Special Education Today

One more post for the AT Blog Carnival.  Eric Sailers (@egolfer6) from Speech-Language Pathology Sharing wanted to share this post on his upcoming presentations:


Cue Conference


Patrick


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Those readers from the UK are almost surely familiar with the “Rose Report,” but readers in other parts of the world may not know about it. Identifying and Teaching Children and Young People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties: An independent report from Sir Jim Rose to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families [...]

The U.S. House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to discuss the impact of charter schools on the public education system as it prepares to reauthorize – rewrite – the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now known as No Child Left Behind.  Notably, witnesses and members of Congress raised concerns regarding recent studies which showed an under-representation of students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools and “counseling out” practices which may discourage prospective families of students with disabilities from enrolling their child because special education services and supports are unavailable.  CEC has echoed these concerns and others, with members of Congress and their staff and encouraged lawmakers to address issues of under-representation and providing a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. 

Dr. Tom Hehir, professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education testified that while some charter schools can provide students with disabilities with a high-quality education and offer parents school choice options, on the whole charter schools generally serve fewer children with disabilities than traditional public schools. Additionally, Hehir testified that charter schools serve far fewer students with more significant disabilities, and in some instances, none at all.  According to Hehir, under-representation is problematic for a variety of reasons including: civil rights concerns, it compromises the ability of charter schools to claim better approaches to serving students for whom the current education system has failed, may present a financial disadvantage to traditional public schools, and the existing financial disincentive for charters not to educate students that may require costly services. To remedy this issue, Hehir provided members of Congress with three recommendations:



•    The federal government should require states to proactively address issues of access involving special populations as a condition for receiving federal funds;

•    The federal government should establish a federal technical assistance center focusing on the needs of students form special populations in charter schools; and

•    The federal government should fund research on serving special populations in charter schools.



Numerous members of Congress – including Rep. Miller (D-CA), chairman of the Committee; Rep. Scott (D-VA), Rep. Cassidy (R-LA), Rep. Hinojosa (D-TX), and Rep. Biggert (R-IL) – all raised the issue of the ability of charter schools to serve students with disabilities.



Also discussed was the All Students Achieving through Reform Act (H.R. 4330), legislation introduced by Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), which seeks to increase the number of charter schools by replicating successful charter school practices.  Currently, 1.5 million children are enrolled in nearly 5,000 public charter schools across the country and thousands of students remain on waiting lists. 



Read CEC’s Policy on Children with Exceptionalities in Charter Schools.



For more information, including the testimony of all the witnesses, visit the House Education and Labor Committee Website.

Happy February to everyone!  Thanks for stopping by to check out the AT Blog Carnival.  Please take a moment to check out the contributors, and if you like what you read, please leave a comment!

Greg McCall starts of this month, he submitted this
SLS4reading

Ira Socol (@irasocol) of SpeEdChange submitted a great post on technology.
What is Technology?


Chris Bugaj (@attipscast) of the A.T.TipsCast thought everyone would enjoy this spooky post!
Count Edula's Game

Daniel McNutty shared his website for you to check out.
Patins Project

Gillian Pilcher of Special Classroom has a great math game.
Math Game

Ricky Buchanan (@rickybuchanan) of ATMac has a few good posts!
Nuance Buys Macspeech
Accessing the iPad
Fiddle Proof iPod

Barrie Ellis (@oneswitch) of One Switch UK share some great games.
Gamma IV at Gamebase

I'm sharing my thoughts on the upcoming release of the Apple iPad.
Apple iPad
Apple iPad - Comments

Thanks again to all the contributors!  Please keep a look out for the next AT Blog Carnival.


Patrick

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This is the last call for entries for the February AT Blog Carnival.  Please get your submission to me ASAP and I will make sure to get it posted for tomorrow.  You can reach me at Twitter - Teachntech00 or via the reTaggr widget on this page (top right corner).

Patrick

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In an article slated to appear in Remedial and Special Education, Jeanne Wanzek and Sharon Vaughn reported that widely popular three-tiered approach to addressing did not significantly reduce the number and percentage of students identified for special education across seven elementary schools. Their study, which is limited to the response to instruction or intervention in [...]

Source: Oznoff et al., 2010 In “A Prospective Study of the Emergence of Early Behavioral Signs of Autism,” Professor Sally Oznoff and colleagues found that infants who develop Autism behave differently than their typically developing peers even as early as one year of age. Writing in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent [...]

The Council of Graduate Schools posted a resolution, “Resolution Regarding Graduate Scholars, Fellows, Trainees and Assistants,” regarding offers and acceptances of financial assistance for graduate students. Financial support—scholarships, fellowships, and assistantships—is commonly offered at the same time as an offer of admission for advanced graduate studies, and such offers need to be tendered and accepted [...]

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One of the greatest things I’ve discovered since starting this blog is that there are so many lawyers and law students interested in practicing special education law who are thirsty for knowledge about how to get started.  I had the distinct pleasure of being contacted by Attorney Matthew Stoloff last year as he was about to launch his practice.  He shared with me his intent to focus in this area of the law, and in my communications with him, it became instantly clear to me that Matt would be a welcome addition to the community of Parent’s attorneys.  I am honored to introduce him to you as this month’s guest blogger.

Attorney Stoloff is passionate, smart, and dedicated to the rights of children with disabilities, and I am confident that he has a very bright legal career in front of him.  In particular, I love that he chose Transition Services as the focus of his guest post; it is a subject about which I feel we can’t pay enough attention.

Attorney Stoloff is a disability rights attorney in New Jersey.  His legal interests include special education, disability discrimination matters, and civil rights issues. Feel free to visit his website and blog

The Day After Graduation

by Matthew Stoloff, Esq.

Life is short. At one moment, a child is learning to walk or talk. In the next moment, the child is about to graduate from high school. Because time flies so quickly, graduation occurs much sooner than parents expect.

Unfortunately, many children with disabilities, particularly those with neurological and cognitive impairments, are not ready to graduate this year because they have not mastered basic life skills. Doubly unfortunate is the fact that hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of mentally impaired children have graduated from school without having mastered basic life skills.

What are basic life skills? These are tasks that many of us take for granted: making the bed, dusting the furniture, cooking, cleaning, using the microwave, using the dishwasher, using the washer and dryer. It also means knowing personal hygiene, recognizing signs, developing time management, counting money, going to the grocery store, purchasing goods, and effectively communicating with strangers. In addition to living independently (or semi-independently), basic life skills also include knowledge of how to find and keep a job, as well as interacting with co-workers and customers or clients. Other basic life skills are provided here.

Some of you might be thinking: “Schools have no responsibility to teach children any of these things. Parents should be teaching their children this stuff.”

I agree that parents should teach their children life skills. However, schools have just as much responsibility to teach children life skills. In fact, the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) not only recognizes the need to teach children with disabilities life skills, but requires it! (If you enjoy reading statutes and regulations, you can start here.)

To be an effective advocate for children with disabilities who are a few years away from entering into adulthood, every parent, school, advocate, and special education attorney should be be familiar with the law and regulations related to transition planning. Equally important to familiarity with the law and regulations is the ability to answer such as questions as:

· What can the child do now?

· What are the child’s interests?

· What should the child be able to do by the time graduation rolls around?

· What are the child’s strengths?

· What are the child’s weaknesses?

· Should we spend any time addressing the child’s weaknesses?

· How can we improve on the child’s strengths?

· How can we help the child learn to live independently or semi-independently?

· How can we help the child make decisions for him- or herself?

· How can we improve the child’s social skills?

· What jobs would be suitable for this child?

· How can we help the child find and keep a job?

No effective transition/life skills program can be developed without knowing the answers to many of these questions. However, once parents and teachers can answer these questions, they can start drafting a “Transition Planning” component into the Individualized Education Plan (”IEP”). To see specific, concrete examples of how the Transition Planning component can be drafted into the IEP, see the IEP Transition Checklist.

There is no “age requirement” to start developing a Transition Planning component in the IEP. It is really dependent upon the individual child. The law says that the Transition Planning component should be drafted when the child is no later than 16 years old. However, it would not be unusual to start the Transition Planning component at a younger age.

To learn more about Transition Planning and how to incorporate a life skills curriculum into an IEP, see Transition Planning for Students; Transition to Adulthood; and Teaching Students Who Are Low-Functioning: Who Are They and What Should We Teach? For specific, concrete lessons and ideas about developing a life skills curriculum and evaluating life skills performance, I highly recommend perusing The Lesson Plan Library hosted at the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC).

In Parenting Children with Learning Disabilities, parents are encouraged to think beyond school success: do whatever is necessary to help children with disabilities succeed in life…. All kids grow up fast, whether they have a disability or not. The time to think about life after school is now, not later.

It’s never to early to think about what happens the day after graduation.

March 3, 2010 is the official awareness day of the nationwide Spread the Word to End the Word campaign to discontinue derogatory use of the “r-word” and promote acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities.  The campaign is encouraging people to rally and pledge their support at www.r-word.org with the goal of reaching 100,000 pledges.

Spread the Word to End the Word is a campaign created by youth, in an ongoing effort with Special Olympics and Best Buddies International, to engage schools, organizations and communities by raising the consciousness of society about the dehumanizing and hurtful effects of the “r-word.”



The Council for Exceptional Children was one of more than 200 international organizations to sign on in support of this important campaign. CEC has also been working to get co-sponsors for Rosa’s Law in the House and Senate. Rosa’s Law, S. 2781, was introduced by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) in November, 2009. U.S. Senator Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is the Republican sponsor of the bill.  (See a previous CEC Policy Insider story). Representative Michael McMahon (D-NY) introduced a companion bill, H.R. 4544 in the House.  Rosa’s Law would change terminology throughout federal law from “mentally retarded” to “intellectually disabled.” Several groups in the field have already made this change.



Pledge your support at www.r-word.org and check out the many events planned all over the world to see if YOUR area has created an event to spread the word to end the word.

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Over on Facebook Martha Gabler announced the opening a private tutoring center in Silver Spring (MD, US): Kids’ Learning Workshop. The focus is on what she calls “fluent foundation skills” by which she means rapid, accurate performance on such tasks as reading aloud, writing answers for arithmetic facts, and answering questions about academic content. Readers [...]

When Jaime contacted me to co-write a post about Bill HR3101, she indicated she would like me to write about the educational aspects of this Bill.  For those of you who missed the post, basically Bill HR3101 would make all video capable devices have the option of showing captions.  It would mean that many different devices that access the internet would allow for captioning!

There is a lot of research that shows how captions help students learn.  It increases vocabulary, and helps students with grammar and such.  Personally, I get this...students get an opportunity to see words and pictures together.  It's something we do on a regular basis when teaching reading, but this allows even more content to be taught.  Verbs become so much more real when there is actual action on the screen paired with captions...it just makes sense.

With this bill, the plethora of internet video becomes even more useful.  At this time, there is some captioned content, but compared to the amount of videos on just one site - Youtube.com for example, it's tiny.  Even with the addition of captioning to YouTube.com - About Captioning, it will take an act of Congress to fully caption everything already uploaded.  Hopefully this bill will do this.

What it also means is that mobile devices become even more useful.  I can see a device like the upcoming iPad allowing students to access video content independently and using captions to increase their understanding of the content.

This is an exciting time in technology and things will get very interesting. Take a moment and sign up for the Caption Action 2 to support this bill!

Patrick


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The first part of today's post is from Jaime Berke. Jamie has been an About guide since 1997. Her job history includes managing a closed captioning website and before that, a deaf adoption news service. She was also active in the early "Caption Action" effort of the late 80s to early 90s to increase closed captioning on videotapes. Her resume also includes a four-year stint at the National Captioning Institute in the early 90s, plus she had also worked part time at the National Information Center on Deafness (now Info to Go) at Gallaudet University. Currently, she works at a day job in the "hearing world." By day she interacts with hearing people and attends meetings with the help of interpreters, and at night at home, with deaf people.

What educator would not want the benefits of a technology that costs school districts nothing, yet has huge educational potential? Right now, there is a bill in Congress that would do just that!

This bill is HR 3101, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009. It was introduced on June 26, 2009 by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA). The Act would update the Communications Act so that it would apply to the Internet. Internet technology has progressed by leaps and bounds, yet the law has not kept up.

HR 3101 is divided into two parts: A Communications part, and a Video part. The Communications part has to do, for example, with Internet-based telephone services, hearing aid compatibility for Internet-based phone services, and extends funding obligations for relay services to Internet-based phone service providers. It is the Video part that has much potential to benefit teachers!

The Video part of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 would update the outdated law so that television programming broadcast on the Internet would have to be closed captioned. While there is currently some captioned programming on the Internet, it is still limited compared to the vast amount of Internet-based television programming. But that is not all! Current law only requires that television screens 13 inches or larger be capable of showing closed captions; the Act would update the law so that all video programming devices would have to be able to show closed captions.

Why is this so important to educators? The educational benefits of captions! Captioning has long since been proven to help children learning to read, and adults learning English as a second language. Parents know this, and more and more parents are making sure to turn on the captions when their young children are watching television. Teachers benefit from captions too, because when a child is watching a captioned program, they are getting print language exposure and vocabulary reinforcement.

Studies have been done that demonstrate the benefits of captions, as reported in Benefits of Captioning for Hearing Children and English as a Second Language Learners. In addition, the Described and Captioned Media Program sums up these educational benefits of captions on their Read Captions Across America web site. (Read Captions Across America is a partnership with the National Education Association).

So imagine the potential for a teacher in the classroom! With more and more schools relying on the Internet as a source of affordable (free) educational material, this bill is critically important to the future of the education of America's children! A teacher could have a class watch an assigned Internet video in the classroom on their computers, and then quiz the class on the caption vocabulary. A teacher could turn off the sound, forcing the students to learn from the video solely through print vocabulary alone.

Students going home on the school bus would be able to watch captioned video on their portable video devices, getting even more vocabulary reinforcement. At home, the student would get still more vocabulary exposure watching their favorite programs on the Internet. Recently, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reported that students are spending more than 7 hours a day using electronic media. HR 3101 could therefore literally triple the print vocabulary exposure of students!

Currently, HR 3101 has 30 cosponsors in Congress, listed below. If you are a teacher and you want HR 3101 passed in Congress, call or write your Representative! If you are on Facebook, you can also join Caption Action 2, a cause that supports HR 3101. In addition, HR 3101 is spearheaded by the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT), http://www.coataccess.org. On the COAT website is a summary of the bill, and a list of affiliates. It costs organizations nothing to join COAT. Membership is free - but members must commit to working for the passage of HR 3101.


Jaime Berke

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This week my fourth graders are reading a play from our curriculum. The play is about several fairytale characters that come together in a court of law to accuse the Big Bad Wolf.

Yesterday, when I introduced the story, I had to make sure and backtrack to see if everyone knew who The Little Red Riding Hood was and who Little Bo Peep was. As it turns out, only half of my class (that would be two students) knew the Little Red Riding Hood story and no one knew who in the world was Little Bo Peep.

So before we could get to reading the play, I had to tell the story of the Little Red Riding Hood. I sat on my teacher's stool, leaned forward, and must have entranced them with my amazing story telling abilities because after I finished, they clapped! Ha ha!

Next I had to explain who Little Bo Peep was. I pulled up the nursery rhyme on the internet (what did teachers do before the internet!??!) and started telling them all about it.

Except I had forgotten about what happens in this cautionary tale. In fact, I'm not sure I ever knew the actual story in all of its gruesomeness. And before I can even think to censor myself, I'm telling my innocent ten year-olds about how, although Little Bo Peep lost her sheep, she did find their severed tails hanging from a tree. True story.

As you may have guessed, this story didn't get applause.

Last week, the White House announced the Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge. High schools across the nation can compete to host the President as their graduation commencement speaker. At the beginning of the school year, the President encouraged students across the country to take responsibility for their education, study hard and graduate from high school.  The Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge encourages schools to show how they are making great strides on personal responsibility, academic excellence and college readiness.

The application process is described on the White House website. Each school can submit one application, and it can be prepared by either students or staff. The application’s four essay questions focus on demonstrating how the school is helping prepare students to meet the President’s 2020 goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Applications will be judged based on the school’s performance and dedication to providing students an excellent education that will prepare them to graduate ready for college and career choices. Each question must be answered in full to qualify and data that substantiates each answer is strongly encouraged. 



From these applications, the White House will choose six finalists and will then ask the public to narrow down the applications to three and the White House will select the winner.



The contest is currently open and will remain open until March 16. Make sure your application highlights the great work your school is doing for students with disabilities and those with gifts and talents!

Check out this week's Carnival of Education.  It's being hosted by Mr. D of I want to Teach Forever today.


Patrick


picture courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons:  Foreversouls


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