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Yesterday I worked in one son's Special Day Class. This morning I worked in another son's Special Day Class.
We are a small district. In California, at least in our neck of the woods, school districts are incredibly balkanized, with each town having its own elementary school district, and, in many cases, there being a separate high school district. (Cities like San Jose can have multiple elementary school districts.)
The problem with special education in small districts is that there are never enough students with any given diagnosis to do a good job of segregating by ability, instead of by age. The result is that you have kids who are intelligent and capable of doing work at their academic grade level but who cannot function in a mainstream class together with kids who are functioning significantly below grade level. In each of the SDCs (Special Day Classes), there are multiple grade levels, so that if each student were working at level, the teacher would still need to teach to three grades in one son's class and two in my other son's.
Two days a week I work in a Special Day Class with some students who have auditory processing issues. On bad days, days when they haven't had enough sleep or when there is too much distraction around them, these kids cannot repeat back a simple multi-part direction (along the lines of "touch the jar with the large blue triangle and the small green circles"). It has been an exercise in patience for me, to not get frustrated with them. They are not trying to do badly -- they are friendly and eager to please, and vie for the opportunity to be the first I work with when I walk through the door. I see the frustration and pain on their faces. They know that they are not like other kids, and it breaks my heart.
Yesterday, I helped give a math assessment to a group of children. I don't think any of them got one problem right. And no one -- not their teachers, not me -- expected them to. Then why were we giving the assessment? Oh, because we had too, under state law, and more importantly, under the No Child Left Behind Act. We test and test these kids -- because the law says we have to. It takes up so much time there is little time for actual instruction -- especially in Special Ed classes where you have to spend so much time on simple behavior management. And, in a class where you really need a three to one student teacher ratio, at most, for twelve kids there is one teacher, one half-time aide and one parent (me) who comes in for half an hour to one hour two days a week. The teacher is almost pathetically grateful for me being there -- it makes me feel like I should be there more, except the frustration and heartbreak of working with these kids is almost too much for me as it is. Many days I want to cry -- yesterday I went and vented to the speech therapist, who fights harder than anyone I know for these kids. (She is a part-time employee who probably puts in forty-fifty hours per week.)
Today I worked in another Special Day Class. The kids in there range from my son who is almost mainstreamed (and who will be completely mainstreamed next year) to an autistic child who is barely functional in a school setting -- and whose first language is not English, which makes all the issues he faces worse. There is another child, who is totally unmanageable in a regular class, and who has behavior problems even in the SDC, but who is bright, and to my mind, clearly bored out of his skull. (And there is a little boy I first observed last year when I was doing yard duty another school, and went to the speech therapist saying "I think this kid is autistic -- he needs help; can you look at him?". He is now in a Special Day Class.) The teacher situation is much better in there -- in addition to the teacher and the class aide, several of the kids have individual aides, which makes things easier, and there is much more parent help. The kids are progressing more, and since it is a lower grade level, there is not so much testing. But it is still really not enough.
These kids will probably never be rocket scientists. (Although you never know -- one of my favorite kids in my younger son's SDC is a little boy who is clearly autistic but just as clearly quite bright.) But they can be productive members of society, if they get the help they need now.
But that's not going to happen. Because we spend so much time testing we can't spend time the time we need teaching. And all of this is justified on the grounds of "accountability", so other parents can look at these totally meaningless test results (special education test results are not segregated from other results) and decide that the public schools are doing a poor job of educating and use tax dollars (at least in some parts of the country) on vouchers to send their kids to private schools. And the state uses the same results to "reward" districts that "do a good job", when the measure they use corresponds most highly to nothing more than household income. The rich districts -- who have far fewer ESL students, who have fewer special ed students, whose parents can afford extra help outside school, and who have parents who can take time off work to help in classrooms (a lot easier if you are white-collar than if you are just ekeing out a living on a janitor's salary) -- get richer, and the poorer districts get screwed.
And meanwhile, the conservatives yammer all the time about how much better private schools are at education that public schools. Of course they are -- they can exclude any student they want. And until private schools are deemed ineligible for tax dollars unless they accept any student that walks in their door, the inequity will just get worse.
These kids are getting left behind -- thrown out, more likely. And no one gives a damn. And when these kids can't get jobs as adults and end up on public assistance or worse, in prison, we will moan and wring our hands, when all that will be happening is that we will reap what we have sown.
Yesterday I worked in one son's Special Day Class. This morning I worked in another son's Special Day Class.
We are a small district. In California, at least in our neck of the woods, school districts are incredibly balkanized, with each town having its own elementary school district, and, in many cases, there being a separate high school district. (Cities like San Jose can have multiple elementary school districts.)
The problem with special education in small districts is that there are never enough students with any given diagnosis to do a good job of segregating by ability, instead of by age. The result is that you have kids who are intelligent and capable of doing work at their academic grade level but who cannot function in a mainstream class together with kids who are functioning significantly below grade level. In each of the SDCs (Special Day Classes), there are multiple grade levels, so that if each student were working at level, the teacher would still need to teach to three grades in one son's class and two in my other son's.
Two days a week I work in a Special Day Class with some students who have auditory processing issues. On bad days, days when they haven't had enough sleep or when there is too much distraction around them, these kids cannot repeat back a simple multi-part direction (along the lines of "touch the jar with the large blue triangle and the small green circles"). It has been an exercise in patience for me, to not get frustrated with them. They are not trying to do badly -- they are friendly and eager to please, and vie for the opportunity to be the first I work with when I walk through the door. I see the frustration and pain on their faces. They know that they are not like other kids, and it breaks my heart.
Yesterday, I helped give a math assessment to a group of children. I don't think any of them got one problem right. And no one -- not their teachers, not me -- expected them to. Then why were we giving the assessment? Oh, because we had too, under state law, and more importantly, under the No Child Left Behind Act. We test and test these kids -- because the law says we have to. It takes up so much time there is little time for actual instruction -- especially in Special Ed classes where you have to spend so much time on simple behavior management. And, in a class where you really need a three to one student teacher ratio, at most, for twelve kids there is one teacher, one half-time aide and one parent (me) who comes in for half an hour to one hour two days a week. The teacher is almost pathetically grateful for me being there -- it makes me feel like I should be there more, except the frustration and heartbreak of working with these kids is almost too much for me as it is. Many days I want to cry -- yesterday I went and vented to the speech therapist, who fights harder than anyone I know for these kids. (She is a part-time employee who probably puts in forty-fifty hours per week.)
Today I worked in another Special Day Class. The kids in there range from my son who is almost mainstreamed (and who will be completely mainstreamed next year) to an autistic child who is barely functional in a school setting -- and whose first language is not English, which makes all the issues he faces worse. There is another child, who is totally unmanageable in a regular class, and who has behavior problems even in the SDC, but who is bright, and to my mind, clearly bored out of his skull. (And there is a little boy I first observed last year when I was doing yard duty another school, and went to the speech therapist saying "I think this kid is autistic -- he needs help; can you look at him?". He is now in a Special Day Class.) The teacher situation is much better in there -- in addition to the teacher and the class aide, several of the kids have individual aides, which makes things easier, and there is much more parent help. The kids are progressing more, and since it is a lower grade level, there is not so much testing. But it is still really not enough.
These kids will probably never be rocket scientists. (Although you never know -- one of my favorite kids in my younger son's SDC is a little boy who is clearly autistic but just as clearly quite bright.) But they can be productive members of society, if they get the help they need now.
But that's not going to happen. Because we spend so much time testing we can't spend time the time we need teaching. And all of this is justified on the grounds of "accountability", so other parents can look at these totally meaningless test results (special education test results are not segregated from other results) and decide that the public schools are doing a poor job of educating and use tax dollars (at least in some parts of the country) on vouchers to send their kids to private schools. And the state uses the same results to "reward" districts that "do a good job", when the measure they use corresponds most highly to nothing more than household income. The rich districts -- who have far fewer ESL students, who have fewer special ed students, whose parents can afford extra help outside school, and who have parents who can take time off work to help in classrooms (a lot easier if you are white-collar than if you are just ekeing out a living on a janitor's salary) -- get richer, and the poorer districts get screwed.
And meanwhile, the conservatives yammer all the time about how much better private schools are at education that public schools. Of course they are -- they can exclude any student they want. And until private schools are deemed ineligible for tax dollars unless they accept any student that walks in their door, the inequity will just get worse.
These kids are getting left behind -- thrown out, more likely. And no one gives a damn. And when these kids can't get jobs as adults and end up on public assistance or worse, in prison, we will moan and wring our hands, when all that will be happening is that we will reap what we have sown.
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Testing, isn't a good way to judge these kids, our public schools do most of them a disfavor, instead of finding what they are good at and pushing that, while trying to bring other skills up they are left struggling, knowing they will never catch up to other peers.
It's wrong, I wish we as a whole could come up with ways to solve the education problem in our own communities, state, and country. I think it's going to take changing how we view learning, and what is really important.
Keep trying with the kids, each one has potential to be great, no matter what reason they are in Special Education, but there is no hope, if no one is willing to believe in them.