactive - a closer look at alternative placements

When I originally applied for the Professional Development Leave in October 2008, I was of the belief Maui District needed additional alternative placements for special education students.  I was thinking of two groups – those who have been placed at HorizonsAcademy and our secondary aged students who have very low reading skills, are unmotivated and are behavior problems on campus.  Now, as a result of my professional development, I have been exposed to new information and reached new conclusions that have changed my opinion on the need and the appropriateness of alternative special education placements for these groups of students. 


Students who graduate from high school without successfully achieving a high school diploma and without having had access to general education curriculum are far less likely to secure life long meaningful work and or higher education post high school.   Hawaii in particular has very poor outcomes in post school transition.  Rather than removing students from the best environment in which to prepare them for a successful future, we should be researching, developing and implementing programs to prevent them from becoming school casualties who require alternative placements.

In reviewing data from the years that I was most closely involved with the students at the Puunene ILC and Horizons Academy, I see there are common issues for these students.  These are cultural difference, low reading ability, and behavior problems - mainly motivation and attention.   Unless programs to address these core problems are in place at all schools we will continue to have students needing alternate placements.

I have come to believe that removing problem students from a campus without providing interventions to support and prevent the development of such behaviors in the first place is not only wrong but is also non-compliant to IDEA.  It is like amputation of a limb due do a small cut being ignored, turning infectious, being ignored further or incorrectly treated and allowed to deteriorate until the only solution is cutting it away entirely.   What is needed is long term solutions with research based quality interventions for reading and behavior, means to support student engagement and cultural competence.

I reached these opinions not only through the transition and intervention research I reviewed, but also in reading two books on leadership and change:  “Switch – How to change things when change is hard” by Chris and Dan Heath and “Leadership and Self Deception – Getting out of the box” by The Arbinger Institute, and I became a reader of “Blog Maverick” by Mark Cuban, a leadership and business guru.   All three teach how crucial it is to have vision for a new product or new direction when your customers are limited to an older or even current vision.  Leadership is about being able to see the future and head for it when everyone around you is still in the present or the past.  Using a business model example, it is not asking what your customers what they want - for they are unable to envision your future offerings - but to vision it for yourself and provide it to them.  Using our own educational example, in October 2008 the principals of our secondary schools desperately wanted us to provide alternate placements; the focus of most of my early morning school meetings were on how to deal with disruptive students and their parents.  Leadership however, demands us to take a step back and look at how to be preventative rather than reactive and work to build the supportive intervention programs that can end the cry for alternative placements and move the schools into the 21^st century.

IDEA requires that all students with disabilities have access to the general curriculum and that targeted, consistent, research based interventions (academic – especially reading, assistive technology, behavioral interventions, and cultural awareness) are in place to support them.   We know that in most of our schools many of our students are remain in special education classes receiving instruction in a highly modified content which is a complete departure from the general curriculum. Some reasons for this is lack of meaningful alternatives, tradition and lack of support for inclusive placements.

Therefore, I changed the focus of the grants written during my professional development leave to be supportive of a preventative future focus rather than addressing an immediate crisis, to prevent the need for alternative placements rather than to ignore the symptoms and provide only amputation, and to reach greater compliance to the intention of IDEA law.  The focus of the grants are (1) Technology to Include All Children project to increase inclusion of special needs students in elementary schools, (2) Kuleana Connect Project to build engagement and support unmotivated learners in behavior an executive functioning and (3) the King Kekaulike Inclusion Achievement Project to include the first two along with an Inclusion Achievement Center approach to providing successful inclusion practices for all students.

I Am Determined Transition Project

Parent information network from Missouri shared an excellent presentation on means to improve transition planning by engaging the student and their parents in the process and focusing on self-determination.  It makes sense to me, that like everything else in life, that unless you have the buy-in, the involvement, the ownership, of the student in anything related to goals and goal attainment - you will fail to make meaningful gains.  Children and youth are just like adults in wanting and needing to be an active participant in determining their path and their goals.  How can we expect that youth transitioning from school would have meaningful transition plans that have the actual potential to work for them in learning the skills and developing the competencies they will need for transition to work and the world of adulthood (not to mention secondary school!) unless they have been not only present for the meeting and discussion, but are truly  the "Chief Executive Officer" with the final say!   Lets work to getting our kids involved and leading their transition IEP meetings and plans.

Suggestions on how to get students involved in their IEPs

• Create invitations to the meeting
• Ahead of time make a list of strengths and challenges
• Work with the student to create a Power Point about themselves
• Plan the invitees, seating and how about a snack? 

 I jumped off of the Missouri format and created this PPT:
Imua! Life After High School