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"content": "\u003cp>For the past 25 years, U.S. policy has urged schools to \u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/IDEA-History\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">keep students with disabilities in the same classrooms with their general education peers\u003c/a> unless severe disabilities prevent it. It seems a humane policy not to wall off those with disabilities and keep them apart from society. Who would argue against it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools have embraced inclusion. According to the most recent data from 2020-21 school year, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">two thirds of the 7 million students with disabilities who receive special education services spent 80% or more of their time\u003c/a> in traditional classrooms. Separation is less common today; only one out of every eight students with disabilities was taught separately in a special-needs only environment most of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a recent international analysis of all the available research on special education inclusion found inconsistent results. Some children thrived while others did very badly in regular classrooms. Overall, students didn’t benefit academically, psychologically or socially from the practice. Math and reading scores, along with psychosocial measures, were no higher for children with disabilities who learned in general education classrooms, on average, compared to children who learned in separate special education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Nina Dalgaard, lead author of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/better-evidence/inclusion-children-with-special-educational-needs.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inclusion study for the Campbell Collaboration\u003c/a>, a nonprofit organization that reviews research evidence for public policy purposes. “Despite a rather large evidence base, it doesn’t appear that inclusion automatically has positive effects. To the contrary, for some children, it appears that being taught in a segregated setting is actually beneficial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many disability advocates balked at the findings, published in December 2022, on social media. An influential lobbying organization, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said it continues to believe that inclusion is beneficial for students and that this study will “not change” how the disability community advocates for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students with disabilities have a right to learn alongside their peers, and studies have shown that this is beneficial not only for students with disabilities but also for other students in the classroom,” said Lindsay Kubatzky, the organization’s director of policy and advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every student is different, and ‘inclusion’ for one student may look different from others. For some, it could be a classroom separate from their peers, but that is rarely the case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Campbell Collaboration study is a meta-analysis, which means it is supposed to sweep up all the best research on a topic and use statistics to tell us where the preponderance of the evidence lies. Dalgaard, a senior researcher at VIVE—The Danish Centre for Social Science Research, initially found over 2,000 studies on special education inclusion. But she threw out 99 percent of them, many of which were quite favorable to inclusion. Most were qualitative studies that described students’ experiences in an inclusion classroom but didn’t rigorously track academic progress. Among those that did monitor math or reading, many of them simply noted how much students improved in an inclusive setting, but didn’t compare those gains with how students might have otherwise fared in a separate special-needs only setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fewer than 100 studies had comparison groups, but still most of those didn’t make the cut because the students in inclusive settings were vastly different from those in separate settings. Special education is a particularly difficult area to study because researchers cannot randomly assign students with disabilities to different treatments. Schools tend to keep children with milder disabilities in a regular classroom and teach only those with the most severe disabilities separately. In comparing how both groups fare, it should be no surprise that students with milder disabilities outperform those with more severe disabilities. But that’s not good evidence that inclusion is better. “It’s a serious, confounding bias,” Dalgaard said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, Dalgaard was left with only 15 studies where the severity of the disability was somehow noted so that she could compare apples to apples. These 15 studies covered more than 7,000 students, ages six through 16, across nine countries. Four of the studies were conducted in the United States with the others in Europe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disabilities in the studies ranged widely, from the most common ones, such as dyslexia, ADHD, speech impairments and autism, to rarer ones, such as Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. Some students had mild versions; others had more severe forms. I asked Dalgaard if she found clues in the results as to which disabilities were more conducive to inclusion. I was curious if children with severe dyslexia, for example, might benefit from separate instruction with specially trained reading teachers for the first couple of years after diagnosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dalgaard said there wasn’t enough statistical evidence to untangle when inclusion is most beneficial. But she did notice in the underlying studies that students with autism seem to be better off in a separate setting. For example, their psychosocial scores were higher. But more studies would be needed to confirm this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also noticed that how a school goes about including students with disabilities mattered. In schools that used a co-teaching model, one regular teacher and one trained in special education, students fared better in inclusion classrooms. Again, more research is needed to confirm this statistically. And, even if co-teaching proves to be effective over multiple studies, not every school can afford to hire two teachers for every classroom. It’s particularly cost-prohibitive in middle and high school as teachers specialize in subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Dalgaard noted that inclusion is often a cost-cutting practice because schools save money when they no longer run separate classrooms or schools for children with disabilities. “In some cases, children with disabilities no longer had access to the same resources. It’s not supposed to happen this way, but it does in some places,” said Dalgaard. “That is probably why the results of the meta-analysis show that some children actually learn more in segregated settings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was surprised to learn from Dalgaard that no sound meta-analysis has found “clear” benefits for special education inclusion. Indeed, previous meta-analyses have found exactly the same inconsistent or very small positive results, she said. This latest Campbell Collaboration study was commissioned to see if newer research, published from 2000 to September 2021, would move the dial. It did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a nation, we spend an estimated $90 billion a year in federal, state and local taxpayer funds on educating children with disabilities. We ought to know more about how to best help them learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*Correction: This story has been updated with the correct spelling of Lindsay Kubatzky’s name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-ponts-new-research-review-questions-the-evidence-for-special-education-inclusion/\">\u003cem>special education inclusion\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For the past 25 years, U.S. policy has urged schools to \u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/IDEA-History\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">keep students with disabilities in the same classrooms with their general education peers\u003c/a> unless severe disabilities prevent it. It seems a humane policy not to wall off those with disabilities and keep them apart from society. Who would argue against it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools have embraced inclusion. According to the most recent data from 2020-21 school year, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">two thirds of the 7 million students with disabilities who receive special education services spent 80% or more of their time\u003c/a> in traditional classrooms. Separation is less common today; only one out of every eight students with disabilities was taught separately in a special-needs only environment most of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a recent international analysis of all the available research on special education inclusion found inconsistent results. Some children thrived while others did very badly in regular classrooms. Overall, students didn’t benefit academically, psychologically or socially from the practice. Math and reading scores, along with psychosocial measures, were no higher for children with disabilities who learned in general education classrooms, on average, compared to children who learned in separate special education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Nina Dalgaard, lead author of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/better-evidence/inclusion-children-with-special-educational-needs.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inclusion study for the Campbell Collaboration\u003c/a>, a nonprofit organization that reviews research evidence for public policy purposes. “Despite a rather large evidence base, it doesn’t appear that inclusion automatically has positive effects. To the contrary, for some children, it appears that being taught in a segregated setting is actually beneficial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many disability advocates balked at the findings, published in December 2022, on social media. An influential lobbying organization, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said it continues to believe that inclusion is beneficial for students and that this study will “not change” how the disability community advocates for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students with disabilities have a right to learn alongside their peers, and studies have shown that this is beneficial not only for students with disabilities but also for other students in the classroom,” said Lindsay Kubatzky, the organization’s director of policy and advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every student is different, and ‘inclusion’ for one student may look different from others. For some, it could be a classroom separate from their peers, but that is rarely the case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Campbell Collaboration study is a meta-analysis, which means it is supposed to sweep up all the best research on a topic and use statistics to tell us where the preponderance of the evidence lies. Dalgaard, a senior researcher at VIVE—The Danish Centre for Social Science Research, initially found over 2,000 studies on special education inclusion. But she threw out 99 percent of them, many of which were quite favorable to inclusion. Most were qualitative studies that described students’ experiences in an inclusion classroom but didn’t rigorously track academic progress. Among those that did monitor math or reading, many of them simply noted how much students improved in an inclusive setting, but didn’t compare those gains with how students might have otherwise fared in a separate special-needs only setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fewer than 100 studies had comparison groups, but still most of those didn’t make the cut because the students in inclusive settings were vastly different from those in separate settings. Special education is a particularly difficult area to study because researchers cannot randomly assign students with disabilities to different treatments. Schools tend to keep children with milder disabilities in a regular classroom and teach only those with the most severe disabilities separately. In comparing how both groups fare, it should be no surprise that students with milder disabilities outperform those with more severe disabilities. But that’s not good evidence that inclusion is better. “It’s a serious, confounding bias,” Dalgaard said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, Dalgaard was left with only 15 studies where the severity of the disability was somehow noted so that she could compare apples to apples. These 15 studies covered more than 7,000 students, ages six through 16, across nine countries. Four of the studies were conducted in the United States with the others in Europe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disabilities in the studies ranged widely, from the most common ones, such as dyslexia, ADHD, speech impairments and autism, to rarer ones, such as Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. Some students had mild versions; others had more severe forms. I asked Dalgaard if she found clues in the results as to which disabilities were more conducive to inclusion. I was curious if children with severe dyslexia, for example, might benefit from separate instruction with specially trained reading teachers for the first couple of years after diagnosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dalgaard said there wasn’t enough statistical evidence to untangle when inclusion is most beneficial. But she did notice in the underlying studies that students with autism seem to be better off in a separate setting. For example, their psychosocial scores were higher. But more studies would be needed to confirm this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also noticed that how a school goes about including students with disabilities mattered. In schools that used a co-teaching model, one regular teacher and one trained in special education, students fared better in inclusion classrooms. Again, more research is needed to confirm this statistically. And, even if co-teaching proves to be effective over multiple studies, not every school can afford to hire two teachers for every classroom. It’s particularly cost-prohibitive in middle and high school as teachers specialize in subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Dalgaard noted that inclusion is often a cost-cutting practice because schools save money when they no longer run separate classrooms or schools for children with disabilities. “In some cases, children with disabilities no longer had access to the same resources. It’s not supposed to happen this way, but it does in some places,” said Dalgaard. “That is probably why the results of the meta-analysis show that some children actually learn more in segregated settings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was surprised to learn from Dalgaard that no sound meta-analysis has found “clear” benefits for special education inclusion. Indeed, previous meta-analyses have found exactly the same inconsistent or very small positive results, she said. This latest Campbell Collaboration study was commissioned to see if newer research, published from 2000 to September 2021, would move the dial. It did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a nation, we spend an estimated $90 billion a year in federal, state and local taxpayer funds on educating children with disabilities. We ought to know more about how to best help them learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*Correction: This story has been updated with the correct spelling of Lindsay Kubatzky’s name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Across the nation, \u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/43rd-arc-for-idea.pdf\">13 percent of Black\u003c/a> students were diagnosed with disabilities at school, far higher than the 9 percent disability rate among white children, according to the most recent tally of the U.S. Department of Education. The disabilities range from dyslexia and speech impairments to emotional and psychological disorders that include hyperactivity and aggression. Many civil rights advocates argue that hundreds of thousands of Black students who don’t have disabilities are misdiagnosed with them, separated from their peers and funneled into low-level classrooms. The federal government monitors this removal and calculated that in 2019, 22 percent of Black students with disabilities were\u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/43rd-arc-for-idea.pdf\"> learning outside of a regular classroom\u003c/a> 60 percent or more of the time. Only 16 percent of white children with disabilities were separated from their peers to this extent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a team of scholars from Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Irvine, believe that these raw disability numbers are misleading. They argue that the incidence of more severe disabilities is much higher in impoverished populations. Black children are more likely to live in poor communities where premature births, poor nutrition and healthcare, drug addiction, stress and high levels of lead can lead to higher rates of disabilities, and more severe ones. There may genuinely be more need among Black children for intensive services and a different pacing of instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We're not finding evidence that special ed placement is being used as an alternative method of racially segregating students of color,” said Paul Morgan, lead author of the study and a professor of education at Penn State. “The federal regulations don't take into account anything like we were doing here, like are there differences in impairment? Are there differences in the potential need for more intensive services?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan’s views are controversial, and they are at odds with the Department of Education’s directive to make sure that rates of removing children from general education classrooms don't diverge too much by race and ethnicity. Schools that fail are required to fix their inequities by spending a big chunk – 15 percent – of their federal funds designated for helping students with disabilities. This penalty has, in turn, made some schools with high numbers of Black children in special education reluctant to diagnose additional Black children and assign them to special education classes – regardless of a child’s needs, some researchers say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the study, “\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00222194221094019\">Which Students With Disabilities are Placed Primarily Outside of U.S. Elementary School General Education Classrooms?\u003c/a>,” published in the Journal of Learning Disabilities in May 2022, researchers analyzed a nationally representative survey of students who began kindergarten in 1998 and another survey of students who began kindergarten in 2011. Roughly a thousand children in each survey had a disability diagnosis. Their teachers noted whether the student primarily learned in a regular classroom with their peers, or if they were pulled out for special services most of the time and primarily learned in a separate classroom or a separate school for students with special needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and his colleagues found that Black and white children who had been diagnosed with a disability and posted the same low test scores were equally likely to be removed from a general education classroom and placed in a separate special ed classroom. The main reason that Black children are more likely to be funneled into separate classrooms is because more of them were struggling with reading and math and were among the lowest 10 percent in achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan checked the figures for different entry points into special education, at first, third and fifth grades. He found that Black children with disabilities were just as likely as similar white children to be placed outside of general education in almost all cases. The exception was among students in first grade in 2012, where he found that Black children were more likely to be separated from their peers than similar white children. However, this gap in special education placement disappeared as the children aged and was no longer detected at third grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, an initiative at the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, is critical of Morgan’s analysis. Losen argues that it’s faulty logic to compare children with the same academic achievement. He points out that children in poverty, regardless of disability status, tend to score lower on tests – in part because per pupil expenditures are lower, their teachers are less experienced and teacher turnover is high. Losen argues that we should fix the underlying reasons why children in poverty score lower and improve schools for low-income Black children rather than put thousands of Black children with low test scores in separate special education classrooms. Another solution, he argues, is to give more support to Black students with disabilities within general education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prior research has often found that students with disabilities who remain in their regular grade-level classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://nasenjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-3802.2012.01270.x\">outperformed students who are placed in separate special education classes\u003c/a>. But students who are removed tend to have more severe disabilities and it’s hard to know if they would have done better had they remained with their classmates. One well-designed 2020 study in Indiana found that \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022466920925033\">inclusion was better\u003c/a> for children with \u003ca href=\"https://iidc.indiana.edu/cell/what-we-do/pdf/Inclusion-Study-Phase2.pdf\">mild disabilities\u003c/a>, but there have also been randomized controlled trials finding that students with disabilities learn a particular topic, such as \u003ca href=\"https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED552925.pdf\">fractions, better when they learn it separately\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I talked with other special education experts, several of whom asked not to speak on the record because the combination of race and disabilities has become so controversial. Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez, an associate professor of special education at the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University, agreed to talk on the record and said adjusting the raw data in various ways, as Morgan has done, is an important step in understanding what is going on in special education. Mancilla-Martinez is concerned that in many low-income communities, there is a “wait and see” approach when children are struggling with reading instead of intervening early, when it is most effective. But she also acknowledged that some schools are over-identifying children who don’t really need special education services and stigmatizing them. “That may not be at all what they need, they just may need better opportunities to learn,” said Mancilla-Martinez. She wants researchers to look at what is happening in a more granular way, community by community, instead of just crunching national data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some academics are questioning whether schools should be focusing so much on the numbers and whether too many or too few students are being identified and where they are being placed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to move beyond this civil rights debate of under-representation and over-representation,” said Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, an assistant professor of special education at the City University of New York —Hunter College. “We know that there's a problem with special education and we need to just think of new ways to address it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kramarczuk Voulgarides is organizing a \u003ca href=\"https://education.hunter.cuny.edu/news/spencer-foundation-conference-grant-awarded-to-catherine-voulgarides/\">conference for December 2022\u003c/a> with younger scholars to chart a new way forward in special education. (\u003cem>The Spencer Foundation, which is among the many funders of The Hechinger Report, is funding this conference.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s an issue I’ll be following.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-rethinking-claims-of-racial-bias-in-special-education/\">\u003cem>racial bias in special education\u003c/em>\u003c/a> \u003cem>was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.us2.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Across the nation, \u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/43rd-arc-for-idea.pdf\">13 percent of Black\u003c/a> students were diagnosed with disabilities at school, far higher than the 9 percent disability rate among white children, according to the most recent tally of the U.S. Department of Education. The disabilities range from dyslexia and speech impairments to emotional and psychological disorders that include hyperactivity and aggression. Many civil rights advocates argue that hundreds of thousands of Black students who don’t have disabilities are misdiagnosed with them, separated from their peers and funneled into low-level classrooms. The federal government monitors this removal and calculated that in 2019, 22 percent of Black students with disabilities were\u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/43rd-arc-for-idea.pdf\"> learning outside of a regular classroom\u003c/a> 60 percent or more of the time. Only 16 percent of white children with disabilities were separated from their peers to this extent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a team of scholars from Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Irvine, believe that these raw disability numbers are misleading. They argue that the incidence of more severe disabilities is much higher in impoverished populations. Black children are more likely to live in poor communities where premature births, poor nutrition and healthcare, drug addiction, stress and high levels of lead can lead to higher rates of disabilities, and more severe ones. There may genuinely be more need among Black children for intensive services and a different pacing of instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We're not finding evidence that special ed placement is being used as an alternative method of racially segregating students of color,” said Paul Morgan, lead author of the study and a professor of education at Penn State. “The federal regulations don't take into account anything like we were doing here, like are there differences in impairment? Are there differences in the potential need for more intensive services?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan’s views are controversial, and they are at odds with the Department of Education’s directive to make sure that rates of removing children from general education classrooms don't diverge too much by race and ethnicity. Schools that fail are required to fix their inequities by spending a big chunk – 15 percent – of their federal funds designated for helping students with disabilities. This penalty has, in turn, made some schools with high numbers of Black children in special education reluctant to diagnose additional Black children and assign them to special education classes – regardless of a child’s needs, some researchers say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the study, “\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00222194221094019\">Which Students With Disabilities are Placed Primarily Outside of U.S. Elementary School General Education Classrooms?\u003c/a>,” published in the Journal of Learning Disabilities in May 2022, researchers analyzed a nationally representative survey of students who began kindergarten in 1998 and another survey of students who began kindergarten in 2011. Roughly a thousand children in each survey had a disability diagnosis. Their teachers noted whether the student primarily learned in a regular classroom with their peers, or if they were pulled out for special services most of the time and primarily learned in a separate classroom or a separate school for students with special needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and his colleagues found that Black and white children who had been diagnosed with a disability and posted the same low test scores were equally likely to be removed from a general education classroom and placed in a separate special ed classroom. The main reason that Black children are more likely to be funneled into separate classrooms is because more of them were struggling with reading and math and were among the lowest 10 percent in achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan checked the figures for different entry points into special education, at first, third and fifth grades. He found that Black children with disabilities were just as likely as similar white children to be placed outside of general education in almost all cases. The exception was among students in first grade in 2012, where he found that Black children were more likely to be separated from their peers than similar white children. However, this gap in special education placement disappeared as the children aged and was no longer detected at third grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, an initiative at the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, is critical of Morgan’s analysis. Losen argues that it’s faulty logic to compare children with the same academic achievement. He points out that children in poverty, regardless of disability status, tend to score lower on tests – in part because per pupil expenditures are lower, their teachers are less experienced and teacher turnover is high. Losen argues that we should fix the underlying reasons why children in poverty score lower and improve schools for low-income Black children rather than put thousands of Black children with low test scores in separate special education classrooms. Another solution, he argues, is to give more support to Black students with disabilities within general education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prior research has often found that students with disabilities who remain in their regular grade-level classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://nasenjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-3802.2012.01270.x\">outperformed students who are placed in separate special education classes\u003c/a>. But students who are removed tend to have more severe disabilities and it’s hard to know if they would have done better had they remained with their classmates. One well-designed 2020 study in Indiana found that \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022466920925033\">inclusion was better\u003c/a> for children with \u003ca href=\"https://iidc.indiana.edu/cell/what-we-do/pdf/Inclusion-Study-Phase2.pdf\">mild disabilities\u003c/a>, but there have also been randomized controlled trials finding that students with disabilities learn a particular topic, such as \u003ca href=\"https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED552925.pdf\">fractions, better when they learn it separately\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I talked with other special education experts, several of whom asked not to speak on the record because the combination of race and disabilities has become so controversial. Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez, an associate professor of special education at the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University, agreed to talk on the record and said adjusting the raw data in various ways, as Morgan has done, is an important step in understanding what is going on in special education. Mancilla-Martinez is concerned that in many low-income communities, there is a “wait and see” approach when children are struggling with reading instead of intervening early, when it is most effective. But she also acknowledged that some schools are over-identifying children who don’t really need special education services and stigmatizing them. “That may not be at all what they need, they just may need better opportunities to learn,” said Mancilla-Martinez. She wants researchers to look at what is happening in a more granular way, community by community, instead of just crunching national data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some academics are questioning whether schools should be focusing so much on the numbers and whether too many or too few students are being identified and where they are being placed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to move beyond this civil rights debate of under-representation and over-representation,” said Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, an assistant professor of special education at the City University of New York —Hunter College. “We know that there's a problem with special education and we need to just think of new ways to address it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kramarczuk Voulgarides is organizing a \u003ca href=\"https://education.hunter.cuny.edu/news/spencer-foundation-conference-grant-awarded-to-catherine-voulgarides/\">conference for December 2022\u003c/a> with younger scholars to chart a new way forward in special education. (\u003cem>The Spencer Foundation, which is among the many funders of The Hechinger Report, is funding this conference.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s an issue I’ll be following.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-rethinking-claims-of-racial-bias-in-special-education/\">\u003cem>racial bias in special education\u003c/em>\u003c/a> \u003cem>was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.us2.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>At the beginning of the school year, when Becky Ashcraft attended an open house at her 12-year-old daughter's school, she was surprised to find there was no teacher in her daughter's classroom – just a teacher's aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They're like, 'Oh, well, she doesn't have a teacher right now. But, you know, hopefully, we'll get one soon,' \" Ashcraft recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashcraft's daughter attends a public school in northwest Indiana that exclusively serves students with disabilities. She is on the autism spectrum and doesn't speak. Without an assigned teacher, it was difficult for Ashcraft to know what her daughter did everyday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I wonder what actually kind of education she was receiving,\" Ashcraft says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashcraft's daughter spent the entire fall semester without an assigned teacher. One other parent at the school told NPR they were in the same position. Ashcraft says the principal told her they were trying to hire someone, but it was difficult to find qualified candidates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school would not confirm to NPR that Ashcraft's daughter had no teacher, but a spokesperson did say the school has used substitutes to provide special education services amid the shortage of qualified educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guarantees students with disabilities access to fully licensed special educators. But as Ashcraft learned, those teachers can be hard to find. In 2019, 44 states reported special education teacher shortages to the federal government. This school year, that number jumped to 48.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When schools can't find qualified teachers, federal law allows them to hire people who aren't fully qualified so long as they're actively pursuing their special education certification. Indiana, California, Virginia and Maryland are among the states that offer provisional licenses to help staff special education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's a practice that concerns some special education experts. They worry placing people who aren't fully trained for the job in charge of classrooms could harm some of the most vulnerable students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given the lack of qualified special education teachers, Ashcraft says she wouldn't mind if her daughter's teacher wasn't fully trained yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Let them work towards that [license], that's wonderful,\" she says. \"But, you know, I guess at this point, you know, we're happy to take anybody.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The case against provisional special education licenses\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Jacqueline Rodriguez, with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, is alarmed at the number of provisional licenses issued to unqualified special education teachers in recent years — even if those teachers are actively working toward full licensure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The band aid has been, let's put somebody who's breathing in front of kids, and hope that everybody survives,\" she says. Her organization focuses on teacher preparation, and has partnered with higher education institutions to improve recruitment of special educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She worries placing untrained people at the helm of a classroom, and in charge of Individualized Education Programs, is harmful for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This to me is like telling somebody there's a dearth of doctors in neurosurgery, so we would love for you to transition into the field by giving you the opportunity to operate on people while you're taking coursework at night,\" Rodriguez says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She admits it's a provocative analogy, but says teaching is a profession that requires intensive coursework, evaluation and practice. \"And unless you can demonstrate competency, you have no business being a teacher.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>One district is building a special education teacher pipeline\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Shaleta West had zero teaching experience when she was hired as a special educator by Elkhart Community Schools, a district in northern Indiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says her first couple weeks in the classroom were overwhelming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was very scary because, you know, I know kids, yes. But when you're trying to teach kids it's a whole other ball game. You can't just play around with them and talk to them and chit chat. You have to teach.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her district is helping her work toward her certification at nearby Indiana University South Bend. Elkhart Community Schools pays West's tuition and, in exchange, West has agreed to work for the district for five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district also provides West with a mentor — a seasoned special educator who answers questions, offers tips and looks over the complicated paperwork that's legally required for students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West says she would have been lost without the mentorship and the university classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"To be honest, I don't even know if I would have stayed,\" she explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I knew nothing. I came in without any prior knowledge to what I needed to do on a daily basis.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administrator Lindsey Brander oversees the Elkhart schools program that supports West. She says the program has produced about 30 fully qualified special educators over the past four years. This year, it's serving about 10 special educators, all on provisional licenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We are able to recruit our own teachers and train them specifically for our students. So the system is working,\" Brander explains. The challenge, she says, is that it's become increasingly difficult for the district to find people to participate in the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even with a new teacher pipeline in place, the district still has 24 special education vacancies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brander would prefer if all the district's special education teachers were fully qualified the first day they set foot in a classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But that's not reality. That's not going to happen. Until we fix some of the structural challenges that we have in education, this is how business is done now. This is life in education,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How high teacher turnover impacts students\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The structural issues contributing to the special educator shortage include heavy workloads and relatively low pay. At Elkhart schools, for example, new special education teachers with bachelor's degrees receive a minimum salary of $41,000, according to district officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desiree Carver-Thomas, a researcher with the Learning Policy Institute, says low compensation and long workdays can lead to high turnover, especially in schools that serve students of color and children from low-income households. And when special education teachers leave the profession, the cycle continues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Because when turnover rates are so high, schools and districts they're just trying to fill those positions with whomever they can find, often teachers who are not fully prepared,\" Carver-Thomas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hiring unprepared teachers can also contribute to high turnover rates, according to \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/pace-california-special-education-teacher-shortage-brief\">Carver-Thomas' research\u003c/a>. And it can impact student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/04/590887226/persistent-disparities-in-school-discipline-says-government-watchdog\">NPR has reported\u003c/a>, Black students and students with disabilities are disciplined and referred to law enforcement at higher rates than students without disabilities. Black students \u003cem>with \u003c/em>disabilities are especially vulnerable; federal data shows they have the \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/disabling-inequity-a-look-at-school-discipline-findings-for-students-with-disabilities/\">highest risk for suspension\u003c/a> among all students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That may be more common when teachers don't have the tools and the experience and the training to respond appropriately,\" Carver-Thomas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Schools and families have to make do\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The solution to the special educator shortage isn't simple. Carver-Thomas says it will require schools, colleges and governments to work together to boost teacher salaries and improve recruitment, preparation, working conditions and on-the-job support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, schools and families will have to make do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, Becky Ashcraft learned her northwest Indiana school had found a teacher for her daughter's classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she's grateful to finally have a fully licensed teacher to tell her about her daughter's school day. And she wishes the special educators that families like hers rely on were valued more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We've got to be thankful for the people that do this work,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348780034/nicole-cohen\">\u003cem>Nicole Cohen\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> edited this story for broadcast and for the web.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Students+with+disabilities+have+a+right+to+qualified+teachers+%E2%80%94+but+there%27s+a+shortage&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>At the beginning of the school year, when Becky Ashcraft attended an open house at her 12-year-old daughter's school, she was surprised to find there was no teacher in her daughter's classroom – just a teacher's aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They're like, 'Oh, well, she doesn't have a teacher right now. But, you know, hopefully, we'll get one soon,' \" Ashcraft recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashcraft's daughter attends a public school in northwest Indiana that exclusively serves students with disabilities. She is on the autism spectrum and doesn't speak. Without an assigned teacher, it was difficult for Ashcraft to know what her daughter did everyday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I wonder what actually kind of education she was receiving,\" Ashcraft says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashcraft's daughter spent the entire fall semester without an assigned teacher. One other parent at the school told NPR they were in the same position. Ashcraft says the principal told her they were trying to hire someone, but it was difficult to find qualified candidates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school would not confirm to NPR that Ashcraft's daughter had no teacher, but a spokesperson did say the school has used substitutes to provide special education services amid the shortage of qualified educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guarantees students with disabilities access to fully licensed special educators. But as Ashcraft learned, those teachers can be hard to find. In 2019, 44 states reported special education teacher shortages to the federal government. This school year, that number jumped to 48.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When schools can't find qualified teachers, federal law allows them to hire people who aren't fully qualified so long as they're actively pursuing their special education certification. Indiana, California, Virginia and Maryland are among the states that offer provisional licenses to help staff special education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's a practice that concerns some special education experts. They worry placing people who aren't fully trained for the job in charge of classrooms could harm some of the most vulnerable students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given the lack of qualified special education teachers, Ashcraft says she wouldn't mind if her daughter's teacher wasn't fully trained yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Let them work towards that [license], that's wonderful,\" she says. \"But, you know, I guess at this point, you know, we're happy to take anybody.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The case against provisional special education licenses\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Jacqueline Rodriguez, with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, is alarmed at the number of provisional licenses issued to unqualified special education teachers in recent years — even if those teachers are actively working toward full licensure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The band aid has been, let's put somebody who's breathing in front of kids, and hope that everybody survives,\" she says. Her organization focuses on teacher preparation, and has partnered with higher education institutions to improve recruitment of special educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She worries placing untrained people at the helm of a classroom, and in charge of Individualized Education Programs, is harmful for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This to me is like telling somebody there's a dearth of doctors in neurosurgery, so we would love for you to transition into the field by giving you the opportunity to operate on people while you're taking coursework at night,\" Rodriguez says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She admits it's a provocative analogy, but says teaching is a profession that requires intensive coursework, evaluation and practice. \"And unless you can demonstrate competency, you have no business being a teacher.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>One district is building a special education teacher pipeline\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Shaleta West had zero teaching experience when she was hired as a special educator by Elkhart Community Schools, a district in northern Indiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says her first couple weeks in the classroom were overwhelming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was very scary because, you know, I know kids, yes. But when you're trying to teach kids it's a whole other ball game. You can't just play around with them and talk to them and chit chat. You have to teach.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her district is helping her work toward her certification at nearby Indiana University South Bend. Elkhart Community Schools pays West's tuition and, in exchange, West has agreed to work for the district for five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district also provides West with a mentor — a seasoned special educator who answers questions, offers tips and looks over the complicated paperwork that's legally required for students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West says she would have been lost without the mentorship and the university classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"To be honest, I don't even know if I would have stayed,\" she explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I knew nothing. I came in without any prior knowledge to what I needed to do on a daily basis.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administrator Lindsey Brander oversees the Elkhart schools program that supports West. She says the program has produced about 30 fully qualified special educators over the past four years. This year, it's serving about 10 special educators, all on provisional licenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We are able to recruit our own teachers and train them specifically for our students. So the system is working,\" Brander explains. The challenge, she says, is that it's become increasingly difficult for the district to find people to participate in the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even with a new teacher pipeline in place, the district still has 24 special education vacancies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brander would prefer if all the district's special education teachers were fully qualified the first day they set foot in a classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But that's not reality. That's not going to happen. Until we fix some of the structural challenges that we have in education, this is how business is done now. This is life in education,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How high teacher turnover impacts students\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The structural issues contributing to the special educator shortage include heavy workloads and relatively low pay. At Elkhart schools, for example, new special education teachers with bachelor's degrees receive a minimum salary of $41,000, according to district officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desiree Carver-Thomas, a researcher with the Learning Policy Institute, says low compensation and long workdays can lead to high turnover, especially in schools that serve students of color and children from low-income households. And when special education teachers leave the profession, the cycle continues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Because when turnover rates are so high, schools and districts they're just trying to fill those positions with whomever they can find, often teachers who are not fully prepared,\" Carver-Thomas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hiring unprepared teachers can also contribute to high turnover rates, according to \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/pace-california-special-education-teacher-shortage-brief\">Carver-Thomas' research\u003c/a>. And it can impact student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/04/590887226/persistent-disparities-in-school-discipline-says-government-watchdog\">NPR has reported\u003c/a>, Black students and students with disabilities are disciplined and referred to law enforcement at higher rates than students without disabilities. Black students \u003cem>with \u003c/em>disabilities are especially vulnerable; federal data shows they have the \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/disabling-inequity-a-look-at-school-discipline-findings-for-students-with-disabilities/\">highest risk for suspension\u003c/a> among all students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That may be more common when teachers don't have the tools and the experience and the training to respond appropriately,\" Carver-Thomas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Schools and families have to make do\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The solution to the special educator shortage isn't simple. Carver-Thomas says it will require schools, colleges and governments to work together to boost teacher salaries and improve recruitment, preparation, working conditions and on-the-job support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, schools and families will have to make do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, Becky Ashcraft learned her northwest Indiana school had found a teacher for her daughter's classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she's grateful to finally have a fully licensed teacher to tell her about her daughter's school day. And she wishes the special educators that families like hers rely on were valued more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We've got to be thankful for the people that do this work,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348780034/nicole-cohen\">\u003cem>Nicole Cohen\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> edited this story for broadcast and for the web.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Students+with+disabilities+have+a+right+to+qualified+teachers+%E2%80%94+but+there%27s+a+shortage&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "‘This is not inclusive.’ Some students with disabilities are going without as districts scale back virtual programs",
"title": "‘This is not inclusive.’ Some students with disabilities are going without as districts scale back virtual programs",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ctime>Oct 14, 4:46pm EDT\u003c/time>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the new school year approached, Susan Graham wanted to know: Would her California school district have a remote learning option for her fifth grader?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers put \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2021/california-directs-districts-to-offer-remote-independent-study-this-fall/657578\">strict limits\u003c/a> on virtual learning this year, so her son’s district wasn’t offering daily classes over Zoom anymore. Instead, the district had an “independent study” program. Graham hoped it could work as a stopgap until her 10-year-old, who has Down syndrome and a respiratory condition, could be vaccinated against COVID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a virtual town hall about the remote program, though, she was told it was a “general education” program only. If her son enrolled, he would lose access to modified lessons, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was pretty stunned,” Graham said. “This is not inclusive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School districts don’t have to offer virtual learning this year, and most have \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/2/22654905/virtual-school-option-standalone-interest-dips\">scaled back their virtual offerings\u003c/a> to encourage students to return to in-person school. But where virtual school is available, some students with disabilities are finding it’s closed to them — or they are being asked to \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-27/independent-study-california-lausd\">give up certain kinds of support\u003c/a> to enroll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s left families, advocates, lawyers, and school districts disagreeing on a key question: With schools open nationwide, what exactly must districts provide online?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal officials have stressed the importance of in-person learning for students with disabilities, many of whom have \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/10/22/21529431/students-with-disabilities-return-to-schools-more-learning-and-needed-services-not-normal-yet\">struggled to learn online\u003c/a> while trading hands-on services for virtual stand-ins. “The best thing we could do for students with disabilities is the same thing we can do for all students — get them back in the classroom,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona \u003ca href=\"https://www.help.senate.gov/hearings/school-reopening-during-covid-19-supporting-students-educators-and-families\">said at a Senate hearing\u003c/a> last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a lengthy \u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/idea-files/return-to-school-roadmap-development-and-implementation-of-ieps/#_Toc83713882,citem_53a6-0311\">guidance document\u003c/a>, the federal education department recently told districts that if they open a virtual program to all students, the district “must ensure that a child with a disability whose needs can be met through virtual learning” receives all of the services they’re legally entitled to. That leaves districts with some discretion to decide who those students are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But across the country, lawyers say districts are inappropriately excluding students and saying their needs cannot be met online, including many students who received special education services virtually last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Maryland attorney recently filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education after Baltimore County schools denied a third grader with Down syndrome access to the district’s virtual school. In California, attorneys \u003ca href=\"https://www.disabilityrightsca.org/press-release/complaint-filed-on-behalf-of-students-with-disabilities-for-discrimination-from-new\">filed a complaint\u003c/a> with the U.S. Department of Justice and a federal lawsuit over instances in which students with disabilities, including Graham’s son, were denied access to independent study programs or were told they’d have to give up their services to enroll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a district declines to modify lessons or add staff to make a virtual program work for all, “That’s a choice,” said Leslie Seid Margolis, the managing attorney at Disability Rights Maryland, who is representing several families who were told their children with disabilities couldn’t be served in virtual programs this year. “And it’s a choice that has a discriminatory impact on kids who may need those supplementary aids and services.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School officials, for their part, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2021/09/special-education/\">are wary\u003c/a> of letting students with disabilities attend virtual programs that they believe will be inferior to in-person school or that they can’t staff appropriately while also serving students in person. \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/23/22689774/teacher-vacancies-shortages-covid\">Special education teachers\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/michigan-schools-cant-fill-teacher-aide-jobs-there-are-no-applicants\">paraprofessionals\u003c/a> have been among the hardest positions for schools to fill this school year, adding to the challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detroit, for example, offered a virtual program that includes live instruction to any student who wanted to learn online this year. But the district turned down some students with disabilities who had needs the district didn’t think it could meet in the virtual school. Many who were denied entry previously attended centers that offer specialized support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did not want to violate IEPs,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a statement, referring to the plans that spell out a student’s accommodations and services. “Some children’s needs, whether it be instructional or physical, cannot be met through virtual learning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Philadelphia \u003ca href=\"https://philadelphia.chalkbeat.org/2021/8/11/22620931/heres-what-we-know-about-philadelphias-remote-school-option\">expanded its virtual school\u003c/a> to every grade except pre-kindergarten this year, and \u003ca href=\"https://pva.philasd.org/ktofiveintakeform/#PVAFAQ\">the district says\u003c/a> the virtual school does offer certain services, like speech therapy, and employs special education teachers who can modify lessons. Some virtual students can receive specialized services through an outside agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Anna Perng, who advocates for Philadelphia students through the Chinatown Disability Advocacy Project, said when she attended a meeting with a family seeking to enroll their child in the district’s virtual school, the family’s request for their child’s usual one-on-one aide was turned down. In an email, spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said that if the district determines that a student’s needs can’t be met virtually, the available option is to attend “in-person, in the currently assigned school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students who’ve been admitted to virtual programs expecting to receive extra help from teachers and paraprofessionals have gone without that support, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22926587/National_20211014_DETOnlineLearning_Di_AmondMoore_003.JPG\">Di’Amond Moore / Detroit Free Press\u003cfigcaption>Students like 12-year-old Tyliya Wilson in Detroit are still waiting to receive their required services virtually.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Twelve-year-old Tyliya Wilson is supposed to get five hours of extra help each week with a teacher, according to her learning plan. Last year, she met with a teacher every day over video chat, and the teacher would pop into Tyliya’s other virtual classes to check on her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the last five weeks in Detroit’s virtual school, Tyliya has seen such a teacher just a handful of times to get help retaking a test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s kind of hard, like when I need some help with my work,” Tyliya said. “Sometimes I ask my teachers, but it’s a bunch of kids in my class so they can’t help all the students.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detroit officials told her mother, Aliya Moore, that they intend to provide her daughter’s services, emails show, but Moore was told it won’t be until November that Tyliya will receive extra time with a teacher. The district struggled to \u003ca href=\"https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/29/22701319/first-month-of-classes-in-detroit-sees-virtual-school-challenges-demand-for-hourly-employees\">adequately staff the virtual school\u003c/a>, Moore was told, after more students enrolled than were expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Maria Juarez enrolled her 10-year-old in her Texas district’s virtual program, she was initially told that her daughter would receive her services after school. Her fifth grader has an emotional disability and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and is entitled to extra help from a teacher and visual charts to help with math skills like subtraction and division.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But so far, she’s gotten none of that. Juarez says she was later told her daughter’s needs are too complex for the virtual program. (Her district, Arlington Independent schools, did not respond to a request for comment.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am just so lost right now because she needs the help,” Juarez said. “Whether you’re virtual or you’re in class, you should be offered the same education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some say the continued demand for virtual learning was foreseeable, especially since some students with disabilities have medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID and there is no vaccine for children under 12 yet. On top of that, school districts received extra \u003ca href=\"https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/arp/index.html\">COVID relief funding\u003c/a> specifically to help students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t understand how after 18 months of this, that schools were not better prepared to offer virtual options to students with disabilities,” said Selene Almazan, the legal director at the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I really don’t.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some families who were told their district’s virtual option wasn’t a good match for their child’s needs \u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/3/22656415/denver-virtual-school-students-with-disabilities\">have been directed\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/education/2021/07/23/ese-students-struggling-find-virtual-options-could-violate-their-rights/7769465002/\">home and hospital instruction\u003c/a>, programs typically reserved for students with a short-term medical condition. These programs offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2021/sep/26/few-school-options-kids-disabilities-during-c/554879/?bcsubid=9ecb0787-4dfd-4f92-9dda-6fc4e2506c32&pbdialog=reg-wall-login-created-tfp\">significantly less instruction\u003c/a> than a regular school day and usually don’t provide interaction with peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22926585/National_20211014_DETOnlineLearning_Di_AmondMoore_001.JPG\">Di’Amond Moore / Detroit Free Press\u003cfigcaption>Tyliya Wilson’s mother gives her extra work for times when teachers have been missing from her virtual classes.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Allegra and Arik Marcell’s 9-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, went a month without school after Baltimore County schools told the family the district’s virtual program wasn’t a fit for their son’s needs. Recently, their son has been meeting with a virtual tutor for about eight hours a week through the district’s home and hospital program, and he’s started receiving virtual speech and occupational therapy, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the Marcells worry their son is falling behind, as he’s often given assignments below his grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The third grader has an active imagination, but without classmates, he’s spending a lot of time in his own private world. “He’s extremely isolated,” Arik Marcell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charles Herndon, a spokesperson for Baltimore County schools, said the district doesn’t comment on cases involving specific students or families due to privacy concerns. The county’s virtual learning program is open to students with disabilities, he said in a statement, but it’s up to the team that works on the student’s learning plan to decide whether that’s an appropriate placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students who’ve been shut out of both virtual and home and hospital programs, there are few other remote options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, Graham hired a private tutor to work a few hours a week with her son, after deciding not to give up his services to enroll in their district’s independent study and being denied home and hospital services. Now she’s waiting for the legal process to play out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, she’s worried her son is missing out on lessons that would help him write independently and refine his motor skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s not progressing,” she said. “Trying to step in and do those specialty things — my toolbox is very limited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was updated to include a response from Baltimore County schools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg src=\"http://www.itjon.com/phppt/pixel.php?a=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chalkbeat.org%2F2021%2F10%2F14%2F22726271%2Fstudents-with-disabilities-denied-virtual-special-education\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ctime>Oct 14, 4:46pm EDT\u003c/time>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the new school year approached, Susan Graham wanted to know: Would her California school district have a remote learning option for her fifth grader?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers put \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2021/california-directs-districts-to-offer-remote-independent-study-this-fall/657578\">strict limits\u003c/a> on virtual learning this year, so her son’s district wasn’t offering daily classes over Zoom anymore. Instead, the district had an “independent study” program. Graham hoped it could work as a stopgap until her 10-year-old, who has Down syndrome and a respiratory condition, could be vaccinated against COVID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a virtual town hall about the remote program, though, she was told it was a “general education” program only. If her son enrolled, he would lose access to modified lessons, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was pretty stunned,” Graham said. “This is not inclusive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School districts don’t have to offer virtual learning this year, and most have \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/2/22654905/virtual-school-option-standalone-interest-dips\">scaled back their virtual offerings\u003c/a> to encourage students to return to in-person school. But where virtual school is available, some students with disabilities are finding it’s closed to them — or they are being asked to \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-27/independent-study-california-lausd\">give up certain kinds of support\u003c/a> to enroll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s left families, advocates, lawyers, and school districts disagreeing on a key question: With schools open nationwide, what exactly must districts provide online?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal officials have stressed the importance of in-person learning for students with disabilities, many of whom have \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/10/22/21529431/students-with-disabilities-return-to-schools-more-learning-and-needed-services-not-normal-yet\">struggled to learn online\u003c/a> while trading hands-on services for virtual stand-ins. “The best thing we could do for students with disabilities is the same thing we can do for all students — get them back in the classroom,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona \u003ca href=\"https://www.help.senate.gov/hearings/school-reopening-during-covid-19-supporting-students-educators-and-families\">said at a Senate hearing\u003c/a> last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a lengthy \u003ca href=\"https://sites.ed.gov/idea/idea-files/return-to-school-roadmap-development-and-implementation-of-ieps/#_Toc83713882,citem_53a6-0311\">guidance document\u003c/a>, the federal education department recently told districts that if they open a virtual program to all students, the district “must ensure that a child with a disability whose needs can be met through virtual learning” receives all of the services they’re legally entitled to. That leaves districts with some discretion to decide who those students are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But across the country, lawyers say districts are inappropriately excluding students and saying their needs cannot be met online, including many students who received special education services virtually last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Maryland attorney recently filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education after Baltimore County schools denied a third grader with Down syndrome access to the district’s virtual school. In California, attorneys \u003ca href=\"https://www.disabilityrightsca.org/press-release/complaint-filed-on-behalf-of-students-with-disabilities-for-discrimination-from-new\">filed a complaint\u003c/a> with the U.S. Department of Justice and a federal lawsuit over instances in which students with disabilities, including Graham’s son, were denied access to independent study programs or were told they’d have to give up their services to enroll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a district declines to modify lessons or add staff to make a virtual program work for all, “That’s a choice,” said Leslie Seid Margolis, the managing attorney at Disability Rights Maryland, who is representing several families who were told their children with disabilities couldn’t be served in virtual programs this year. “And it’s a choice that has a discriminatory impact on kids who may need those supplementary aids and services.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School officials, for their part, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2021/09/special-education/\">are wary\u003c/a> of letting students with disabilities attend virtual programs that they believe will be inferior to in-person school or that they can’t staff appropriately while also serving students in person. \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/23/22689774/teacher-vacancies-shortages-covid\">Special education teachers\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/michigan-schools-cant-fill-teacher-aide-jobs-there-are-no-applicants\">paraprofessionals\u003c/a> have been among the hardest positions for schools to fill this school year, adding to the challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detroit, for example, offered a virtual program that includes live instruction to any student who wanted to learn online this year. But the district turned down some students with disabilities who had needs the district didn’t think it could meet in the virtual school. Many who were denied entry previously attended centers that offer specialized support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did not want to violate IEPs,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a statement, referring to the plans that spell out a student’s accommodations and services. “Some children’s needs, whether it be instructional or physical, cannot be met through virtual learning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Philadelphia \u003ca href=\"https://philadelphia.chalkbeat.org/2021/8/11/22620931/heres-what-we-know-about-philadelphias-remote-school-option\">expanded its virtual school\u003c/a> to every grade except pre-kindergarten this year, and \u003ca href=\"https://pva.philasd.org/ktofiveintakeform/#PVAFAQ\">the district says\u003c/a> the virtual school does offer certain services, like speech therapy, and employs special education teachers who can modify lessons. Some virtual students can receive specialized services through an outside agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Anna Perng, who advocates for Philadelphia students through the Chinatown Disability Advocacy Project, said when she attended a meeting with a family seeking to enroll their child in the district’s virtual school, the family’s request for their child’s usual one-on-one aide was turned down. In an email, spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said that if the district determines that a student’s needs can’t be met virtually, the available option is to attend “in-person, in the currently assigned school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students who’ve been admitted to virtual programs expecting to receive extra help from teachers and paraprofessionals have gone without that support, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22926587/National_20211014_DETOnlineLearning_Di_AmondMoore_003.JPG\">Di’Amond Moore / Detroit Free Press\u003cfigcaption>Students like 12-year-old Tyliya Wilson in Detroit are still waiting to receive their required services virtually.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Twelve-year-old Tyliya Wilson is supposed to get five hours of extra help each week with a teacher, according to her learning plan. Last year, she met with a teacher every day over video chat, and the teacher would pop into Tyliya’s other virtual classes to check on her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the last five weeks in Detroit’s virtual school, Tyliya has seen such a teacher just a handful of times to get help retaking a test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s kind of hard, like when I need some help with my work,” Tyliya said. “Sometimes I ask my teachers, but it’s a bunch of kids in my class so they can’t help all the students.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detroit officials told her mother, Aliya Moore, that they intend to provide her daughter’s services, emails show, but Moore was told it won’t be until November that Tyliya will receive extra time with a teacher. The district struggled to \u003ca href=\"https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/29/22701319/first-month-of-classes-in-detroit-sees-virtual-school-challenges-demand-for-hourly-employees\">adequately staff the virtual school\u003c/a>, Moore was told, after more students enrolled than were expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Maria Juarez enrolled her 10-year-old in her Texas district’s virtual program, she was initially told that her daughter would receive her services after school. Her fifth grader has an emotional disability and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and is entitled to extra help from a teacher and visual charts to help with math skills like subtraction and division.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But so far, she’s gotten none of that. Juarez says she was later told her daughter’s needs are too complex for the virtual program. (Her district, Arlington Independent schools, did not respond to a request for comment.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am just so lost right now because she needs the help,” Juarez said. “Whether you’re virtual or you’re in class, you should be offered the same education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some say the continued demand for virtual learning was foreseeable, especially since some students with disabilities have medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID and there is no vaccine for children under 12 yet. On top of that, school districts received extra \u003ca href=\"https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/arp/index.html\">COVID relief funding\u003c/a> specifically to help students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t understand how after 18 months of this, that schools were not better prepared to offer virtual options to students with disabilities,” said Selene Almazan, the legal director at the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I really don’t.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some families who were told their district’s virtual option wasn’t a good match for their child’s needs \u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/3/22656415/denver-virtual-school-students-with-disabilities\">have been directed\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/education/2021/07/23/ese-students-struggling-find-virtual-options-could-violate-their-rights/7769465002/\">home and hospital instruction\u003c/a>, programs typically reserved for students with a short-term medical condition. These programs offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2021/sep/26/few-school-options-kids-disabilities-during-c/554879/?bcsubid=9ecb0787-4dfd-4f92-9dda-6fc4e2506c32&pbdialog=reg-wall-login-created-tfp\">significantly less instruction\u003c/a> than a regular school day and usually don’t provide interaction with peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22926585/National_20211014_DETOnlineLearning_Di_AmondMoore_001.JPG\">Di’Amond Moore / Detroit Free Press\u003cfigcaption>Tyliya Wilson’s mother gives her extra work for times when teachers have been missing from her virtual classes.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Allegra and Arik Marcell’s 9-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, went a month without school after Baltimore County schools told the family the district’s virtual program wasn’t a fit for their son’s needs. Recently, their son has been meeting with a virtual tutor for about eight hours a week through the district’s home and hospital program, and he’s started receiving virtual speech and occupational therapy, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the Marcells worry their son is falling behind, as he’s often given assignments below his grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The third grader has an active imagination, but without classmates, he’s spending a lot of time in his own private world. “He’s extremely isolated,” Arik Marcell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charles Herndon, a spokesperson for Baltimore County schools, said the district doesn’t comment on cases involving specific students or families due to privacy concerns. The county’s virtual learning program is open to students with disabilities, he said in a statement, but it’s up to the team that works on the student’s learning plan to decide whether that’s an appropriate placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students who’ve been shut out of both virtual and home and hospital programs, there are few other remote options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, Graham hired a private tutor to work a few hours a week with her son, after deciding not to give up his services to enroll in their district’s independent study and being denied home and hospital services. Now she’s waiting for the legal process to play out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, she’s worried her son is missing out on lessons that would help him write independently and refine his motor skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s not progressing,” she said. “Trying to step in and do those specialty things — my toolbox is very limited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was updated to include a response from Baltimore County schools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "What Lessons Does Special Education Hold for Improving Personalized Learning?",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a shelf in her Chicago classroom, third grader Arianna has a thick binder that details her achievements, strengths and goals as a student, along with some revealing information about her personality. It describes her love of guitar and singing and notes that she wants to advance to a higher level in reading and grasp math concepts more quickly. Her sister, Alanni, an eighth grader, has a binder too. It discusses her grades and standardized test scores, as well as her academic goals: to speak up more frequently in math class and read texts more closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The binders resemble, to a degree, the individualized education programs, or IEPs, that are at the heart of education for students with disabilities. But Arianna and Alanni aren’t special education students. Every child at their pre-K-8 school, Belmont-Cragin, has one of these so-called individual learner profiles. The profiles are part of the school’s embrace of personalized learning, which centers on the belief that a teacher lecturing at the front of a classroom is a bad fit for today’s students. Instead, the thinking goes, students must be encouraged to learn at their own pace, with lessons tailored to their specific aptitudes and needs, often with the aid of technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personalized learning has, in recent years, become one of the most talked-about trends in education. Fueled by donations from Silicon Valley philanthropists, the instructional approach has spread to classrooms around the country and more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">40 states are exploring it in some form\u003c/a>. As education leaders cast about for solutions to the performance gaps exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, some are hitting upon the idea that more personalized methods could help schools better serve students who’ve had wildly different experiences with education this year. In the process, they are finding inspiration in special education, which, since the 1975 passage of what’s now known as the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, has promised students with disabilities special services and accommodations to help them learn at their full potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Can you imagine the power of an individualized education plan for every student?” Richard Carranza, New York City’s education chancellor, \u003ca href=\"https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/10/22168384/nyc-schools-covid-learning-loss\">said recently\u003c/a> in discussing his agency’s plans for new tools to help students recover the learning they’ve lost during school closures. “Just think about identifying the explicit skills that students need to work on and the plan that we have to help them achieve a mastery of that explicit skill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are plenty of reasons to be cautious. If anything, special education demonstrates the vast challenges of individualizing education. Tailoring learning to students’ exact needs takes significant resources, teacher training and, ideally, close collaboration with families — something many schools struggle to pull off. While there are limits to comparisons between the two educational approaches — special education is legally mandated and personalized learning is a loosely defined pedagogical philosophy that takes many forms — some of the cracks that have appeared in personalized learning are not unlike those facing special education. Both types of education, for example, require significant resources and trained staff — but often don’t get either. Schools introducing personalized learning have faced criticism for relying on technology to help kids learn at different paces within the same classroom as districts avoid having to drastically scale up their staff; staff shortages have long been \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf\">endemic in special education\u003c/a>. Meanwhile, for all the hype around personalized learning, evidence of its success remains scant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School systems and schools have struggled to deliver on the promise of special education,” said Betheny Gross, associate director of the nonprofit Center on Reinventing Public Education. “It isn’t just a matter of taking the principles of special education and doing them at scale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57300\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57300\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students at CICS West Belden often work in small groups or with the help of technology prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At present, roughly 7 million students, or \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">14 percent\u003c/a> of public schoolchildren, are enrolled in special education nationwide. As personalized learning advocates push forward with plans to roll out their approach to many more of the nation’s schoolchildren, it’s worth considering how lessons from 45 years of educating students with disabilities might help shape this latest educational experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One morning in 2019, close to 40 educators gathered in a commercial building on the Chicago riverfront that houses the offices of LEAP Innovations. LEAP is a nonprofit organization that trains schools and teachers to use personalized learning in their classrooms. The day’s professional development for these Chicago Public Schools teachers, alumni of the program, was a refresher, a way to strengthen their teaching practice, share ideas and return to the classroom newly inspired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago has embraced personalized learning in a big way. In early 2018, Chicago Public Schools and LEAP received $14 million in grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to train teachers and principals on personalizing learning. (CZI is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.) The grant funding provided 35 city schools with two-and-a-half years of professional development and instructional coaching through LEAP, plus technology and classroom resources, via the school district’s \u003ca href=\"https://practices.learningaccelerator.org/artifacts/the-chicago-public-schools-elevate-program\">Elevate Program\u003c/a>, which aims to bring personalized learning to 150 Chicago schools by the end of 2021. Concurrently, a portion of the funding went to LEAP to help train principals and teachers at more than 100 Chicago-area schools on personalized learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a morning of workshops on topics like helping students puzzle through problems, working in teams and designing learning goals, teachers broke for lunch that day in 2019, gathering around large tables to chat. At one table, the conversation turned to the growing pains of changing course from the traditional “sage on a stage” teaching model, where a teacher holds forth at the front of the classroom while students listen, to a student-focused, personalized model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started this process five years ago and all I could think was: ‘Oh my god, this is going to be a nightmare!’ Because I thought this would mean that, on top of everything I was already doing, I’d be creating an IEP for every single student,” said Kathleen Bourret, a teacher at R.H. Lee Elementary, a Pre-K-8 school on Chicago’s southwest side. “I didn’t have the mindset to make this shift. I’ve been teaching for 30 years, and now you’re gonna make me do what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bourret’s learning curve when it came to personalized learning is pretty typical for teachers, said Chris Liang-Vergara, who was then serving as LEAP’s chief of learning innovation. And it’s something the people at LEAP try to alleviate by bringing in past cohorts, like that day’s group, to mingle and continue sharing ideas and inspiration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely not always rainbows and sunshine,” said Liang-Vergara. “Keeping that honest and real is important. You don’t say: ‘I’m going to do personalized learning and it’s going to be beautiful.’ There’s a real shift that happens with you as a professional, with your kids in the classroom, and that change process takes time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57298\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1536px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57298\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Colleen Collins, school director at CICS West Belden, works with students prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The shift in mindset involves moving away from a teaching model that is centered on curriculum and meeting benchmarks toward being student-centered in ways that demand differentiated instruction based on a child’s interests, strengths, weaknesses and background. Students often work in small groups, with help from a co-teacher, or one-on-one, with lessons fitted to their skills and abilities. In theory, their progress is tracked closely, with their goals and assignments updated continually to meet their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of this may sound familiar to teachers of special education. As part of their jobs, special education teachers assess students and develop teaching plans based on each student’s skill levels. They teach students as a class and one-on-one or in small groups. They collaborate with school-based service providers such as occupational, physical and speech therapists, in order to cull reams of information and write IEPs that, often, run more than ten double-sided pages, and ideally provide detailed documentation of a child’s strengths, weaknesses and goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teachers often come unprepared to do this work, and don’t get the support they need from their schools and districts, in part because special education is \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-the-feds-still-fall-short-on-special-education-funding/2020/01\">chronically underfunded\u003c/a>. They may struggle to assess students’ abilities and needs, education researchers say, and \u003ca href=\"https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/tchr-ret/cresource/q1/p01/\">turnover\u003c/a> for special education teachers tends to be high. The paperwork involved can be overwhelming. All of this suggests that if personalized learning is to succeed, it must emphasize supporting teachers and investing in their professional development, say education experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you get a master’s degree in special education, do you come out knowing how to teach every single child with every singly kind of disability? Absolutely not,” said Megan Benay, senior national director of data systems and strategy at Great Oaks Charter Schools, a network of charter schools that focuses on preparing kids for college through personalized tutoring. “As far as I see it, the only path forward is to figure out how to invest in our people and invest in the kind of ongoing professional learning that provides practical, applicable research-infused training into the daily practice of our educators. This is hard because the reality of teaching is that you’re on every hour of the day, you’re lesson-planning, you’re calling parents, you’re writing curriculum. Oh, and then you have to figure out how to fit in eating lunch somewhere in there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ace Parsi, senior consultant with Equity Journey Partners and the former director of innovation for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that if school districts don’t invest in teachers while making the shift to personalized learning, they are bound to fail. “It’s not that educators don’t want to try personalized learning. But it’s a vulnerable feeling when you’re trying to implement this new thing and you’re like: ‘Oh my god, how do I approach this for these students, I just don’t have the skill set to do this’,” he said. “It’s really incumbent on school districts and states to create a professional learning system that meets the educators and empowers them to actually implement personalized learning for all kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57296\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57296\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin Elementary School seen here before the COVID-19 pandemic, credits personalized learning for helping to improve student engagement. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin, the school on Chicago’s northwest side that Alanni and Arianna attend, has heard teachers make comparisons between personalized learning and the IEPs that drive special education. “My teachers say: ‘It’s almost like all our students have an IEP’ — not formally, of course, but they each do have an individualized plan,” said Stewart. “It’s always evolving; it’s a very living document.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart, though, cautions against drawing too-direct parallels between IEPs and the individual learner profiles her school uses, also known as personalized learning plans. IEPs are rigid legal documents, written not for students so much as for teachers, parents and lawyers. Individual learner profiles, she said, aim to involve parents in their children’s learning but also give students more control over their own education. At her school, students lead learner meetings at least twice a year where they give a presentation to their parents about their progress, goals and challenges. That’s different from IEP meetings, which are led by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart embraced personalized learning even before the Chicago school district began to do so. A few years after joining Belmont-Cragin in 2010, she turned to the approach to help close achievement gaps at her school, where the student body is predominantly Hispanic and low-income, and roughly \u003ca href=\"https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoolprofile/schooldetails.aspx?SchoolId=609922\">68 percent\u003c/a> of students are English language learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the results are good. Between the 2015-16 and 2018-19 school years, attainment levels for third through eighth graders on the standardized Measures of Academic Progress test rose from 35 to 65 percent in reading and from 30 to 66 percent in math. Student growth in reading and math was far above average: in the 95th and 98th percentiles, respectively. Between the 2014-15 and 2017-18 school years, teacher retention grew from 60 to 90 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, personalized learning has many facets, some of which are reminiscent of special education. One is to involve families in their children’s learning. In special education, under legal mandates, parental input and the recommendations of educators and therapists must receive \u003ca href=\"https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/ieps/playing-a-role-in-the-iep-process\">equal consideration\u003c/a>. Stewart said she has found that parental involvement has been key to her students’ learning, because it gives teachers greater insight into their students’ needs and turns parents into partners in their children’s education. But she doesn’t limit it to scheduled meetings in an office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One weekday morning before the pandemic shuttered school buildings, students gathered in an ageing auditorium for their daily morning assembly. One student read morning announcements in English and her partner made the same announcements in Spanish. The audience, a raucous, cheerful gathering of the entire school’s elementary-age students, plus more than a dozen parents, some with toddlers or babies scooting around nearby, greeted each announcement with cheering and hollering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57297\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57297\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg 1200w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Before the pandemic, students at Belmont-Cragin often lead morning assemblies, part of an effort by the school to give young people more control over their own learning. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stewart and her team began encouraging parents to join the morning assemblies a few years ago. Her colleagues also started “bring your parent to school” days in which parents were invited into the classroom to see how their kids learned; they created a parent leadership team and trained parent mentors who visited students in classrooms. Before the pandemic, Belmont-Cragin also sent teachers out on “empathy walks,” when they spent an entire day joining students at their homes early in the morning, and traveling with them to school and then back home again to see how evenings unfolded. This was important, Stewart explained, because it helped teachers get a stronger sense of what motivated students and thus, how to better guide them into meaningful learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the classrooms at Belmont-Cragin are personalized to students’ needs. Some have gentler lighting — twinkling holiday lights in lieu of flickering overhead lights. Seating options range from bean bags to structured armchairs; students can choose to study alone in quiet workspaces near a lava lamp or a bubbling fish tank, or in groups at clusters of desks and tables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gross, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, said one way in which special education goes awry is by becoming too compliance-oriented, with teachers struggling simply to fulfill the system’s legal and paperwork requirements. “The compliance requirements are intense and numerous and it’s very easy to fall into a compliance mindset,” she said. The schools that succeed in educating kids with disabilities are engaged not simply in following the legal rules but in finding the best way to serve each student; that same spirit will be key to tackling personalized learning, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, educators around the country are finding that it’s virtually impossible to do personalized instruction without relying heavily on technology — for good or ill. Otherwise, the burden of having kids learning at different paces within one classroom is too great. “I find it difficult to find a district doing personalized learning where tech is not the top two or three things they’re doing,” said Sean J. Smith, professor of special education at the University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ideally every student would have a teacher, but that’s simply not a possibility,” said John Pane, a senior scientist at the research organization RAND who has studied personalized learning. “It would be way too costly.” And that’s where tech tools come in, by making it easier for kids to learn at different paces, and focus on different goals, within a single class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57301\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CICS West Belden uses Summit, an online learning platform that has drawn criticism from some parents who worry about excessive screen time. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CICS West Belden, a pre-K-8 school not far from Stewart’s elementary that is part of the Chicago International Charter School network, began rethinking its teaching model some six years ago. The school started with an initial push into blended learning, a teaching approach that aims to integrate online with traditional face-to-face learning, said Colleen Collins, the school director. Since then, Collins and her teachers — after receiving several grants, including a $100,000 technology planning grant and a Breakthrough Schools Next Generation Learning Challenges personalized learning grant — began working with LEAP to start personalized learning for each grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an eighth grade science class well before the pandemic hit, students were grouped at a variety of workstations. Some were seated on stools around tall desks, some worked at regular-height tables with traditional classroom chairs, others were on their feet working at standing desks. Each student was bent over a Dell Chromebook using Summit Learning software, a widely used online learning platform developed by the charter network Summit Public Schools with help from Facebook software engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students David Diaz and Emani Torres had been using Summit software at CICS West Belden since sixth grade. They sat side-by-side at a two-person desk facing a bulletin board on the far side of the classroom, each working through different lessons at their own pace. A small yellow rubber duck sat on the desk between them, a stress-buster toy for whenever students need to work out some energy by squeezing something cute. Torres and Diaz described their feelings about using Summit learning software as a sort of love-hate relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like working independently and I can really go above and beyond,” said Diaz, his eyes glued to his laptop where an article titled “Creating Dramatic Tension” filled the screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Torres, on the other hand, said she misses a more traditional way of learning. “This is stressful, honestly. It’s so many deadlines and a lot more work,” she said, biting her lower lip. “But, I guess it does keep you engaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alanni, the eighth grader at Belmont-Cragin, which also uses Summit and other online platforms, said she tired of all the time spent in front of a computer. “I do prefer working on paper just because it really hurts my eyes and it makes you sleepy and less motivated when you are on the computer for such a long time,” she said. Alanni said teachers would sometimes accommodate her by printing out lesson plans from the computer program and allowing her to complete the lessons offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, Summit has drawn protests from parents and students in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksn.com/news/local/mcpherson-students-protest-against-summit-learning-platform-tuesday-afternoon/\">Kansas\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/12/20/why-parents-students-are-protesting-an-online-learning-program-backed-by-mark-zuckerberg-facebook/\">New York City\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/11/17/students-protest-zuckerberg-backed-digital-learning-program-ask-him-what-gives-you-this-right/\">Connecticut\u003c/a> who worry about excessive screen time, among other concerns. It remains to be seen how much the pandemic and remote learning will influence students’ and educators’ appetite for screen time and new tech tools that might help students who’ve fallen behind catch up. Smith and other researchers say tech can be good or bad, depending on how schools choose to use it. Technology should supplement, not supplant, the teacher, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At CICS West Belden, director Collins said the school never introduces students to new concepts through technology. “The best experience a child will have each day is the interaction with their teachers in small groups tailored to who they are,” she said. “Tech makes a lot of personalized learning possible, it helps us keep a close eye on progress, but it shouldn’t be the main experience students have each day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, despite the parallels between personalized learning and special education, educators are still trying to unravel how the new approach can effectively serve students with disabilities. The hope is that individualizing education across the board would bring big benefits for students served by special education. By helping educators recognize that there is no such thing as an “average” or “typical” student, and that brain differences are normal, personalized learning could de-stigmatize, and improve, education for students with disabilities, education experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a reframing that the general inclusion movement for students with disabilities has been trying to accomplish for some time now,” said Laura Stelitano, an associate policy researcher at RAND. “But simply saying that all students with disabilities need to be included is a little different from saying all students have unique ways of learning and that learning needs to be tailored. It maybe takes inclusion a step forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some schools, this appears to be happening. Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School, which serves middle school and high school students in New York, has embraced personalized learning. At the same time, it is gaining a reputation for serving kids with disabilities well — unusual among charter schools, which are frequently \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/charter-schools-more-likely-to-ignore-special-education-applicants-study-finds/2018/12\">criticized\u003c/a> for pushing out students with complex learning needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As somebody whose own profile as a learner was pretty darn jagged, I’m a big believer that we need to design and run schools in a way that leverages what special education has to offer,” said Eric Tucker, the Brooklyn school’s co-founder. “That means thinking through how we process information, how we learn, how we fill in language acquisition and processing gaps, while pushing for a level of rigor and inclusion for all young people that reflects what they’re really capable of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, for example, every student, regardless of academic standing, receives small-group instruction for two hours a day. This has the dual benefit of helping students who are behind without making it obvious to their peers, while also enabling teachers to help high-achieving students go farther and deeper into the curriculum. It’s a leveler, of sorts, and a confidence-builder for children with disabilities who’ve traditionally been either pulled out of the classroom for special services or received “push-in” support in the classroom from therapists and special education teachers, according to Tucker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet personalized learning has a long way to go when it comes to living up to the promise of improving education for kids with disabilities. Parsi, the consultant who formerly worked for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that children with disabilities have often been overlooked as states implement personalized learning. When the NCLD \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">examined how personalized learning was being developed in three states\u003c/a> — Colorado, North Carolina and New Hampshire — researchers found that “there was a lot of retrofitting happening,” he said. “They would say, ‘We’re doing personalized learning for all,’ and then they would implement it in a most generic way. And then they would realize, ‘Oh my god, our kids with disabilities aren’t doing any better, they’re actually struggling more.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parsi said that goes back to the idea that schools and school systems aren’t spending enough time ensuring that general education teachers have the skills to meet students’ individual needs, including the kids with disabilities. Meanwhile, he added, “The special educators don’t get training to do this type of more personalized, deeper approach to learning. And the two don’t collaborate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s concerning, to be sure. Still, advocates for personalized learning and researchers hope that the best models will proliferate, and that the personalized approach could ultimately avoid some of the pitfalls of special education while lifting learning for all. “If we have a system that is set up to individualize [education] for all students, we’re more likely to get quality special education,” said Stelitano of RAND. “The system just requires the right resources and the right training for teachers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Caroline Preston contributed reporting. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "As educators seek to help students recover learning lost in the pandemic, they are turning to more personalized methods and finding inspiration in special education. But if anything, special education demonstrates the challenges of individualizing instruction. How can we apply lessons from special education, such as the use of Individual Education Programs, or IEPs, to personalized learning?",
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"description": "As educators seek to help students recover learning lost in the pandemic, they are turning to more personalized methods and finding inspiration in special education. But if anything, special education demonstrates the challenges of individualizing instruction. How can we apply lessons from special education, such as the use of Individual Education Programs, or IEPs, to personalized learning?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a shelf in her Chicago classroom, third grader Arianna has a thick binder that details her achievements, strengths and goals as a student, along with some revealing information about her personality. It describes her love of guitar and singing and notes that she wants to advance to a higher level in reading and grasp math concepts more quickly. Her sister, Alanni, an eighth grader, has a binder too. It discusses her grades and standardized test scores, as well as her academic goals: to speak up more frequently in math class and read texts more closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The binders resemble, to a degree, the individualized education programs, or IEPs, that are at the heart of education for students with disabilities. But Arianna and Alanni aren’t special education students. Every child at their pre-K-8 school, Belmont-Cragin, has one of these so-called individual learner profiles. The profiles are part of the school’s embrace of personalized learning, which centers on the belief that a teacher lecturing at the front of a classroom is a bad fit for today’s students. Instead, the thinking goes, students must be encouraged to learn at their own pace, with lessons tailored to their specific aptitudes and needs, often with the aid of technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personalized learning has, in recent years, become one of the most talked-about trends in education. Fueled by donations from Silicon Valley philanthropists, the instructional approach has spread to classrooms around the country and more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">40 states are exploring it in some form\u003c/a>. As education leaders cast about for solutions to the performance gaps exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, some are hitting upon the idea that more personalized methods could help schools better serve students who’ve had wildly different experiences with education this year. In the process, they are finding inspiration in special education, which, since the 1975 passage of what’s now known as the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, has promised students with disabilities special services and accommodations to help them learn at their full potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Can you imagine the power of an individualized education plan for every student?” Richard Carranza, New York City’s education chancellor, \u003ca href=\"https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/10/22168384/nyc-schools-covid-learning-loss\">said recently\u003c/a> in discussing his agency’s plans for new tools to help students recover the learning they’ve lost during school closures. “Just think about identifying the explicit skills that students need to work on and the plan that we have to help them achieve a mastery of that explicit skill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are plenty of reasons to be cautious. If anything, special education demonstrates the vast challenges of individualizing education. Tailoring learning to students’ exact needs takes significant resources, teacher training and, ideally, close collaboration with families — something many schools struggle to pull off. While there are limits to comparisons between the two educational approaches — special education is legally mandated and personalized learning is a loosely defined pedagogical philosophy that takes many forms — some of the cracks that have appeared in personalized learning are not unlike those facing special education. Both types of education, for example, require significant resources and trained staff — but often don’t get either. Schools introducing personalized learning have faced criticism for relying on technology to help kids learn at different paces within the same classroom as districts avoid having to drastically scale up their staff; staff shortages have long been \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf\">endemic in special education\u003c/a>. Meanwhile, for all the hype around personalized learning, evidence of its success remains scant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School systems and schools have struggled to deliver on the promise of special education,” said Betheny Gross, associate director of the nonprofit Center on Reinventing Public Education. “It isn’t just a matter of taking the principles of special education and doing them at scale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57300\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57300\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students at CICS West Belden often work in small groups or with the help of technology prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At present, roughly 7 million students, or \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">14 percent\u003c/a> of public schoolchildren, are enrolled in special education nationwide. As personalized learning advocates push forward with plans to roll out their approach to many more of the nation’s schoolchildren, it’s worth considering how lessons from 45 years of educating students with disabilities might help shape this latest educational experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One morning in 2019, close to 40 educators gathered in a commercial building on the Chicago riverfront that houses the offices of LEAP Innovations. LEAP is a nonprofit organization that trains schools and teachers to use personalized learning in their classrooms. The day’s professional development for these Chicago Public Schools teachers, alumni of the program, was a refresher, a way to strengthen their teaching practice, share ideas and return to the classroom newly inspired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago has embraced personalized learning in a big way. In early 2018, Chicago Public Schools and LEAP received $14 million in grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to train teachers and principals on personalizing learning. (CZI is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.) The grant funding provided 35 city schools with two-and-a-half years of professional development and instructional coaching through LEAP, plus technology and classroom resources, via the school district’s \u003ca href=\"https://practices.learningaccelerator.org/artifacts/the-chicago-public-schools-elevate-program\">Elevate Program\u003c/a>, which aims to bring personalized learning to 150 Chicago schools by the end of 2021. Concurrently, a portion of the funding went to LEAP to help train principals and teachers at more than 100 Chicago-area schools on personalized learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a morning of workshops on topics like helping students puzzle through problems, working in teams and designing learning goals, teachers broke for lunch that day in 2019, gathering around large tables to chat. At one table, the conversation turned to the growing pains of changing course from the traditional “sage on a stage” teaching model, where a teacher holds forth at the front of the classroom while students listen, to a student-focused, personalized model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started this process five years ago and all I could think was: ‘Oh my god, this is going to be a nightmare!’ Because I thought this would mean that, on top of everything I was already doing, I’d be creating an IEP for every single student,” said Kathleen Bourret, a teacher at R.H. Lee Elementary, a Pre-K-8 school on Chicago’s southwest side. “I didn’t have the mindset to make this shift. I’ve been teaching for 30 years, and now you’re gonna make me do what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bourret’s learning curve when it came to personalized learning is pretty typical for teachers, said Chris Liang-Vergara, who was then serving as LEAP’s chief of learning innovation. And it’s something the people at LEAP try to alleviate by bringing in past cohorts, like that day’s group, to mingle and continue sharing ideas and inspiration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely not always rainbows and sunshine,” said Liang-Vergara. “Keeping that honest and real is important. You don’t say: ‘I’m going to do personalized learning and it’s going to be beautiful.’ There’s a real shift that happens with you as a professional, with your kids in the classroom, and that change process takes time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57298\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1536px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57298\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Colleen Collins, school director at CICS West Belden, works with students prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The shift in mindset involves moving away from a teaching model that is centered on curriculum and meeting benchmarks toward being student-centered in ways that demand differentiated instruction based on a child’s interests, strengths, weaknesses and background. Students often work in small groups, with help from a co-teacher, or one-on-one, with lessons fitted to their skills and abilities. In theory, their progress is tracked closely, with their goals and assignments updated continually to meet their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of this may sound familiar to teachers of special education. As part of their jobs, special education teachers assess students and develop teaching plans based on each student’s skill levels. They teach students as a class and one-on-one or in small groups. They collaborate with school-based service providers such as occupational, physical and speech therapists, in order to cull reams of information and write IEPs that, often, run more than ten double-sided pages, and ideally provide detailed documentation of a child’s strengths, weaknesses and goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teachers often come unprepared to do this work, and don’t get the support they need from their schools and districts, in part because special education is \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-the-feds-still-fall-short-on-special-education-funding/2020/01\">chronically underfunded\u003c/a>. They may struggle to assess students’ abilities and needs, education researchers say, and \u003ca href=\"https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/tchr-ret/cresource/q1/p01/\">turnover\u003c/a> for special education teachers tends to be high. The paperwork involved can be overwhelming. All of this suggests that if personalized learning is to succeed, it must emphasize supporting teachers and investing in their professional development, say education experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you get a master’s degree in special education, do you come out knowing how to teach every single child with every singly kind of disability? Absolutely not,” said Megan Benay, senior national director of data systems and strategy at Great Oaks Charter Schools, a network of charter schools that focuses on preparing kids for college through personalized tutoring. “As far as I see it, the only path forward is to figure out how to invest in our people and invest in the kind of ongoing professional learning that provides practical, applicable research-infused training into the daily practice of our educators. This is hard because the reality of teaching is that you’re on every hour of the day, you’re lesson-planning, you’re calling parents, you’re writing curriculum. Oh, and then you have to figure out how to fit in eating lunch somewhere in there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ace Parsi, senior consultant with Equity Journey Partners and the former director of innovation for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that if school districts don’t invest in teachers while making the shift to personalized learning, they are bound to fail. “It’s not that educators don’t want to try personalized learning. But it’s a vulnerable feeling when you’re trying to implement this new thing and you’re like: ‘Oh my god, how do I approach this for these students, I just don’t have the skill set to do this’,” he said. “It’s really incumbent on school districts and states to create a professional learning system that meets the educators and empowers them to actually implement personalized learning for all kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57296\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57296\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin Elementary School seen here before the COVID-19 pandemic, credits personalized learning for helping to improve student engagement. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin, the school on Chicago’s northwest side that Alanni and Arianna attend, has heard teachers make comparisons between personalized learning and the IEPs that drive special education. “My teachers say: ‘It’s almost like all our students have an IEP’ — not formally, of course, but they each do have an individualized plan,” said Stewart. “It’s always evolving; it’s a very living document.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart, though, cautions against drawing too-direct parallels between IEPs and the individual learner profiles her school uses, also known as personalized learning plans. IEPs are rigid legal documents, written not for students so much as for teachers, parents and lawyers. Individual learner profiles, she said, aim to involve parents in their children’s learning but also give students more control over their own education. At her school, students lead learner meetings at least twice a year where they give a presentation to their parents about their progress, goals and challenges. That’s different from IEP meetings, which are led by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart embraced personalized learning even before the Chicago school district began to do so. A few years after joining Belmont-Cragin in 2010, she turned to the approach to help close achievement gaps at her school, where the student body is predominantly Hispanic and low-income, and roughly \u003ca href=\"https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoolprofile/schooldetails.aspx?SchoolId=609922\">68 percent\u003c/a> of students are English language learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the results are good. Between the 2015-16 and 2018-19 school years, attainment levels for third through eighth graders on the standardized Measures of Academic Progress test rose from 35 to 65 percent in reading and from 30 to 66 percent in math. Student growth in reading and math was far above average: in the 95th and 98th percentiles, respectively. Between the 2014-15 and 2017-18 school years, teacher retention grew from 60 to 90 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, personalized learning has many facets, some of which are reminiscent of special education. One is to involve families in their children’s learning. In special education, under legal mandates, parental input and the recommendations of educators and therapists must receive \u003ca href=\"https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/ieps/playing-a-role-in-the-iep-process\">equal consideration\u003c/a>. Stewart said she has found that parental involvement has been key to her students’ learning, because it gives teachers greater insight into their students’ needs and turns parents into partners in their children’s education. But she doesn’t limit it to scheduled meetings in an office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One weekday morning before the pandemic shuttered school buildings, students gathered in an ageing auditorium for their daily morning assembly. One student read morning announcements in English and her partner made the same announcements in Spanish. The audience, a raucous, cheerful gathering of the entire school’s elementary-age students, plus more than a dozen parents, some with toddlers or babies scooting around nearby, greeted each announcement with cheering and hollering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57297\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57297\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg 1200w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Before the pandemic, students at Belmont-Cragin often lead morning assemblies, part of an effort by the school to give young people more control over their own learning. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stewart and her team began encouraging parents to join the morning assemblies a few years ago. Her colleagues also started “bring your parent to school” days in which parents were invited into the classroom to see how their kids learned; they created a parent leadership team and trained parent mentors who visited students in classrooms. Before the pandemic, Belmont-Cragin also sent teachers out on “empathy walks,” when they spent an entire day joining students at their homes early in the morning, and traveling with them to school and then back home again to see how evenings unfolded. This was important, Stewart explained, because it helped teachers get a stronger sense of what motivated students and thus, how to better guide them into meaningful learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the classrooms at Belmont-Cragin are personalized to students’ needs. Some have gentler lighting — twinkling holiday lights in lieu of flickering overhead lights. Seating options range from bean bags to structured armchairs; students can choose to study alone in quiet workspaces near a lava lamp or a bubbling fish tank, or in groups at clusters of desks and tables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gross, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, said one way in which special education goes awry is by becoming too compliance-oriented, with teachers struggling simply to fulfill the system’s legal and paperwork requirements. “The compliance requirements are intense and numerous and it’s very easy to fall into a compliance mindset,” she said. The schools that succeed in educating kids with disabilities are engaged not simply in following the legal rules but in finding the best way to serve each student; that same spirit will be key to tackling personalized learning, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, educators around the country are finding that it’s virtually impossible to do personalized instruction without relying heavily on technology — for good or ill. Otherwise, the burden of having kids learning at different paces within one classroom is too great. “I find it difficult to find a district doing personalized learning where tech is not the top two or three things they’re doing,” said Sean J. Smith, professor of special education at the University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ideally every student would have a teacher, but that’s simply not a possibility,” said John Pane, a senior scientist at the research organization RAND who has studied personalized learning. “It would be way too costly.” And that’s where tech tools come in, by making it easier for kids to learn at different paces, and focus on different goals, within a single class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57301\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CICS West Belden uses Summit, an online learning platform that has drawn criticism from some parents who worry about excessive screen time. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CICS West Belden, a pre-K-8 school not far from Stewart’s elementary that is part of the Chicago International Charter School network, began rethinking its teaching model some six years ago. The school started with an initial push into blended learning, a teaching approach that aims to integrate online with traditional face-to-face learning, said Colleen Collins, the school director. Since then, Collins and her teachers — after receiving several grants, including a $100,000 technology planning grant and a Breakthrough Schools Next Generation Learning Challenges personalized learning grant — began working with LEAP to start personalized learning for each grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an eighth grade science class well before the pandemic hit, students were grouped at a variety of workstations. Some were seated on stools around tall desks, some worked at regular-height tables with traditional classroom chairs, others were on their feet working at standing desks. Each student was bent over a Dell Chromebook using Summit Learning software, a widely used online learning platform developed by the charter network Summit Public Schools with help from Facebook software engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students David Diaz and Emani Torres had been using Summit software at CICS West Belden since sixth grade. They sat side-by-side at a two-person desk facing a bulletin board on the far side of the classroom, each working through different lessons at their own pace. A small yellow rubber duck sat on the desk between them, a stress-buster toy for whenever students need to work out some energy by squeezing something cute. Torres and Diaz described their feelings about using Summit learning software as a sort of love-hate relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like working independently and I can really go above and beyond,” said Diaz, his eyes glued to his laptop where an article titled “Creating Dramatic Tension” filled the screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Torres, on the other hand, said she misses a more traditional way of learning. “This is stressful, honestly. It’s so many deadlines and a lot more work,” she said, biting her lower lip. “But, I guess it does keep you engaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alanni, the eighth grader at Belmont-Cragin, which also uses Summit and other online platforms, said she tired of all the time spent in front of a computer. “I do prefer working on paper just because it really hurts my eyes and it makes you sleepy and less motivated when you are on the computer for such a long time,” she said. Alanni said teachers would sometimes accommodate her by printing out lesson plans from the computer program and allowing her to complete the lessons offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, Summit has drawn protests from parents and students in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksn.com/news/local/mcpherson-students-protest-against-summit-learning-platform-tuesday-afternoon/\">Kansas\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/12/20/why-parents-students-are-protesting-an-online-learning-program-backed-by-mark-zuckerberg-facebook/\">New York City\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/11/17/students-protest-zuckerberg-backed-digital-learning-program-ask-him-what-gives-you-this-right/\">Connecticut\u003c/a> who worry about excessive screen time, among other concerns. It remains to be seen how much the pandemic and remote learning will influence students’ and educators’ appetite for screen time and new tech tools that might help students who’ve fallen behind catch up. Smith and other researchers say tech can be good or bad, depending on how schools choose to use it. Technology should supplement, not supplant, the teacher, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At CICS West Belden, director Collins said the school never introduces students to new concepts through technology. “The best experience a child will have each day is the interaction with their teachers in small groups tailored to who they are,” she said. “Tech makes a lot of personalized learning possible, it helps us keep a close eye on progress, but it shouldn’t be the main experience students have each day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, despite the parallels between personalized learning and special education, educators are still trying to unravel how the new approach can effectively serve students with disabilities. The hope is that individualizing education across the board would bring big benefits for students served by special education. By helping educators recognize that there is no such thing as an “average” or “typical” student, and that brain differences are normal, personalized learning could de-stigmatize, and improve, education for students with disabilities, education experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a reframing that the general inclusion movement for students with disabilities has been trying to accomplish for some time now,” said Laura Stelitano, an associate policy researcher at RAND. “But simply saying that all students with disabilities need to be included is a little different from saying all students have unique ways of learning and that learning needs to be tailored. It maybe takes inclusion a step forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some schools, this appears to be happening. Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School, which serves middle school and high school students in New York, has embraced personalized learning. At the same time, it is gaining a reputation for serving kids with disabilities well — unusual among charter schools, which are frequently \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/charter-schools-more-likely-to-ignore-special-education-applicants-study-finds/2018/12\">criticized\u003c/a> for pushing out students with complex learning needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As somebody whose own profile as a learner was pretty darn jagged, I’m a big believer that we need to design and run schools in a way that leverages what special education has to offer,” said Eric Tucker, the Brooklyn school’s co-founder. “That means thinking through how we process information, how we learn, how we fill in language acquisition and processing gaps, while pushing for a level of rigor and inclusion for all young people that reflects what they’re really capable of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, for example, every student, regardless of academic standing, receives small-group instruction for two hours a day. This has the dual benefit of helping students who are behind without making it obvious to their peers, while also enabling teachers to help high-achieving students go farther and deeper into the curriculum. It’s a leveler, of sorts, and a confidence-builder for children with disabilities who’ve traditionally been either pulled out of the classroom for special services or received “push-in” support in the classroom from therapists and special education teachers, according to Tucker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet personalized learning has a long way to go when it comes to living up to the promise of improving education for kids with disabilities. Parsi, the consultant who formerly worked for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that children with disabilities have often been overlooked as states implement personalized learning. When the NCLD \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">examined how personalized learning was being developed in three states\u003c/a> — Colorado, North Carolina and New Hampshire — researchers found that “there was a lot of retrofitting happening,” he said. “They would say, ‘We’re doing personalized learning for all,’ and then they would implement it in a most generic way. And then they would realize, ‘Oh my god, our kids with disabilities aren’t doing any better, they’re actually struggling more.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parsi said that goes back to the idea that schools and school systems aren’t spending enough time ensuring that general education teachers have the skills to meet students’ individual needs, including the kids with disabilities. Meanwhile, he added, “The special educators don’t get training to do this type of more personalized, deeper approach to learning. And the two don’t collaborate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s concerning, to be sure. Still, advocates for personalized learning and researchers hope that the best models will proliferate, and that the personalized approach could ultimately avoid some of the pitfalls of special education while lifting learning for all. “If we have a system that is set up to individualize [education] for all students, we’re more likely to get quality special education,” said Stelitano of RAND. “The system just requires the right resources and the right training for teachers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Caroline Preston contributed reporting. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Some Families Hope Pandemic Can Spur Change in Special Education",
"title": "Some Families Hope Pandemic Can Spur Change in Special Education",
"headTitle": "MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about special education services was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003cem>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Single mom Nicole Vaughn has spent the better part of her adult life advocating for her five adopted children with disabilities. But when schools shuttered for the coronavirus last spring, Vaughn gained a slew of new responsibilities, like helping her kids access virtual classrooms and coordinating the special education services they receive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to send emails to the speech and language provider saying, ‘Hey, they haven’t seen you, I haven’t seen you. What’s going on?’ ” said Vaughn, who lives in the Detroit metropolitan area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once those services resumed, Vaughn said sessions were shorter than the time mandated by her children’s individualized education programs. Known as IEPs, these plans are meant to ensure that students with disabilities receive specialized instruction and services tailored to their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn decided to let it go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s to the point now you have to pick and choose your battles,” she said. “Because other than that, I’m calling and texting everybody, every day, about something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57072\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1452px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57072\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1452\" height=\"1936\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5.jpg 1452w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-160x213.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1452px) 100vw, 1452px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Though they’re in different grades, each member of the Vaughn family gathers around the table for their respective online classes. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Nicole Vaughn )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Simultaneous crises of a pandemic and recession are further straining a special education system that has long struggled to effectively serve students with disabilities. Chronic shortfalls in federal funding have burdened local education agencies and families, and — in the most extreme cases — denied these children access to quality education. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), today, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">more than 7 million children, or 14 percent of public school students\u003c/a>\u003cu>, \u003c/u>are entitled to special services and accommodations to help them learn. But in the legislation’s almost 50-year history, the federal government has never fulfilled its promise to pay 40 percent of the average cost of educating students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teachers, meanwhile, tend to be among the least-experienced educators, and states often have trouble filling those positions. In Vaughn’s state of Michigan, over 40 percent of teacher vacancies last year were in special education, according to a Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Teacher-Shortage-Survey-Results.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> with responses from roughly half the state’s school districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The consequences are evident in the data: \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/high-schools-fail-provide-legally-required-education-students-disabilities/\">Graduation rates\u003c/a> for young people with disabilities often fall far below those of other students, and without the right support, children in special education are also much more likely to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/state-of-learning-disabilities/supporting-academic-success#ch3challenge3\">repeat grades\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/state-of-learning-disabilities/social-emotional-and-behavioral-challenges#ch4challenge2\">twice as likely to be suspended\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These students in particular are getting the short end of the stick, and they have been for some time,” said Elena Silva, director of the pre-K-12 education policy program at the think tank New America and the mother of a child with a physical disability. “The schools, the staff — they know it. You talk to anybody at a school or staff about the need, and whether they have what they need to meet the needs of these kids. And they’ll tell you, they don’t.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some families and their advocates are hopeful that the pandemic could prompt a reckoning and systemic change. During distance learning, educators have needed to get creative to reach all their students, leading to new ways of collaborating with parents and approaches to instruction that education experts say could be integrated into how schools operate going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think anyone’s going to say that what we were doing worked or was equitable,” said Meghan Whittaker, the director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “And this gives us a chance to rethink that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn’s advocacy on behalf of her kids came to a temporary standstill this spring, when she was hospitalized with the coronavirus. In late March, her symptoms worsened quickly and doctors put her on a ventilator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn feared how her absence would affect her children’s education. “I cannot leave them,” she remembered thinking before slipping into a coma. “Nobody is going to go to bat for my kids the way I go to bat for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After waking up five days later, she wasted no time trying to help her kids adapt to their new normal, which included online classes. Before she could even speak again, she wrote messages on a whiteboard that a nurse read over the phone to her children and sister, who was filling in as their guardian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not unusual for parents of students with disabilities to take an outsize role in their children’s education. Special education can be a confusing and impenetrable system, and parents often have to become experts in state and federal laws to ensure their kids receive appropriate support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Parents are co-equal members of an IEP team,” said Julie Causton, chief executive of Inclusive Schooling, an education consultancy, and a former professor of special education at Syracuse University. But not all families have the time or means to take on that responsibility, so the goal must be to “make sure kids get what they need without relying on the family structure,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57073\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1152px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57073\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1152\" height=\"1438\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8.jpg 1152w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-800x999.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-1020x1273.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-160x200.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-768x959.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1152px) 100vw, 1152px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nicole Vaughn adopted five children with disabilities who qualify for special services and accommodations in Michigan public schools. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Nicole Vaughn )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A graduate of Detroit Public Schools and the first in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, Vaughn adopted a newborn named Daniel in 2001 and, later, his biological younger brother, Jacob. When Daniel’s preschool teachers said he was often restless and impulsive, and Jacob missed typical milestones for walking and talking, both boys were assessed for disabilities. Together, they were diagnosed with autism, ADHD and cognitive impairment, and Vaughn was told Jacob might never be able to live independently. Vaughn recalls feeling like the special education professionals were speaking in code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these educational terms and these acronyms — it was just all new to me, and it was also very intimidating,” said Vaughn. “I would come home after we had one of these meetings or sessions, and I’m Googling, I’m researching, and it’s overwhelming.” In time, Vaughn decided to get a master’s degree in special education to make sense of the system. She also adopted three more children: a daughter and twins with speech and language delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with her training, Vaughn ran into problems as she tried to help her kids. The school district in which her elder children were previously enrolled, Dearborn Heights School District 7, graduates special education students with regular diplomas at a rate of 73 percent, well below the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/PartBC_IndicatorDescriptions_550415_7.pdf\">target rate\u003c/a> of 80 percent, according to the state’s most recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.michigan.gov/documents/cepi/Public_Reporting_File_Masked_Part_B_Member_District_3-19-20_ADA_685172_7.xlsx\">special education public report\u003c/a>. The district and surrounding area also have trouble with staffing: As of mid-November, there were around \u003ca href=\"https://www.applitrack.com/resa/OnlineApp/default.aspx?Category=Center+Based+and+Special+Education+Services\">40 special education job vacancies\u003c/a> in Wayne County, where Dearborn Heights is located, and about \u003ca href=\"https://4.files.edl.io/f7a9/05/08/19/221423-fa291483-ca10-44f4-b94b-6c93b5d2f28b.pdf\">13 percent of all teachers and 32 percent of principals and school leaders\u003c/a> in the district lacked prior experience in these roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jacob was in third grade, Vaughn said she was informed that his speech and language and occupational therapies were ending. “ ‘He’s pretty much plateaued; he’s reached his maximum level of performance,’ ” Vaughn said the IEP team told her. “ ‘We don’t want him just lingering in the services. We have other children.’ ” On another occasion, a social worker referred to Jacob as “she” in his behavior plan, Vaughn said. She confronted the principal for reusing another child’s program. “It’s called an individualized education plan!” she recalled saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Vaughn works as a counselor for Detroit Public Schools and said she sympathizes with overburdened school staff. “It keeps going back to time and money, which it seems like school districts never have enough of,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn was not alone in her struggles to get her children services this year. Last spring, during remote learning, just 20 percent of students with disabilities received the services to which they were entitled, and 39 percent received no support at all, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://parentstogetheraction.org/2020/05/27/parentstogether-survey-reveals-remote-learning-is-failing-our-most-vulnerable-students/\">survey\u003c/a> by ParentsTogether Action, a parent-led advocacy group. And an American Institutes for Research \u003ca href=\"https://www.air.org/sites/default/files/COVID-Survey-Spotlight-on-Students-with-Disabilities-FINAL-Oct-2020.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> found that nearly three-quarters of 744 school districts reported it was more or substantially more difficult to provide appropriate accommodations for their students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a student that has a learning, attention or behavioral disability, being at home — without teachers, without educators, without one-on-one support, being on screens — is almost an impossible way for them to learn well,” said Silva of New America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some families have grown so discouraged with special education during the pandemic that they have opted out of the school system altogether, at least for now. In March, LaTonya Davis, an education consultant in Houston, decided to pull her 10-year-old son with autism out of his KIPP public charter school and home-school him for the duration of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I'm solely responsible for making sure I make the best choices for him,” she said of her decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis, a single mother, developed a daily schedule of activities tailored to her son’s needs, known as a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/treatments-approaches/therapies/sensory-diet-treatment-what-you-need-to-know\">sensory diet\u003c/a>,” which she’d tried unsuccessfully to have his teachers adopt in the past. She said she hopes that giving her son one-on-one attention will help him get a quality education even during school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57074\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 908px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57074\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"908\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9.png 908w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9-800x471.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9-160x94.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9-768x453.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 908px) 100vw, 908px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LaTonya Davis, who is homeschooling for the duration of the pandemic, created a virtual classroom for her 10-year-old son with autism. \u003ccite>(LaTonya Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But few parents have the expertise to support their kids around the clock like Davis, which could put students in special education, who are already among the most vulnerable, further behind. Indeed, special education experts have already sounded the alarm about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/it-feels-a-little-hopeless-parents-of-kids-with-disabilities-worry-coronavirus-quarantine-will-mean-regression/\">academic regression and loss of life skills\u003c/a> during school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recognizing the unique obstacles that students with disabilities face in remote learning, several of the country’s biggest school districts, including Los Angeles County and Baltimore City, have prioritized bringing back at least some special education students to school buildings before their peers. But doing so has proved very difficult. Seattle Public Schools, which approved a school-reopening plan prioritizing kids with disabilities in August, made \u003ca href=\"https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/only-1-seattle-public-schools-student-is-receiving-special-education-services-in-person-right-now/#:~:text=Ishisaka-,Only%201%20Seattle%20Public%20Schools%20student%20is%20receiving%20special,services%20in%20person%20right%20now&text=Education%20Lab%20is%20a%20Seattle,persistent%20challenges%20in%20public%20education.&text=Other%20districts%20are%20usi\">headlines\u003c/a> in October because just one student was receiving in-person services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, for schools continuing to teach remotely, resources are getting harder to come by. In California’s Hawthorne School District, special education teacher Albert Morales teaches transitional kindergarten (an extra year of instruction before kindergarten) through first grade. Classes will be online until at least the spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, Morales has struggled to get the tools he needs to support his students. The district distributed Chromebooks at the start of the school year, but several of his young students with disabilities couldn’t use the mouse and keyboard. And though the school is swapping out the devices for iPads, which are more accessible to kids with disabilities, there weren’t enough for all students, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morales added that education companies made a few services that worked for his students free this spring, but that’s no longer the case. “All these great resources are out there,” he said. “But teachers have to pay out of pockets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teachers aren’t meant to carry the financial burden. However, the federal government reimburses just 15 percent of the additional costs for educating students with disabilities — far short of the 40 percent promised under IDEA — according to the \u003ca href=\"https://ncld.org/news/policy-and-advocacy/idea-full-funding-why-should-congress-invest-in-special-education/\">National Center for Learning Disabilities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a budget crisis won’t help close funding gaps: “They’re not going to have as much money, and they’re going to need to do twice as much,” said Silva of New America. “What do you do for your most vulnerable, when you have to do so much more and you have half the money?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s just a very real problem,” she said. “I don’t think we can innovate out of that problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bills introduced in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4100/text\">Senate\u003c/a> this summer and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8523/text\">House\u003c/a> in October would provide more than $12 billion for students with disabilities, but both have stalled. Special education advocates, however, are hopeful that President-elect Joe Biden, whose wife, Jill, is an educator, could make good on \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-is-america-finally-getting-woke-to-its-largest-minority-group/\">a promise he made\u003c/a> to fully fund IDEA within 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without additional financial help, some public schools could be forced to make do with even fewer experienced staff serving kids with disabilities. Shortages of special education teachers are a national problem, with 48 states and D.C. reporting difficulty hiring and retaining staff, according to a 2016 report from the \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf\">Learning Policy Institute\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> the most recent data available. The problem is most severe in districts predominantly serving students of color and from low-income backgrounds, where schools are already \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Restart_Reinvent_Schools_COVID_REPORT.pdf\">more likely\u003c/a> to be staffed by a transient group of untrained teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationally, special education has the highest proportion of unlicensed teachers, even though many districts waive certain typical teacher licensure requirements for those positions, according to Roddy Theobald, a researcher at the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. Throughout the pandemic, many states have waived even more requirements, said Dan Goldhaber, director of the center. That could ultimately cause harm to students if it means they are being instructed primarily by teachers who lack the skills to serve them, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, paraprofessional positions, an hourly role supporting students with disabilities, are \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2020/08/districts_layoff_thousands_of_.html\">on the chopping block\u003c/a> in districts around the country. Some experts worry that special education teacher positions could be next. The first teachers to be laid off are typically the least-experienced, which could disproportionately affect special education teachers, who tend to be younger on account of the profession’s high attrition rates, said Goldhaber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Budget cuts haven’t hit Hawthorne’s special education staff yet, but the pandemic has deepened staffing issues in Morales’ district nonetheless. In 2018, nearly \u003ca href=\"https://gettingdowntofacts.com/sites/default/files/2018-09/GDTFII_Report_Darling-Hammond.pdf\">eight in 10\u003c/a> California schools had openings for special education teachers, and \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/interactive-map-understanding-teacher-shortages-california\">more than two-thirds\u003c/a> of Hawthorne’s new hires had not met all of California’s teacher certification requirements, according to the Learning Policy Institute. This September, a deficit of teachers trained to support students with disabilities meant that when a special education colleague was absent, Morales had to teach an online class twice the size of his usual group, which he said made high-quality instruction impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57077\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57077\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4.png 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-800x533.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-1020x680.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-160x107.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-768x512.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-1536x1024.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Albert Morales, a transitional kindergarten through first grade special education teacher, tries to plan lessons that are both engaging and accessible for his students. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Albert Morales)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And that’s in California, which has done more than many states to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. At a time of widespread budget cuts, it is boosting support for special education: Its \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2020-21/pdf/Enacted/GovernorsBudget/6000.pdf\">2020-21 budget\u003c/a> allocates an additional $550 million to special education and $100 million for students requiring specialized services, and sets aside $15 million to recruit and train special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the special education system under strain, many weary parents and teachers share a common mantra: a hope that things will get back to normal soon. However, advocates say that “normal” isn’t good enough when public school wasn’t designed to support every child in the first place; instead, what’s needed is systemic change that goes further to improve schools for all children, especially the most vulnerable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do we take what we’re doing in this moment and use this chance to prioritize equity and put marginalized students first, so that building our system back, they are at the center of it, rather than at the margins?” said Whittaker of the National Center for Learning Disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fueled by pandemic-driven necessity, some districts have found ways for parents and educators to collaborate more closely to support kids with disabilities. This spring, many states implemented what are often called “individualized distance learning plans,” which spell out more clearly than IEPs do how schools and families should work together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The importance of parent-teacher cooperation is outlined in IDEA, yet “we don’t do it well at all,” said Silva of New America. “This is an opportunity to connect home and school in a way that we’ve always promised and never been able to achieve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And though IEPs have long pledged individualized instruction, distance learning often makes it a requisite. “It acknowledged that students have lives outside of school with very real stressors and responsibilities,” said Causton of Inclusive Schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic, teachers across the country have been forced to find ways to reach their students in a manner suited to their needs: by recording videos for children who missed synchronous lessons, sending worksheets home with kids who lacked internet access and adjusting deadlines to fit students’ schedules. Causton wants to see schools continue this creative, flexible approach with all students going forward. Not only will children with disabilities benefit, she said, “but so will everyone else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that goal involves rethinking special education so that disability doesn’t suggest a deficit in a student’s ability to learn, but rather a set of individualized needs that schools must meet — not unlike a student without internet access’s need for a hard-copy alternative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We for too long sorted and separated human beings based on disability,” said Causton. “This is the moment where we need to look at all the structures that have created such inequitable outcomes for kids,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of measuring how ready a student is to fit into our system, we can measure how ready our system is to support all students together,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the kind of change Nicole Vaughn hopes to see. At a meeting this fall to discuss her son Jacob’s IEP, a social worker told her for the sixth consecutive year that the boy, now a high school senior, doesn’t answer open-ended questions, she said. This time, Vaughn had had enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I said, ‘Please don’t say it anymore, because it’s the equivalent of saying a person that’s in a wheelchair cannot run a marathon,’ ” said Vaughn. “ ‘I don’t want to hear any more about what he can’t do. Let’s talk about what Jacob can do.’ ” Though he won’t receive a high school diploma, Jacob will graduate this spring with a certificate of completion. He also talks, engages and learns in a classroom alongside his peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All kids learn,” she said. “They just don’t all learn at the same pace, the same way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/HGvSCG69GouB0WxytKlr2O?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>special education services\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci> was produced by \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/LthZCJ6PLruB1pG4tGnrpx?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/vH_VCKr6MvTDB8gAs3eBve?domain=us2.list-manage.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The pandemic and recession are further straining a special education system that has long struggled to effectively serve students with disabilities. Chronic shortfalls in federal funding have burdened local education agencies and families, and — in the most extreme cases — denied children access to quality special education services. But some families and their advocates are hopeful that the coronavirus crisis could prompt systemic change.",
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"description": "The pandemic and recession are further straining a special education system that has long struggled to effectively serve students with disabilities. Chronic shortfalls in federal funding have burdened local education agencies and families, and — in the most extreme cases — denied children access to quality special education services. But some families and their advocates are hopeful that the coronavirus crisis could prompt systemic change.",
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"headline": "Some Families Hope Pandemic Can Spur Change in Special Education",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">Cayla Bamberger, The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>",
"subhead": "Special education was imperfect before the coronavirus crisis. As districts contend with the fallout from slapdash online classes for kids with disabilities, will the pandemic prompt a reckoning?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about special education services was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003cem>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Single mom Nicole Vaughn has spent the better part of her adult life advocating for her five adopted children with disabilities. But when schools shuttered for the coronavirus last spring, Vaughn gained a slew of new responsibilities, like helping her kids access virtual classrooms and coordinating the special education services they receive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to send emails to the speech and language provider saying, ‘Hey, they haven’t seen you, I haven’t seen you. What’s going on?’ ” said Vaughn, who lives in the Detroit metropolitan area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once those services resumed, Vaughn said sessions were shorter than the time mandated by her children’s individualized education programs. Known as IEPs, these plans are meant to ensure that students with disabilities receive specialized instruction and services tailored to their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn decided to let it go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s to the point now you have to pick and choose your battles,” she said. “Because other than that, I’m calling and texting everybody, every day, about something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57072\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1452px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57072\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1452\" height=\"1936\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5.jpg 1452w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-160x213.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-5-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1452px) 100vw, 1452px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Though they’re in different grades, each member of the Vaughn family gathers around the table for their respective online classes. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Nicole Vaughn )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Simultaneous crises of a pandemic and recession are further straining a special education system that has long struggled to effectively serve students with disabilities. Chronic shortfalls in federal funding have burdened local education agencies and families, and — in the most extreme cases — denied these children access to quality education. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), today, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">more than 7 million children, or 14 percent of public school students\u003c/a>\u003cu>, \u003c/u>are entitled to special services and accommodations to help them learn. But in the legislation’s almost 50-year history, the federal government has never fulfilled its promise to pay 40 percent of the average cost of educating students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teachers, meanwhile, tend to be among the least-experienced educators, and states often have trouble filling those positions. In Vaughn’s state of Michigan, over 40 percent of teacher vacancies last year were in special education, according to a Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Teacher-Shortage-Survey-Results.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> with responses from roughly half the state’s school districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The consequences are evident in the data: \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/high-schools-fail-provide-legally-required-education-students-disabilities/\">Graduation rates\u003c/a> for young people with disabilities often fall far below those of other students, and without the right support, children in special education are also much more likely to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/state-of-learning-disabilities/supporting-academic-success#ch3challenge3\">repeat grades\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/state-of-learning-disabilities/social-emotional-and-behavioral-challenges#ch4challenge2\">twice as likely to be suspended\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These students in particular are getting the short end of the stick, and they have been for some time,” said Elena Silva, director of the pre-K-12 education policy program at the think tank New America and the mother of a child with a physical disability. “The schools, the staff — they know it. You talk to anybody at a school or staff about the need, and whether they have what they need to meet the needs of these kids. And they’ll tell you, they don’t.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some families and their advocates are hopeful that the pandemic could prompt a reckoning and systemic change. During distance learning, educators have needed to get creative to reach all their students, leading to new ways of collaborating with parents and approaches to instruction that education experts say could be integrated into how schools operate going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think anyone’s going to say that what we were doing worked or was equitable,” said Meghan Whittaker, the director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “And this gives us a chance to rethink that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn’s advocacy on behalf of her kids came to a temporary standstill this spring, when she was hospitalized with the coronavirus. In late March, her symptoms worsened quickly and doctors put her on a ventilator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn feared how her absence would affect her children’s education. “I cannot leave them,” she remembered thinking before slipping into a coma. “Nobody is going to go to bat for my kids the way I go to bat for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After waking up five days later, she wasted no time trying to help her kids adapt to their new normal, which included online classes. Before she could even speak again, she wrote messages on a whiteboard that a nurse read over the phone to her children and sister, who was filling in as their guardian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not unusual for parents of students with disabilities to take an outsize role in their children’s education. Special education can be a confusing and impenetrable system, and parents often have to become experts in state and federal laws to ensure their kids receive appropriate support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Parents are co-equal members of an IEP team,” said Julie Causton, chief executive of Inclusive Schooling, an education consultancy, and a former professor of special education at Syracuse University. But not all families have the time or means to take on that responsibility, so the goal must be to “make sure kids get what they need without relying on the family structure,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57073\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1152px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57073\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1152\" height=\"1438\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8.jpg 1152w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-800x999.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-1020x1273.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-160x200.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-8-768x959.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1152px) 100vw, 1152px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nicole Vaughn adopted five children with disabilities who qualify for special services and accommodations in Michigan public schools. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Nicole Vaughn )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A graduate of Detroit Public Schools and the first in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, Vaughn adopted a newborn named Daniel in 2001 and, later, his biological younger brother, Jacob. When Daniel’s preschool teachers said he was often restless and impulsive, and Jacob missed typical milestones for walking and talking, both boys were assessed for disabilities. Together, they were diagnosed with autism, ADHD and cognitive impairment, and Vaughn was told Jacob might never be able to live independently. Vaughn recalls feeling like the special education professionals were speaking in code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these educational terms and these acronyms — it was just all new to me, and it was also very intimidating,” said Vaughn. “I would come home after we had one of these meetings or sessions, and I’m Googling, I’m researching, and it’s overwhelming.” In time, Vaughn decided to get a master’s degree in special education to make sense of the system. She also adopted three more children: a daughter and twins with speech and language delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with her training, Vaughn ran into problems as she tried to help her kids. The school district in which her elder children were previously enrolled, Dearborn Heights School District 7, graduates special education students with regular diplomas at a rate of 73 percent, well below the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/PartBC_IndicatorDescriptions_550415_7.pdf\">target rate\u003c/a> of 80 percent, according to the state’s most recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.michigan.gov/documents/cepi/Public_Reporting_File_Masked_Part_B_Member_District_3-19-20_ADA_685172_7.xlsx\">special education public report\u003c/a>. The district and surrounding area also have trouble with staffing: As of mid-November, there were around \u003ca href=\"https://www.applitrack.com/resa/OnlineApp/default.aspx?Category=Center+Based+and+Special+Education+Services\">40 special education job vacancies\u003c/a> in Wayne County, where Dearborn Heights is located, and about \u003ca href=\"https://4.files.edl.io/f7a9/05/08/19/221423-fa291483-ca10-44f4-b94b-6c93b5d2f28b.pdf\">13 percent of all teachers and 32 percent of principals and school leaders\u003c/a> in the district lacked prior experience in these roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jacob was in third grade, Vaughn said she was informed that his speech and language and occupational therapies were ending. “ ‘He’s pretty much plateaued; he’s reached his maximum level of performance,’ ” Vaughn said the IEP team told her. “ ‘We don’t want him just lingering in the services. We have other children.’ ” On another occasion, a social worker referred to Jacob as “she” in his behavior plan, Vaughn said. She confronted the principal for reusing another child’s program. “It’s called an individualized education plan!” she recalled saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Vaughn works as a counselor for Detroit Public Schools and said she sympathizes with overburdened school staff. “It keeps going back to time and money, which it seems like school districts never have enough of,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughn was not alone in her struggles to get her children services this year. Last spring, during remote learning, just 20 percent of students with disabilities received the services to which they were entitled, and 39 percent received no support at all, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://parentstogetheraction.org/2020/05/27/parentstogether-survey-reveals-remote-learning-is-failing-our-most-vulnerable-students/\">survey\u003c/a> by ParentsTogether Action, a parent-led advocacy group. And an American Institutes for Research \u003ca href=\"https://www.air.org/sites/default/files/COVID-Survey-Spotlight-on-Students-with-Disabilities-FINAL-Oct-2020.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> found that nearly three-quarters of 744 school districts reported it was more or substantially more difficult to provide appropriate accommodations for their students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a student that has a learning, attention or behavioral disability, being at home — without teachers, without educators, without one-on-one support, being on screens — is almost an impossible way for them to learn well,” said Silva of New America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some families have grown so discouraged with special education during the pandemic that they have opted out of the school system altogether, at least for now. In March, LaTonya Davis, an education consultant in Houston, decided to pull her 10-year-old son with autism out of his KIPP public charter school and home-school him for the duration of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I'm solely responsible for making sure I make the best choices for him,” she said of her decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis, a single mother, developed a daily schedule of activities tailored to her son’s needs, known as a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/treatments-approaches/therapies/sensory-diet-treatment-what-you-need-to-know\">sensory diet\u003c/a>,” which she’d tried unsuccessfully to have his teachers adopt in the past. She said she hopes that giving her son one-on-one attention will help him get a quality education even during school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57074\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 908px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57074\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"908\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9.png 908w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9-800x471.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9-160x94.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-9-768x453.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 908px) 100vw, 908px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LaTonya Davis, who is homeschooling for the duration of the pandemic, created a virtual classroom for her 10-year-old son with autism. \u003ccite>(LaTonya Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But few parents have the expertise to support their kids around the clock like Davis, which could put students in special education, who are already among the most vulnerable, further behind. Indeed, special education experts have already sounded the alarm about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/it-feels-a-little-hopeless-parents-of-kids-with-disabilities-worry-coronavirus-quarantine-will-mean-regression/\">academic regression and loss of life skills\u003c/a> during school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recognizing the unique obstacles that students with disabilities face in remote learning, several of the country’s biggest school districts, including Los Angeles County and Baltimore City, have prioritized bringing back at least some special education students to school buildings before their peers. But doing so has proved very difficult. Seattle Public Schools, which approved a school-reopening plan prioritizing kids with disabilities in August, made \u003ca href=\"https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/only-1-seattle-public-schools-student-is-receiving-special-education-services-in-person-right-now/#:~:text=Ishisaka-,Only%201%20Seattle%20Public%20Schools%20student%20is%20receiving%20special,services%20in%20person%20right%20now&text=Education%20Lab%20is%20a%20Seattle,persistent%20challenges%20in%20public%20education.&text=Other%20districts%20are%20usi\">headlines\u003c/a> in October because just one student was receiving in-person services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, for schools continuing to teach remotely, resources are getting harder to come by. In California’s Hawthorne School District, special education teacher Albert Morales teaches transitional kindergarten (an extra year of instruction before kindergarten) through first grade. Classes will be online until at least the spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, Morales has struggled to get the tools he needs to support his students. The district distributed Chromebooks at the start of the school year, but several of his young students with disabilities couldn’t use the mouse and keyboard. And though the school is swapping out the devices for iPads, which are more accessible to kids with disabilities, there weren’t enough for all students, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morales added that education companies made a few services that worked for his students free this spring, but that’s no longer the case. “All these great resources are out there,” he said. “But teachers have to pay out of pockets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teachers aren’t meant to carry the financial burden. However, the federal government reimburses just 15 percent of the additional costs for educating students with disabilities — far short of the 40 percent promised under IDEA — according to the \u003ca href=\"https://ncld.org/news/policy-and-advocacy/idea-full-funding-why-should-congress-invest-in-special-education/\">National Center for Learning Disabilities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a budget crisis won’t help close funding gaps: “They’re not going to have as much money, and they’re going to need to do twice as much,” said Silva of New America. “What do you do for your most vulnerable, when you have to do so much more and you have half the money?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s just a very real problem,” she said. “I don’t think we can innovate out of that problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bills introduced in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4100/text\">Senate\u003c/a> this summer and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8523/text\">House\u003c/a> in October would provide more than $12 billion for students with disabilities, but both have stalled. Special education advocates, however, are hopeful that President-elect Joe Biden, whose wife, Jill, is an educator, could make good on \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-is-america-finally-getting-woke-to-its-largest-minority-group/\">a promise he made\u003c/a> to fully fund IDEA within 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without additional financial help, some public schools could be forced to make do with even fewer experienced staff serving kids with disabilities. Shortages of special education teachers are a national problem, with 48 states and D.C. reporting difficulty hiring and retaining staff, according to a 2016 report from the \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf\">Learning Policy Institute\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> the most recent data available. The problem is most severe in districts predominantly serving students of color and from low-income backgrounds, where schools are already \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Restart_Reinvent_Schools_COVID_REPORT.pdf\">more likely\u003c/a> to be staffed by a transient group of untrained teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationally, special education has the highest proportion of unlicensed teachers, even though many districts waive certain typical teacher licensure requirements for those positions, according to Roddy Theobald, a researcher at the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. Throughout the pandemic, many states have waived even more requirements, said Dan Goldhaber, director of the center. That could ultimately cause harm to students if it means they are being instructed primarily by teachers who lack the skills to serve them, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, paraprofessional positions, an hourly role supporting students with disabilities, are \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2020/08/districts_layoff_thousands_of_.html\">on the chopping block\u003c/a> in districts around the country. Some experts worry that special education teacher positions could be next. The first teachers to be laid off are typically the least-experienced, which could disproportionately affect special education teachers, who tend to be younger on account of the profession’s high attrition rates, said Goldhaber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Budget cuts haven’t hit Hawthorne’s special education staff yet, but the pandemic has deepened staffing issues in Morales’ district nonetheless. In 2018, nearly \u003ca href=\"https://gettingdowntofacts.com/sites/default/files/2018-09/GDTFII_Report_Darling-Hammond.pdf\">eight in 10\u003c/a> California schools had openings for special education teachers, and \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/interactive-map-understanding-teacher-shortages-california\">more than two-thirds\u003c/a> of Hawthorne’s new hires had not met all of California’s teacher certification requirements, according to the Learning Policy Institute. This September, a deficit of teachers trained to support students with disabilities meant that when a special education colleague was absent, Morales had to teach an online class twice the size of his usual group, which he said made high-quality instruction impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57077\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57077\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4.png 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-800x533.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-1020x680.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-160x107.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-768x512.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Cayla-Bamberger-Bamberger-special-ed-in-crisis-4-1536x1024.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Albert Morales, a transitional kindergarten through first grade special education teacher, tries to plan lessons that are both engaging and accessible for his students. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Albert Morales)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And that’s in California, which has done more than many states to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. At a time of widespread budget cuts, it is boosting support for special education: Its \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2020-21/pdf/Enacted/GovernorsBudget/6000.pdf\">2020-21 budget\u003c/a> allocates an additional $550 million to special education and $100 million for students requiring specialized services, and sets aside $15 million to recruit and train special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the special education system under strain, many weary parents and teachers share a common mantra: a hope that things will get back to normal soon. However, advocates say that “normal” isn’t good enough when public school wasn’t designed to support every child in the first place; instead, what’s needed is systemic change that goes further to improve schools for all children, especially the most vulnerable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do we take what we’re doing in this moment and use this chance to prioritize equity and put marginalized students first, so that building our system back, they are at the center of it, rather than at the margins?” said Whittaker of the National Center for Learning Disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fueled by pandemic-driven necessity, some districts have found ways for parents and educators to collaborate more closely to support kids with disabilities. This spring, many states implemented what are often called “individualized distance learning plans,” which spell out more clearly than IEPs do how schools and families should work together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The importance of parent-teacher cooperation is outlined in IDEA, yet “we don’t do it well at all,” said Silva of New America. “This is an opportunity to connect home and school in a way that we’ve always promised and never been able to achieve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And though IEPs have long pledged individualized instruction, distance learning often makes it a requisite. “It acknowledged that students have lives outside of school with very real stressors and responsibilities,” said Causton of Inclusive Schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic, teachers across the country have been forced to find ways to reach their students in a manner suited to their needs: by recording videos for children who missed synchronous lessons, sending worksheets home with kids who lacked internet access and adjusting deadlines to fit students’ schedules. Causton wants to see schools continue this creative, flexible approach with all students going forward. Not only will children with disabilities benefit, she said, “but so will everyone else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that goal involves rethinking special education so that disability doesn’t suggest a deficit in a student’s ability to learn, but rather a set of individualized needs that schools must meet — not unlike a student without internet access’s need for a hard-copy alternative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We for too long sorted and separated human beings based on disability,” said Causton. “This is the moment where we need to look at all the structures that have created such inequitable outcomes for kids,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of measuring how ready a student is to fit into our system, we can measure how ready our system is to support all students together,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the kind of change Nicole Vaughn hopes to see. At a meeting this fall to discuss her son Jacob’s IEP, a social worker told her for the sixth consecutive year that the boy, now a high school senior, doesn’t answer open-ended questions, she said. This time, Vaughn had had enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I said, ‘Please don’t say it anymore, because it’s the equivalent of saying a person that’s in a wheelchair cannot run a marathon,’ ” said Vaughn. “ ‘I don’t want to hear any more about what he can’t do. Let’s talk about what Jacob can do.’ ” Though he won’t receive a high school diploma, Jacob will graduate this spring with a certificate of completion. He also talks, engages and learns in a classroom alongside his peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All kids learn,” she said. “They just don’t all learn at the same pace, the same way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/HGvSCG69GouB0WxytKlr2O?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>special education services\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci> was produced by \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/LthZCJ6PLruB1pG4tGnrpx?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/vH_VCKr6MvTDB8gAs3eBve?domain=us2.list-manage.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Schools Say They Have To Do Better For Students With Disabilities This Fall",
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"content": "\u003cp>For Sarah McLaren, who lives in a suburb of Minneapolis, talking about the spring is painful. Her daughter, a rising fourth-grader, struggles with auditory processing and receives special education services. But McLaren says her daughter had trouble keeping up with teachers on an iPad because the instruction was almost all \u003cem>talk\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They'd tell her, 'Look at this problem, look at that problem. No, show me your worksheet,' \" McLaren remembers. \"The teachers were doing the best they could, but all those rapid verbal directions just overwhelmed her.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McLaren says her daughter went from loving school to dreading it. \"[She] would literally run away from the iPad and hide in the closet or under the bed.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">7 million\u003c/a> schoolchildren receive special education services in the U.S. But this spring, when the nation's schools were forced to teach remotely, many of those children were left behind, and some vital services — including physical, occupational and speech therapies — simply stopped. With many districts planning to continue remote learning in the fall, parents and caregivers expect better this school year. And school leaders know: They've got to \u003cem>do\u003c/em> better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teacher Nikki Allinson, in Washington, D.C., says one of the greatest challenges she faced trying to teach remotely was that many of her students learn with the help of tactile, classroom-based tools — like laminated cards or magnetic letters for word decoding. But, in the spring, kids weren't given those tools for use at home. Allinson says that also made it \"nearly impossible\" to teach abstract math concepts. \"I recorded so many videos of me with Legos, you know, trying to find things that they could use that they would already have at home, like cereal boxes for volume.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Malone, a speech-language pathologist in a San Diego-area school district, says she did her best to help students remotely this spring. \"I will tell you, I have never worked harder.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malone put in 16-hour days, but says she still struggled to help her students over a video connection. Zoom was balky and a poor fit for her special sessions. Making matters worse, many therapy providers say they got little direction from school district leaders about how to deliver their services remotely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think districts were completely consumed with what to do with the majority of their kids,\" Malone says. \"And I think special [education] is the harder one to tackle. And I think they left it to last. And it was a mistake.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or, as Sarah McLaren puts it: \"There's an assumption that if we just get iPads to everyone, you know, the kids will be OK. Well, some kids aren't going to be OK. And we need to talk about that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some families and advocates have \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/07/23/893450709/families-of-children-with-special-needs-are-suing-in-several-states-heres-why\">filed lawsuits\u003c/a> arguing schools broke federal disability law by providing insufficient services in the spring. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/advocacy/education/idea\">Individuals with Disabilities Education Act\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html\">Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act\u003c/a> guarantee students with disabilities the right to a free appropriate public education and protect them from discrimination. In spite of the ongoing pandemic, those laws \"have not changed,\" says Diane Smith Howard, with the National Disability Rights Network. \"Those laws have not been repealed. There are no waivers to those laws. So they are \u003cem>in effect\u003c/em>.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Jeck, the superintendent of schools in Fauquier County, Va., believes the reason there haven't been \u003cem>more\u003c/em> lawsuits is because, in the early months of the pandemic, parents of children with disabilities seemed to extend school leaders a certain amount of \"grace.\" He describes the jump to remote learning as \"every school leader's greatest nightmare,\" and says parents understood \"that we're only human. We're going to do the best we can, and that's what we did.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall is \"a different animal,\" he says. \"We've had more time to plan. We've had more time to prepare.\" And schools may no longer be able to count on the \"grace\" of parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The challenge that I give to schools is to really rise to the challenge, meet with families, be creative,\" says Shawn Ullman of The Arc, a national nonprofit that advocates on behalf of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. \"But you're going to have to be even more creative than you've normally been.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Malone, the speech-language pathologist, that's meant helping her district choose a new technology platform to replace Zoom for her speech-language sessions. She says now is \"the first time since March that I feel like I might actually be able to do my job.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeck says his staff have spent the summer reaching out to every family in the district with a child who receives special education services. They're talking through options for the fall, getting creative and updating students' special learning plans, known as Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Fauquier County's schools will again be remote when classes resume, Jeck is making an exception for roughly 250 kids, many of them with severe disabilities. These students need physical therapy, occupational therapy and other services that often cannot be provided through a computer screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They need to be served in the face-to-face model,\" Jeck says, \"so that's what we're going to do.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah McLaren's district, outside Minneapolis, is doing something similar, and McLaren is thrilled that her daughter will be heading back to a school building in September. But Kendra Mendoza, in Providence, R. I., says she feels trapped. Mendoza's son, Joshua, has cerebral palsy and a cluster of other conditions that put him in fragile health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"How do I send him to school if it's going to be a health risk?\" Mendoza asks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshua loves school but got little of the therapy he needed this spring. And as a single mom, Mendoza needs him to be in school so she can work. But when she was told Joshua could go back this fall, Mendoza struggled with the decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"He could land in the hospital,\" she says. \"One more mistake could leave him in the hospital and potentially kill him.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says many children with severe disabilities aren't just immunocompromised — it's also hard for them to wear masks or keep socially distant. They may need help eating or using the bathroom. Their care is very physical, which puts them at even greater risk. Still, Mendoza says, she'll figure it out. It's other families she's worried about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I can't even imagine another mom. What I have working in my favor is I'm stubborn. I'm a glutton for punishment, but what about the mom that's ready to give up?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Disability rights experts say, this fall, schools have to do better — for the parents who are angry or ready to give up and for the kids for whom remote learning wasn't just inconvenient or boring, it was a painful absence of vital care that could set them back for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Schools+Say+They+Have+To+Do+Better+For+Students+With+Disabilities+This+Fall&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For Sarah McLaren, who lives in a suburb of Minneapolis, talking about the spring is painful. Her daughter, a rising fourth-grader, struggles with auditory processing and receives special education services. But McLaren says her daughter had trouble keeping up with teachers on an iPad because the instruction was almost all \u003cem>talk\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They'd tell her, 'Look at this problem, look at that problem. No, show me your worksheet,' \" McLaren remembers. \"The teachers were doing the best they could, but all those rapid verbal directions just overwhelmed her.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McLaren says her daughter went from loving school to dreading it. \"[She] would literally run away from the iPad and hide in the closet or under the bed.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">7 million\u003c/a> schoolchildren receive special education services in the U.S. But this spring, when the nation's schools were forced to teach remotely, many of those children were left behind, and some vital services — including physical, occupational and speech therapies — simply stopped. With many districts planning to continue remote learning in the fall, parents and caregivers expect better this school year. And school leaders know: They've got to \u003cem>do\u003c/em> better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teacher Nikki Allinson, in Washington, D.C., says one of the greatest challenges she faced trying to teach remotely was that many of her students learn with the help of tactile, classroom-based tools — like laminated cards or magnetic letters for word decoding. But, in the spring, kids weren't given those tools for use at home. Allinson says that also made it \"nearly impossible\" to teach abstract math concepts. \"I recorded so many videos of me with Legos, you know, trying to find things that they could use that they would already have at home, like cereal boxes for volume.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Malone, a speech-language pathologist in a San Diego-area school district, says she did her best to help students remotely this spring. \"I will tell you, I have never worked harder.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malone put in 16-hour days, but says she still struggled to help her students over a video connection. Zoom was balky and a poor fit for her special sessions. Making matters worse, many therapy providers say they got little direction from school district leaders about how to deliver their services remotely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think districts were completely consumed with what to do with the majority of their kids,\" Malone says. \"And I think special [education] is the harder one to tackle. And I think they left it to last. And it was a mistake.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or, as Sarah McLaren puts it: \"There's an assumption that if we just get iPads to everyone, you know, the kids will be OK. Well, some kids aren't going to be OK. And we need to talk about that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some families and advocates have \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/07/23/893450709/families-of-children-with-special-needs-are-suing-in-several-states-heres-why\">filed lawsuits\u003c/a> arguing schools broke federal disability law by providing insufficient services in the spring. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/advocacy/education/idea\">Individuals with Disabilities Education Act\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html\">Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act\u003c/a> guarantee students with disabilities the right to a free appropriate public education and protect them from discrimination. In spite of the ongoing pandemic, those laws \"have not changed,\" says Diane Smith Howard, with the National Disability Rights Network. \"Those laws have not been repealed. There are no waivers to those laws. So they are \u003cem>in effect\u003c/em>.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Jeck, the superintendent of schools in Fauquier County, Va., believes the reason there haven't been \u003cem>more\u003c/em> lawsuits is because, in the early months of the pandemic, parents of children with disabilities seemed to extend school leaders a certain amount of \"grace.\" He describes the jump to remote learning as \"every school leader's greatest nightmare,\" and says parents understood \"that we're only human. We're going to do the best we can, and that's what we did.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall is \"a different animal,\" he says. \"We've had more time to plan. We've had more time to prepare.\" And schools may no longer be able to count on the \"grace\" of parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The challenge that I give to schools is to really rise to the challenge, meet with families, be creative,\" says Shawn Ullman of The Arc, a national nonprofit that advocates on behalf of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. \"But you're going to have to be even more creative than you've normally been.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Malone, the speech-language pathologist, that's meant helping her district choose a new technology platform to replace Zoom for her speech-language sessions. She says now is \"the first time since March that I feel like I might actually be able to do my job.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeck says his staff have spent the summer reaching out to every family in the district with a child who receives special education services. They're talking through options for the fall, getting creative and updating students' special learning plans, known as Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Fauquier County's schools will again be remote when classes resume, Jeck is making an exception for roughly 250 kids, many of them with severe disabilities. These students need physical therapy, occupational therapy and other services that often cannot be provided through a computer screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They need to be served in the face-to-face model,\" Jeck says, \"so that's what we're going to do.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah McLaren's district, outside Minneapolis, is doing something similar, and McLaren is thrilled that her daughter will be heading back to a school building in September. But Kendra Mendoza, in Providence, R. I., says she feels trapped. Mendoza's son, Joshua, has cerebral palsy and a cluster of other conditions that put him in fragile health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"How do I send him to school if it's going to be a health risk?\" Mendoza asks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshua loves school but got little of the therapy he needed this spring. And as a single mom, Mendoza needs him to be in school so she can work. But when she was told Joshua could go back this fall, Mendoza struggled with the decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"He could land in the hospital,\" she says. \"One more mistake could leave him in the hospital and potentially kill him.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says many children with severe disabilities aren't just immunocompromised — it's also hard for them to wear masks or keep socially distant. They may need help eating or using the bathroom. Their care is very physical, which puts them at even greater risk. Still, Mendoza says, she'll figure it out. It's other families she's worried about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I can't even imagine another mom. What I have working in my favor is I'm stubborn. I'm a glutton for punishment, but what about the mom that's ready to give up?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Disability rights experts say, this fall, schools have to do better — for the parents who are angry or ready to give up and for the kids for whom remote learning wasn't just inconvenient or boring, it was a painful absence of vital care that could set them back for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Schools+Say+They+Have+To+Do+Better+For+Students+With+Disabilities+This+Fall&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "How Designing Accessible Curriculum For All Can Help Make Online Learning More Equitable",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the dust settles from emergency distance learning, schools now have the summer to reckon with what worked and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56068/how-teachers-want-emergency-distance-learning-improved\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">what must change\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as they grapple with the uncertainty of the next academic year. Whatever the fate of online learning, the past months have \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/coronavirus-covid-19-exposes-cracks-us-digital-divide\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">exposed some glaring disparities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in access to education and technology, while families with children who have disabilities and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/well/family/coronavirus-shutdowns-children-special-needs-adhd-autism.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">special needs\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> experienced significant challenges even when technology was available. Consequently, many parents have been left feeling helpless, guilty and defeated by their inability to simulate school at home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some educators who want to make online learning more engaging and accessible are exploring the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. UDL – originally developed by researchers at the Center for Applied Special Technology (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.cast.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CAST\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">) in collaboration with Harvard University – supports special education students, but its flexibility, technology guidelines and aim to individualize learning are best practices that can serve every student.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“While UDL can benefit students with disabilities, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">it’s a way of thinking about how to make instruction accessible for all,” said \u003ca href=\"https://coe.hawaii.edu/sped/directory/kavitar/\">Kavita Rao\u003c/a>, a professor in the department of special education at the University of Hawai‘i. “The beauty of UDL is that it addresses ‘learner variability’, which is the norm in our classrooms.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/bDvKnY0g6e4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A key premise of UDL is that there is no “average learner.” Every learner has a unique set of characteristics – including strengths, preferences and learning needs – that may change or evolve in varied contexts. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether deployed in a classroom or online, UDL focuses on integrating flexible pathways to learning that can address learner variability.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But what does this look like in practice, and how feasible is it for educators to implement the framework?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Online Class Design\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unsurprisingly, the way in which an online class is designed can significantly impact how learners engage with and process the instructional material. Some online lessons can be text heavy, require high reading proficiency and offer narrow assessment options. Also, many rely on prepackaged content such as Khan Academy or Study Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“These content management systems were created to follow specific standards and give specific lessons,” said \u003ca href=\"https://specialedu.ku.edu/sean-smith\">Sean Smith\u003c/a>, a professor of special education at the University of Kansas. “And those are the areas that are fraught with barriers for a lot of our learners with disabilities.” Teachers and parents should identify where the barriers are in varied curriculum offerings and build in supports as needed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More than 14 percent of students enrolled in U.S. schools receive special education services, but the classroom protocols designed to accommodate specific needs do not cleanly translate to online delivery. For example, children who are non-verbal can have trouble communicating online without adequate technology, while those with processing issues may struggle to internalize instructions without close guidance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Online learning can also make demands on executive function, a set of cognitive processes that help kids prioritize, organize, maintain attention, regulate behavior, and control distractions. Many students struggle with executive function, but it can be particularly challenging for kids with special needs and, in the absence of established classroom routines, the onus to assist falls on parents, many of whom are overwhelmed and/or working.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“One of the challenges at the elementary and middle school level has been the need for the parent or the adult to become a learning coach,” said Smith. “The executive function skills that are required for that level of independence in online learning are all challenges for students. The role of the adult at home has been vital to success, and we’ve found that if the parent is not available, students tend to leave the online environment.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Universal Design for Online Learning\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The focus of UDL is to reduce barriers in curriculum and make instruction engaging and accessible to all learners, according to\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Rao. “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The UDL framework provides a structure to think about how you can design activities and assignments that integrate supports for students.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UDL originates in the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/universaldesign/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">universal design\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> movement in architecture that strove to make buildings and built environments accessible to all people. Similarly, its curricular incarnation provides a series of guidelines to help educators design accessible learning conditions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The guidelines focus on ways to intentionally and proactively design learning environments and instruction, building in flexibility, supports and scaffolding that can help all learners succeed,” said Rao.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By “supports” Rao means a flexible repertoire of tools and strategies adapted to accommodate a range of learners. The \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://udlguidelines.cast.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UDL guidelines\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> organize supports according to three umbrella categories: \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">representation\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which assists learners by presenting information in diverse multisensory formats; \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">action and expression\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which lets kids interact and respond to what they’ve learned in a variety of ways; and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">engagement\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is achieved by providing students with options and approaches which are relevant to their interests.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVTm8vQRvNc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multimodality is the lynchpin of the UDL approach. Written instructions might also be delivered as video, audio or as a series of images. Similarly, the framework encourages offering a variety of options by which students can respond to what they learn, whether they create comics, podcasts, short videos, infographics or voice-to-text dictations. Finally, the framework supports executive function by delivering information in manageable “chunks,” using visual checklists, auditory prompts and providing regular feedback. This way, learners are empowered to access and process information in a way that works for them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition to the instructional benefits, some educators report that UDL helps better connect them to their students. “Teachers who provide feedback, participate in activities and use various ways to explain, approach or deliver instruction will motivate students and show them you care: using a meme to evoke humor that relates to the topic, videos that explain a definition, being available for discussion via virtual meetings, or using a Tik-Tok video to deliver instruction,” said Jonah Nakaza-Koizumi, a PhD candidate and special education teacher at Roosevelt High School in Honolulu.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Originally designed for traditional in-person classroom settings, UDL’s reliance on multimedia and technology translates well to online delivery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“In some cases, it can be easier to implement UDL online because there are many different digital tools that can easily be built into the framework of the course that may be harder to integrate in a face-to-face setting,” said Cary Torres, who instructs on UDL at Kapi’Olani Community College. Torres found that applying UDL online can benefit students who struggle in face-to-face classes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Providing multiple means of action and expression with digital tools has helped many of my students who are language learners and students who have anxiety,” said Torres. “I have used online text-based discussion boards and Flipgrid videos and noticed that students who often do not participate much in class discussions provide much more detailed and thoughtful contributions and feedback.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, the shift online is not without obstacles. “Moving from a classroom environment to an online environment can be a challenge because there are more constraints,” said Nakaza-Koizumi. “The teacher has to be very meticulous and clear of what he or she is posting, asking, and requiring of the student. This is not to say it isn’t the same in a classroom, but there is and can be a lot more fluidity in design in a classroom.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To support the integration of UDL in online learning, professors Rao, Smith and Torres launched \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://schoolvirtually.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">School Virtually\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an open website that curates an array of free tools with corresponding guidelines to support educators and parents who seek to implement the framework.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Designing for Success: Start Small and Iterate\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The prospect of integrating UDL for the first time can be daunting. Torres recommends a gradual approach for educators to ease into it according to their level of comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“When people first look at the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://udlguidelines.cast.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">guidelines\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, they see the 31 checkpoints and sometimes feel overwhelmed thinking that they are supposed to implement all of them in every lesson,” said Torres. “If they first think about what barriers they want to reduce, they can then look at the guidelines like a menu that they can choose from to meet their needs. I also advise teachers to start small. As they successfully use UDL, they can then build in more and more supports in subsequent lessons, but if they try to do everything at once, they may feel overwhelmed and give up. The more you use UDL, the more these ideas will naturally come to you as you are designing lessons, and it will become easier to redesign or revise curriculum and instruction little by little.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As with any design process, developing a UDL curriculum is an iterative cycle of implementation, reflection, and adjustment, and it can be integrated during the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244016680688\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lesson planning process\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“In my courses, I teach students to use the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GRIw335-onpNq4Kq8vbsqjxBgV_iYGLr/view?usp=sharing\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UDL Design Cycle\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is essentially just a systematic step-by-step process to start with your goals, consider barriers and students’ preferences/needs, and then develop assessments and methods that can reduce barriers and take students’ preferences into account. This gives teachers a way to take the UDL framework and apply it to a design thinking process,” said Rao.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is impossible to predict the extent to which online learning will play into the immediate future of education, but what is clear is that further efforts must aim for inclusivity in design and deployment. Universal Design for Learning offers accessibility for special education students and, perhaps even more importantly, it unfolds a vision of education, whether online or in the classroom, which supports all learners to thrive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Universal Design for All\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Rao points out, UDL improves the quality of instruction for special needs students, but its flexibility and adaptability is a boon to any learning environment. High school teacher Robin Dazzeo learned about UDL as part of her training in special education, but she now integrates the framework in her regular sophomore English classes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“UDL is a natural fit for me when designing, planning, and implementing lessons, both in our face-to-face curriculum and now as we are teaching remotely. It is so important to consider the ways in which each learner can access the curriculum and demonstrate mastery before actually teaching the lesson. I’m thankful for my [special education] background, which makes it second nature to adapt and modify my lessons to meet the needs of all of my students as I’m going along rather than wait to see who is struggling after instruction.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Additionally, the UDL framework provides a cohesive foundation by which to integrate technology for learning. “It facilitates the mind-shift needed for teachers to adopt new technologies and practices. UDL provides the rationale frame for how these new tools or approaches help students. It creates links between various options for student work, and how that work aligns with their unique needs and preferences,” said Jon Pennington, an Instructional Technology Specialist at an independent K12 school.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story is part of a MindShift series that explores solutions for returning to school during the COVID19 pandemic, supported in part by the \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.schusterman.org/\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">\u003ci>Charles\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"s3\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"s4\">\u003ci>and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>. MindShift retains sole editorial control over all content. \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the dust settles from emergency distance learning, schools now have the summer to reckon with what worked and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56068/how-teachers-want-emergency-distance-learning-improved\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">what must change\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as they grapple with the uncertainty of the next academic year. Whatever the fate of online learning, the past months have \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/coronavirus-covid-19-exposes-cracks-us-digital-divide\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">exposed some glaring disparities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in access to education and technology, while families with children who have disabilities and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/well/family/coronavirus-shutdowns-children-special-needs-adhd-autism.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">special needs\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> experienced significant challenges even when technology was available. Consequently, many parents have been left feeling helpless, guilty and defeated by their inability to simulate school at home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some educators who want to make online learning more engaging and accessible are exploring the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. UDL – originally developed by researchers at the Center for Applied Special Technology (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.cast.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CAST\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">) in collaboration with Harvard University – supports special education students, but its flexibility, technology guidelines and aim to individualize learning are best practices that can serve every student.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“While UDL can benefit students with disabilities, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">it’s a way of thinking about how to make instruction accessible for all,” said \u003ca href=\"https://coe.hawaii.edu/sped/directory/kavitar/\">Kavita Rao\u003c/a>, a professor in the department of special education at the University of Hawai‘i. “The beauty of UDL is that it addresses ‘learner variability’, which is the norm in our classrooms.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/bDvKnY0g6e4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/bDvKnY0g6e4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A key premise of UDL is that there is no “average learner.” Every learner has a unique set of characteristics – including strengths, preferences and learning needs – that may change or evolve in varied contexts. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether deployed in a classroom or online, UDL focuses on integrating flexible pathways to learning that can address learner variability.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But what does this look like in practice, and how feasible is it for educators to implement the framework?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Online Class Design\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unsurprisingly, the way in which an online class is designed can significantly impact how learners engage with and process the instructional material. Some online lessons can be text heavy, require high reading proficiency and offer narrow assessment options. Also, many rely on prepackaged content such as Khan Academy or Study Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“These content management systems were created to follow specific standards and give specific lessons,” said \u003ca href=\"https://specialedu.ku.edu/sean-smith\">Sean Smith\u003c/a>, a professor of special education at the University of Kansas. “And those are the areas that are fraught with barriers for a lot of our learners with disabilities.” Teachers and parents should identify where the barriers are in varied curriculum offerings and build in supports as needed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More than 14 percent of students enrolled in U.S. schools receive special education services, but the classroom protocols designed to accommodate specific needs do not cleanly translate to online delivery. For example, children who are non-verbal can have trouble communicating online without adequate technology, while those with processing issues may struggle to internalize instructions without close guidance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Online learning can also make demands on executive function, a set of cognitive processes that help kids prioritize, organize, maintain attention, regulate behavior, and control distractions. Many students struggle with executive function, but it can be particularly challenging for kids with special needs and, in the absence of established classroom routines, the onus to assist falls on parents, many of whom are overwhelmed and/or working.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“One of the challenges at the elementary and middle school level has been the need for the parent or the adult to become a learning coach,” said Smith. “The executive function skills that are required for that level of independence in online learning are all challenges for students. The role of the adult at home has been vital to success, and we’ve found that if the parent is not available, students tend to leave the online environment.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Universal Design for Online Learning\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The focus of UDL is to reduce barriers in curriculum and make instruction engaging and accessible to all learners, according to\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Rao. “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The UDL framework provides a structure to think about how you can design activities and assignments that integrate supports for students.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UDL originates in the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/universaldesign/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">universal design\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> movement in architecture that strove to make buildings and built environments accessible to all people. Similarly, its curricular incarnation provides a series of guidelines to help educators design accessible learning conditions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The guidelines focus on ways to intentionally and proactively design learning environments and instruction, building in flexibility, supports and scaffolding that can help all learners succeed,” said Rao.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By “supports” Rao means a flexible repertoire of tools and strategies adapted to accommodate a range of learners. The \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://udlguidelines.cast.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UDL guidelines\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> organize supports according to three umbrella categories: \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">representation\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which assists learners by presenting information in diverse multisensory formats; \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">action and expression\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which lets kids interact and respond to what they’ve learned in a variety of ways; and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">engagement\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is achieved by providing students with options and approaches which are relevant to their interests.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/wVTm8vQRvNc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/wVTm8vQRvNc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multimodality is the lynchpin of the UDL approach. Written instructions might also be delivered as video, audio or as a series of images. Similarly, the framework encourages offering a variety of options by which students can respond to what they learn, whether they create comics, podcasts, short videos, infographics or voice-to-text dictations. Finally, the framework supports executive function by delivering information in manageable “chunks,” using visual checklists, auditory prompts and providing regular feedback. This way, learners are empowered to access and process information in a way that works for them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition to the instructional benefits, some educators report that UDL helps better connect them to their students. “Teachers who provide feedback, participate in activities and use various ways to explain, approach or deliver instruction will motivate students and show them you care: using a meme to evoke humor that relates to the topic, videos that explain a definition, being available for discussion via virtual meetings, or using a Tik-Tok video to deliver instruction,” said Jonah Nakaza-Koizumi, a PhD candidate and special education teacher at Roosevelt High School in Honolulu.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Originally designed for traditional in-person classroom settings, UDL’s reliance on multimedia and technology translates well to online delivery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“In some cases, it can be easier to implement UDL online because there are many different digital tools that can easily be built into the framework of the course that may be harder to integrate in a face-to-face setting,” said Cary Torres, who instructs on UDL at Kapi’Olani Community College. Torres found that applying UDL online can benefit students who struggle in face-to-face classes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Providing multiple means of action and expression with digital tools has helped many of my students who are language learners and students who have anxiety,” said Torres. “I have used online text-based discussion boards and Flipgrid videos and noticed that students who often do not participate much in class discussions provide much more detailed and thoughtful contributions and feedback.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, the shift online is not without obstacles. “Moving from a classroom environment to an online environment can be a challenge because there are more constraints,” said Nakaza-Koizumi. “The teacher has to be very meticulous and clear of what he or she is posting, asking, and requiring of the student. This is not to say it isn’t the same in a classroom, but there is and can be a lot more fluidity in design in a classroom.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To support the integration of UDL in online learning, professors Rao, Smith and Torres launched \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://schoolvirtually.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">School Virtually\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an open website that curates an array of free tools with corresponding guidelines to support educators and parents who seek to implement the framework.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Designing for Success: Start Small and Iterate\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The prospect of integrating UDL for the first time can be daunting. Torres recommends a gradual approach for educators to ease into it according to their level of comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“When people first look at the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://udlguidelines.cast.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">guidelines\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, they see the 31 checkpoints and sometimes feel overwhelmed thinking that they are supposed to implement all of them in every lesson,” said Torres. “If they first think about what barriers they want to reduce, they can then look at the guidelines like a menu that they can choose from to meet their needs. I also advise teachers to start small. As they successfully use UDL, they can then build in more and more supports in subsequent lessons, but if they try to do everything at once, they may feel overwhelmed and give up. The more you use UDL, the more these ideas will naturally come to you as you are designing lessons, and it will become easier to redesign or revise curriculum and instruction little by little.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As with any design process, developing a UDL curriculum is an iterative cycle of implementation, reflection, and adjustment, and it can be integrated during the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244016680688\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lesson planning process\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“In my courses, I teach students to use the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GRIw335-onpNq4Kq8vbsqjxBgV_iYGLr/view?usp=sharing\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UDL Design Cycle\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is essentially just a systematic step-by-step process to start with your goals, consider barriers and students’ preferences/needs, and then develop assessments and methods that can reduce barriers and take students’ preferences into account. This gives teachers a way to take the UDL framework and apply it to a design thinking process,” said Rao.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is impossible to predict the extent to which online learning will play into the immediate future of education, but what is clear is that further efforts must aim for inclusivity in design and deployment. Universal Design for Learning offers accessibility for special education students and, perhaps even more importantly, it unfolds a vision of education, whether online or in the classroom, which supports all learners to thrive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Universal Design for All\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Rao points out, UDL improves the quality of instruction for special needs students, but its flexibility and adaptability is a boon to any learning environment. High school teacher Robin Dazzeo learned about UDL as part of her training in special education, but she now integrates the framework in her regular sophomore English classes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“UDL is a natural fit for me when designing, planning, and implementing lessons, both in our face-to-face curriculum and now as we are teaching remotely. It is so important to consider the ways in which each learner can access the curriculum and demonstrate mastery before actually teaching the lesson. I’m thankful for my [special education] background, which makes it second nature to adapt and modify my lessons to meet the needs of all of my students as I’m going along rather than wait to see who is struggling after instruction.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Additionally, the UDL framework provides a cohesive foundation by which to integrate technology for learning. “It facilitates the mind-shift needed for teachers to adopt new technologies and practices. UDL provides the rationale frame for how these new tools or approaches help students. It creates links between various options for student work, and how that work aligns with their unique needs and preferences,” said Jon Pennington, an Instructional Technology Specialist at an independent K12 school.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story is part of a MindShift series that explores solutions for returning to school during the COVID19 pandemic, supported in part by the \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.schusterman.org/\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">\u003ci>Charles\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"s3\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"s4\">\u003ci>and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>. MindShift retains sole editorial control over all content. \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "A Few Schools Reopen, But Remote Learning Could Go On For Years In U.S.",
"title": "A Few Schools Reopen, But Remote Learning Could Go On For Years In U.S.",
"headTitle": "MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>May 7 is the date that Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, declared it was safe to open up schools. The state has had fewer than 500 reported cases of the coronavirus as of this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But according to the state's Office of Public Instruction, just a few school districts in small towns have taken the governor up on the offer. That gap — between a state executive proclaiming schools OK to open and the reality of tiny groups of students gathering in just a few schools — shows the logistical challenges educators and state officials around the country face in any decision to reopen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willow Creek School in Three Forks, Mont., is\u003ca href=\"https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2020/05/05/tiny-willow-creek-montana-school-among-first-us-reopen/3084566001/\"> opening its doors\u003c/a> and expects a few dozen of its 56 students to show up. Troy, a northwestern Montana town, is holding limited and voluntary \"study hall\" visits, focusing on special education students, as well as some outdoor activities. The town of Glasgow says it will open its schools on a limited basis to students without devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Libby, a town of fewer than 3,000 people, is allowing students to come back to the single middle/high school to meet face to face with teachers, for what amounts to targeted tutoring sessions. They can sign up for an appointment to get help in a subject they're struggling with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Craig Barringer, the superintendent of Libby's schools, said that educators made this decision based on surveying parents. When it came to elementary school students, \"The parents felt they were more able to handle them and/or more able to help them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not so at more advanced academic levels. \"When you get into even seventh-grade math, parents can't give the assistance that they need if they really get stuck.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's a long list of precautions being taken, Barringer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students will be greeted at the door. They'll be encouraged to wear masks. They've put up hand-sanitizing stations. \"We have breaks in between scheduled appointments so we can clean and air out the smell of cleaner.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public schools play a range of roles in society beyond education. As child care for millions of working parents, they are a cornerstone of any attempt to reopen the economy. They are hubs for community relationships and distribution points for essential social services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, before any of that, they must be safe places for children. With those various functions in mind, education leaders are putting out plans that forecast some very big changes to what public school might look like in the coming months and even years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complications are leading to a patchwork effect and a disconnect between levels of government in many places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, talked about trying to open up for summer school \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-28/coronavirus-schools-opening-july\">as soon as July\u003c/a>. But school leaders in Palo Alto and Sacramento \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://edsource.org/2020/can-california-schools-put-safety-measures-in-place-in-time-to-open-early-many-district-leaders-skeptical/630741&sa=D&ust=1588790343269000&usg=AFQjCNHTuXV2a-Gbvv5RMngppAURoIno_w\">countered that\u003c/a> it would be more likely that they'd have to push the start of the school year later by a few weeks because of all the planning necessary to open up safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-education/two-georgia-school-districts-end-year-early-others-considering/fpwvQsruQ1CmVXH2JiBSSO/&sa=D&ust=1588790343270000&usg=AFQjCNEu6yvo4u_6kn7ugB6qP_K1wxtTyw\">Georgia\u003c/a>, even as Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, has been out ahead of the rest of the country on opening up some businesses, there are a few districts that chose to end the school year early, putting an end to their efforts with remote learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Washington, D.C., public schools have also decided to \u003ca href=\"https://dcist.com/story/20/04/17/d-c-public-schools-ending-semester-three-weeks-early-will-remain-entirely-remote/\">end the school year early\u003c/a>, pledging to tack those weeks back on by starting earlier in August. In Washington state and in Chicago, leaders have acknowledged that some form of remote learning might continue off and on through the 2020-2021 school year or even beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past few days, the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest teachers union, put out \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.aft.org/press-release/aft-launches-landmark-plan-safely-reopen-americas-schools-and-communities&sa=D&ust=1588790343272000&usg=AFQjCNGyxx5itZ7PE-zKgtwWqqBWMtbcWA\">a detailed blueprint \u003c/a>for reopening. And so did the \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/a-blueprint-for-back-to-school/\">American Enterprise Institute\u003c/a>, the conservative think tank, which asked retired state superintendents, city chancellors and other school leaders to weigh in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These two plans have a lot in common as far as basic medical recommendations: the need for rapid and repeated coronavirus testing of students and staff, contact tracing, stepped-up hygiene and cleaning, and reducing class sizes to allow for social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are four tough problems that are on experts' minds:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Running remote and in-person learning in parallel \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, this week \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-05-05/gov-andrew-cuomo-taps-gates-foundation-to-help-new-york-revolutionize-education-after-coronavirus&sa=D&ust=1588790343264000&usg=AFQjCNFrq6lYxHpsH5ohc9JuEtlxuXCb-Q\">announced that the state will be working with\u003c/a> the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which is a supporter of NPR) to \"reimagine schools.\" The foundation has backed a range of technological innovations in education, from AI to \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/657895964/the-future-of-learning-well-it-s-personal&sa=D&ust=1588790343265000&usg=AFQjCNGxOVr7WnguP0dNG5niSgSjbGJGOw\">\"personalized learning,\"\u003c/a> sometimes generating controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of the particular path any district takes, the pandemic is likely to be a turning point as far as the role of technology in public, K-12 education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AFT and AEI blueprints both say remote learning should continue while schools are doing staggered schedules, so that all the kids can keep up. Both plans also foresee further waves of the virus leading to future school shutdowns, another reason to keep remote learning plans in place just as school districts have done for years in the case of snow days or tornadoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plans envision schools running in parallel, both online and in-person. That requires huge investments going forward in materials, equipment and training for teachers, and equipment and connectivity for families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Serving the neediest and traumatized kids \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the risk of spreading the virus, there's a laundry list of other concerns to consider, both the AFT and AEI plans say. Learning loss. Missed socialization. A probable increase in \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/28/847251985/child-sexual-abuse-reports-are-on-the-rise-amid-lockdown-orders&sa=D&ust=1588790343268000&usg=AFQjCNH5wPDlJDcAWCpEJ8lFqcG1TwG6qQ\">child abuse \u003c/a>and domestic violence while students have been home. Lost family members. Many, many families out of work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To meet all of these needs, the American Federation of Teachers plan recommends an idea that's been around for a while: \"\u003ca href=\"https://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2015/08/11/why-community-schools-are-taking-root-in-florida/\">community schools\u003c/a>.\" Public schools across the country right now are being used for food distribution. Clearly, that's become their essential, non-duplicated function in an emergency. Could more schools, then, add housing, mental health or health care services on top of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A related idea is to bring the kids with likely higher needs back to campus early, or keep them there longer, such as for summer school. As Troy, Mont., and schools in other countries like Israel have done, should educators focus on bringing back special education services first?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think it mitigates inequalities if you start the most vulnerable kids first,\" says Randi Weingarten, the head of the AFT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Privacy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AEI plan points out that there are privacy problems both with online learning and with the kind of public health surveillance required to control a pandemic in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What data is it OK to share?\" asks Rick Hess at AEI, who co-authored the report. \"If we're talking about tracking and tracing, we're getting very invasive.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then, with remote learning, Hess adds, \"a lot of school districts are relying upon products that were never designed to be used with tens of millions of children at home.\" He points to incidents of \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/06/828087551/schools-ditch-zoom-amid-concerns-over-online-learning-security\">Zoombombing\u003c/a>,\" online harassment and pranks that led many large school districts to abandon the videoconferencing service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transportation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A seemingly minor issue that illustrates how complicated it can really be to open schools is transportation. As the AEI plan points out: How can you do social distancing on the school bus? Do you run three times as many school buses so each kid gets their own row? Do you do that at the same time as you're still using buses to run food to students, as many districts in rural areas are doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The more you dig into the details, the more you realize how staggering of an effort this will be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's going to be a scheduling nightmare, a logistical nightmare,\" Weingarten sums up. \"And God forbid a kid or a teacher gets sick. The knives are going to come out that the school is responsible for it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Few+Schools+Reopen%2C+But+Remote+Learning+Could+Go+On+For+Years+In+U.S.&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Governors are starting to float ideas for reopening schools. But there are many concerns about what education will look like when that happens.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>May 7 is the date that Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, declared it was safe to open up schools. The state has had fewer than 500 reported cases of the coronavirus as of this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But according to the state's Office of Public Instruction, just a few school districts in small towns have taken the governor up on the offer. That gap — between a state executive proclaiming schools OK to open and the reality of tiny groups of students gathering in just a few schools — shows the logistical challenges educators and state officials around the country face in any decision to reopen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willow Creek School in Three Forks, Mont., is\u003ca href=\"https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2020/05/05/tiny-willow-creek-montana-school-among-first-us-reopen/3084566001/\"> opening its doors\u003c/a> and expects a few dozen of its 56 students to show up. Troy, a northwestern Montana town, is holding limited and voluntary \"study hall\" visits, focusing on special education students, as well as some outdoor activities. The town of Glasgow says it will open its schools on a limited basis to students without devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Libby, a town of fewer than 3,000 people, is allowing students to come back to the single middle/high school to meet face to face with teachers, for what amounts to targeted tutoring sessions. They can sign up for an appointment to get help in a subject they're struggling with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Craig Barringer, the superintendent of Libby's schools, said that educators made this decision based on surveying parents. When it came to elementary school students, \"The parents felt they were more able to handle them and/or more able to help them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not so at more advanced academic levels. \"When you get into even seventh-grade math, parents can't give the assistance that they need if they really get stuck.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's a long list of precautions being taken, Barringer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students will be greeted at the door. They'll be encouraged to wear masks. They've put up hand-sanitizing stations. \"We have breaks in between scheduled appointments so we can clean and air out the smell of cleaner.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public schools play a range of roles in society beyond education. As child care for millions of working parents, they are a cornerstone of any attempt to reopen the economy. They are hubs for community relationships and distribution points for essential social services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, before any of that, they must be safe places for children. With those various functions in mind, education leaders are putting out plans that forecast some very big changes to what public school might look like in the coming months and even years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complications are leading to a patchwork effect and a disconnect between levels of government in many places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, talked about trying to open up for summer school \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-28/coronavirus-schools-opening-july\">as soon as July\u003c/a>. But school leaders in Palo Alto and Sacramento \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://edsource.org/2020/can-california-schools-put-safety-measures-in-place-in-time-to-open-early-many-district-leaders-skeptical/630741&sa=D&ust=1588790343269000&usg=AFQjCNHTuXV2a-Gbvv5RMngppAURoIno_w\">countered that\u003c/a> it would be more likely that they'd have to push the start of the school year later by a few weeks because of all the planning necessary to open up safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-education/two-georgia-school-districts-end-year-early-others-considering/fpwvQsruQ1CmVXH2JiBSSO/&sa=D&ust=1588790343270000&usg=AFQjCNEu6yvo4u_6kn7ugB6qP_K1wxtTyw\">Georgia\u003c/a>, even as Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, has been out ahead of the rest of the country on opening up some businesses, there are a few districts that chose to end the school year early, putting an end to their efforts with remote learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Washington, D.C., public schools have also decided to \u003ca href=\"https://dcist.com/story/20/04/17/d-c-public-schools-ending-semester-three-weeks-early-will-remain-entirely-remote/\">end the school year early\u003c/a>, pledging to tack those weeks back on by starting earlier in August. In Washington state and in Chicago, leaders have acknowledged that some form of remote learning might continue off and on through the 2020-2021 school year or even beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past few days, the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest teachers union, put out \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.aft.org/press-release/aft-launches-landmark-plan-safely-reopen-americas-schools-and-communities&sa=D&ust=1588790343272000&usg=AFQjCNGyxx5itZ7PE-zKgtwWqqBWMtbcWA\">a detailed blueprint \u003c/a>for reopening. And so did the \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/a-blueprint-for-back-to-school/\">American Enterprise Institute\u003c/a>, the conservative think tank, which asked retired state superintendents, city chancellors and other school leaders to weigh in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These two plans have a lot in common as far as basic medical recommendations: the need for rapid and repeated coronavirus testing of students and staff, contact tracing, stepped-up hygiene and cleaning, and reducing class sizes to allow for social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are four tough problems that are on experts' minds:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Running remote and in-person learning in parallel \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, this week \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-05-05/gov-andrew-cuomo-taps-gates-foundation-to-help-new-york-revolutionize-education-after-coronavirus&sa=D&ust=1588790343264000&usg=AFQjCNFrq6lYxHpsH5ohc9JuEtlxuXCb-Q\">announced that the state will be working with\u003c/a> the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which is a supporter of NPR) to \"reimagine schools.\" The foundation has backed a range of technological innovations in education, from AI to \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/657895964/the-future-of-learning-well-it-s-personal&sa=D&ust=1588790343265000&usg=AFQjCNGxOVr7WnguP0dNG5niSgSjbGJGOw\">\"personalized learning,\"\u003c/a> sometimes generating controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of the particular path any district takes, the pandemic is likely to be a turning point as far as the role of technology in public, K-12 education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AFT and AEI blueprints both say remote learning should continue while schools are doing staggered schedules, so that all the kids can keep up. Both plans also foresee further waves of the virus leading to future school shutdowns, another reason to keep remote learning plans in place just as school districts have done for years in the case of snow days or tornadoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plans envision schools running in parallel, both online and in-person. That requires huge investments going forward in materials, equipment and training for teachers, and equipment and connectivity for families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Serving the neediest and traumatized kids \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the risk of spreading the virus, there's a laundry list of other concerns to consider, both the AFT and AEI plans say. Learning loss. Missed socialization. A probable increase in \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/28/847251985/child-sexual-abuse-reports-are-on-the-rise-amid-lockdown-orders&sa=D&ust=1588790343268000&usg=AFQjCNH5wPDlJDcAWCpEJ8lFqcG1TwG6qQ\">child abuse \u003c/a>and domestic violence while students have been home. Lost family members. Many, many families out of work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To meet all of these needs, the American Federation of Teachers plan recommends an idea that's been around for a while: \"\u003ca href=\"https://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2015/08/11/why-community-schools-are-taking-root-in-florida/\">community schools\u003c/a>.\" Public schools across the country right now are being used for food distribution. Clearly, that's become their essential, non-duplicated function in an emergency. Could more schools, then, add housing, mental health or health care services on top of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A related idea is to bring the kids with likely higher needs back to campus early, or keep them there longer, such as for summer school. As Troy, Mont., and schools in other countries like Israel have done, should educators focus on bringing back special education services first?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think it mitigates inequalities if you start the most vulnerable kids first,\" says Randi Weingarten, the head of the AFT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Privacy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AEI plan points out that there are privacy problems both with online learning and with the kind of public health surveillance required to control a pandemic in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What data is it OK to share?\" asks Rick Hess at AEI, who co-authored the report. \"If we're talking about tracking and tracing, we're getting very invasive.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then, with remote learning, Hess adds, \"a lot of school districts are relying upon products that were never designed to be used with tens of millions of children at home.\" He points to incidents of \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/06/828087551/schools-ditch-zoom-amid-concerns-over-online-learning-security\">Zoombombing\u003c/a>,\" online harassment and pranks that led many large school districts to abandon the videoconferencing service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transportation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A seemingly minor issue that illustrates how complicated it can really be to open schools is transportation. As the AEI plan points out: How can you do social distancing on the school bus? Do you run three times as many school buses so each kid gets their own row? Do you do that at the same time as you're still using buses to run food to students, as many districts in rural areas are doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The more you dig into the details, the more you realize how staggering of an effort this will be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's going to be a scheduling nightmare, a logistical nightmare,\" Weingarten sums up. \"And God forbid a kid or a teacher gets sick. The knives are going to come out that the school is responsible for it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Few+Schools+Reopen%2C+But+Remote+Learning+Could+Go+On+For+Years+In+U.S.&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Despite cranky computers, conflicting schedules, shaky Internet connections and stubborn software glitches, Danielle Kovach got her whole class together a few Fridays ago for a video chat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovach teaches special education in Hopatcong, N.J., and this Friday class session was a celebration: They'd made it through the first few weeks of distance learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout those weeks, she'd maintained her 8:30 a.m. morning meeting over the computer, she was adhering to each student's IEP, or Individualized Education Plan, and juggling new lessons with old routines, as she adapted to the coronavirus crisis. She was exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so the celebration was a big moment (and a big hit with her students). She instructed everyone to bring your pet to class. \"They were all holding up their dogs, their cats,\" says Kovach. \"We had fish, stuffed animals. They were so excited, it was just a fun time together.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She needed that victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In my over 20 years of teaching, this by far has been my most challenging moment,\" says Kovach. The Internet has been a blessing and a curse — it took time to get all her families connected, but even now, the connection speed is flaky, and she really misses the personal contact she enjoys with her second- and third-graders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On top of that, she's got three kids of her own at home. \"I think that all of our teachers have risen to the challenge to make this work,\" Kovach says. \"But there's also a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of worry.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As schools and learning have moved online, one of the biggest challenges has been providing special education. An estimated 14% of public school students receive such services in the U.S., and federal law requires schools to provide them. The U.S. Education Department has\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/23/820138079/education-dept-says-disability-laws-shouldnt-get-in-the-way-of-online-learning\"> offered schools some flexibility\u003c/a>, but with no road map or template for how to teach special needs students in this new world, teachers have been forced to innovate, adapting as they go along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We're seeing kids have services because people are being creative,\" says Kelly Grillo, a special education coordinator at Cooperative School Services who oversees special education at two rural school districts in Indiana. She's inspired by the ways teachers have embraced familiar tools, like Youtube, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/09/16/347377022/a-is-for-apps-teachers-share-top-digital-tools-of-the-trade\">apps like Remind\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One occupational therapist, Grillo says, sent packets home detailing ways to grip a pencil. Included in the delivery: extra pencils, so students could follow along with the videos the therapist posts online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help a second-grader who is immobile and non-verbal, Grillo and her team have been brainstorming ways he can use his family's smart speaker while he's at home. She says her team has not delayed or omitted services from any of their students' IEPs. In some cases, to help juggle the schedules of students and parents, teachers are even connecting with them in the evenings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's really actually quite exciting,\" Grillo says. \"This is actually changing a field to create access for kids with disabilities far beyond what anybody could imagine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it's not all high technology. For students who don't have access to the Internet, Grillo and her team — like many teachers across the country — are resorting to phone calls and text messages as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Before this,\" she explains, \"we didn't have an urgency to have tools in front of kids that they know how to use independently to access learning.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrea Leonardi feels that urgency, too. She's the assistant superintendent for student services in Wilton, Conn., and when schools closed, her first thought was: \"How are we going to meet the needs of students with disabilities? What's that going to look like?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In just a few days, she convinced her district to purchase software from PresenceLearning, a company that works with hundreds of school districts offering live speech therapy, occupational therapy, and behavior and mental health services. At first, Leonardi was thinking the district would use the company's therapists for services, but the idea shifted instead to train Wilton educators and therapists to use the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That way, their students would see familiar faces. \"Before this, I was pretty skeptical,\" Leonardi says. \"I'm a face-to-face educator, and so the idea of teletherapy ... I wasn't sure.\" But when she knew her own team would be on the other end of the video calls to students, \"that was just too good to pass up.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 40 district staff — including speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, behavioral mental health staff, school psychologists, school social workers and special-ed teachers — got trained on the platform. It's essentially like a digital office, with a video chat component, built-in ways to \"gamify\" activities (like dice and spinners and lots of emojis).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are also familiar tools to use in a therapy session or lesson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We are very lucky to live in the digital age that we live in right now because I don't think we would be able to do any of what I'm doing right now without it,\" says Katie Miller, a speech and language pathologist at Cider Mill School in Wilton. Miller has been using the platform and says her virtual office \"functions pretty similarly to how I would do it in my classroom.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller, who's been with the district for five years, is working with her students on language skills and articulation. Using PresenceLearning, she's created a dice game: when students roll a number, there's a corresponding board with numbers that dictates the sound or word they're practicing. When the student gets the sound right, they can click the digital die again, to try another word or sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Articulation can be a little bit dry at this level, because it's motor memory,\" Miller explains. If it has to be done over a screen, at least the game livens it up. \"Anything to make it a little more interactive.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonardi says that's typical of how teachers are finding new ways to make the tools fit their students' needs. \"This situation has forced us to drop everything we've known and try to think about how we do our work differently.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joy Lawrence, a speech and language pathologist at the high school in Wilton, says she is grateful for the new digital tools, but she knows they can't replace actual face-to-face contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of her students have autism or attention deficit disorders, she says, and so eye contact and physical proximity are essential to her work. Lawrence offered one quick example: When she's sitting right next to a student, she can use her voice as a teaching tool. \"The softer your voice is,\" she says, \"the more they pay attention, the more they listen,\" she says. On the computer, \"you're like yelling into this speaker and your voice is echoing through the house. It's really difficult.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Online, it's much harder to gauge that level of attention. \"It's really challenging when you're sitting on a computer screen and you don't know what they're looking at.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawrence says, given those challenges, she's working with her students to reinforce what they learned before, and trying to maintain that personal relationship with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many educators say that's essential right now: Staying in contact with students and letting families know that the special education supports are still there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though sometimes, even when you're doing the best you can, it doesn't feel like enough, says Danielle Kovach, the special education teacher in New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The students know that their classroom and their school is a place where they are loved, where they are safe, where they're cared for, where they're fed. And I'm the one that provides that for them,\" she says. \"And now I'm in a situation where I can't.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Easter Sunday, she says, her phone rang. She was tied up with her family, and let it go to voicemail. It was one of her students. In the message, he told her she was the best teacher ever and that he missed her and wished this coronavirus would go away because he wants to be back in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a nice moment. \"It felt like he knew that I was still here, that his teacher wasn't going anywhere.\" And in that way, she says, \"we're still teaching a lesson.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Educators+Get+Creative+To+Serve+Students+With+Disabilities&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Despite cranky computers, conflicting schedules, shaky Internet connections and stubborn software glitches, Danielle Kovach got her whole class together a few Fridays ago for a video chat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovach teaches special education in Hopatcong, N.J., and this Friday class session was a celebration: They'd made it through the first few weeks of distance learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout those weeks, she'd maintained her 8:30 a.m. morning meeting over the computer, she was adhering to each student's IEP, or Individualized Education Plan, and juggling new lessons with old routines, as she adapted to the coronavirus crisis. She was exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so the celebration was a big moment (and a big hit with her students). She instructed everyone to bring your pet to class. \"They were all holding up their dogs, their cats,\" says Kovach. \"We had fish, stuffed animals. They were so excited, it was just a fun time together.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She needed that victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In my over 20 years of teaching, this by far has been my most challenging moment,\" says Kovach. The Internet has been a blessing and a curse — it took time to get all her families connected, but even now, the connection speed is flaky, and she really misses the personal contact she enjoys with her second- and third-graders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On top of that, she's got three kids of her own at home. \"I think that all of our teachers have risen to the challenge to make this work,\" Kovach says. \"But there's also a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of worry.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As schools and learning have moved online, one of the biggest challenges has been providing special education. An estimated 14% of public school students receive such services in the U.S., and federal law requires schools to provide them. The U.S. Education Department has\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/23/820138079/education-dept-says-disability-laws-shouldnt-get-in-the-way-of-online-learning\"> offered schools some flexibility\u003c/a>, but with no road map or template for how to teach special needs students in this new world, teachers have been forced to innovate, adapting as they go along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We're seeing kids have services because people are being creative,\" says Kelly Grillo, a special education coordinator at Cooperative School Services who oversees special education at two rural school districts in Indiana. She's inspired by the ways teachers have embraced familiar tools, like Youtube, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/09/16/347377022/a-is-for-apps-teachers-share-top-digital-tools-of-the-trade\">apps like Remind\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One occupational therapist, Grillo says, sent packets home detailing ways to grip a pencil. Included in the delivery: extra pencils, so students could follow along with the videos the therapist posts online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help a second-grader who is immobile and non-verbal, Grillo and her team have been brainstorming ways he can use his family's smart speaker while he's at home. She says her team has not delayed or omitted services from any of their students' IEPs. In some cases, to help juggle the schedules of students and parents, teachers are even connecting with them in the evenings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's really actually quite exciting,\" Grillo says. \"This is actually changing a field to create access for kids with disabilities far beyond what anybody could imagine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it's not all high technology. For students who don't have access to the Internet, Grillo and her team — like many teachers across the country — are resorting to phone calls and text messages as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Before this,\" she explains, \"we didn't have an urgency to have tools in front of kids that they know how to use independently to access learning.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrea Leonardi feels that urgency, too. She's the assistant superintendent for student services in Wilton, Conn., and when schools closed, her first thought was: \"How are we going to meet the needs of students with disabilities? What's that going to look like?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In just a few days, she convinced her district to purchase software from PresenceLearning, a company that works with hundreds of school districts offering live speech therapy, occupational therapy, and behavior and mental health services. At first, Leonardi was thinking the district would use the company's therapists for services, but the idea shifted instead to train Wilton educators and therapists to use the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That way, their students would see familiar faces. \"Before this, I was pretty skeptical,\" Leonardi says. \"I'm a face-to-face educator, and so the idea of teletherapy ... I wasn't sure.\" But when she knew her own team would be on the other end of the video calls to students, \"that was just too good to pass up.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 40 district staff — including speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, behavioral mental health staff, school psychologists, school social workers and special-ed teachers — got trained on the platform. It's essentially like a digital office, with a video chat component, built-in ways to \"gamify\" activities (like dice and spinners and lots of emojis).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are also familiar tools to use in a therapy session or lesson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We are very lucky to live in the digital age that we live in right now because I don't think we would be able to do any of what I'm doing right now without it,\" says Katie Miller, a speech and language pathologist at Cider Mill School in Wilton. Miller has been using the platform and says her virtual office \"functions pretty similarly to how I would do it in my classroom.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller, who's been with the district for five years, is working with her students on language skills and articulation. Using PresenceLearning, she's created a dice game: when students roll a number, there's a corresponding board with numbers that dictates the sound or word they're practicing. When the student gets the sound right, they can click the digital die again, to try another word or sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Articulation can be a little bit dry at this level, because it's motor memory,\" Miller explains. If it has to be done over a screen, at least the game livens it up. \"Anything to make it a little more interactive.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonardi says that's typical of how teachers are finding new ways to make the tools fit their students' needs. \"This situation has forced us to drop everything we've known and try to think about how we do our work differently.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joy Lawrence, a speech and language pathologist at the high school in Wilton, says she is grateful for the new digital tools, but she knows they can't replace actual face-to-face contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of her students have autism or attention deficit disorders, she says, and so eye contact and physical proximity are essential to her work. Lawrence offered one quick example: When she's sitting right next to a student, she can use her voice as a teaching tool. \"The softer your voice is,\" she says, \"the more they pay attention, the more they listen,\" she says. On the computer, \"you're like yelling into this speaker and your voice is echoing through the house. It's really difficult.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Online, it's much harder to gauge that level of attention. \"It's really challenging when you're sitting on a computer screen and you don't know what they're looking at.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawrence says, given those challenges, she's working with her students to reinforce what they learned before, and trying to maintain that personal relationship with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many educators say that's essential right now: Staying in contact with students and letting families know that the special education supports are still there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though sometimes, even when you're doing the best you can, it doesn't feel like enough, says Danielle Kovach, the special education teacher in New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The students know that their classroom and their school is a place where they are loved, where they are safe, where they're cared for, where they're fed. And I'm the one that provides that for them,\" she says. \"And now I'm in a situation where I can't.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Easter Sunday, she says, her phone rang. She was tied up with her family, and let it go to voicemail. It was one of her students. In the message, he told her she was the best teacher ever and that he missed her and wished this coronavirus would go away because he wants to be back in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a nice moment. \"It felt like he knew that I was still here, that his teacher wasn't going anywhere.\" And in that way, she says, \"we're still teaching a lesson.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Educators+Get+Creative+To+Serve+Students+With+Disabilities&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Originally posted on \u003ca href=\"https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2020/02/06/denver-public-schools-inclusion-students-with-disabilities/?utm_source=republish&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=republish\">Chalkbeat\u003c/a> by Melanie Asmar on February 6, 2020\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Principal Blake Hammond slips into the back of a quiet fifth-grade classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Second row in,” he whispers. “He’s one of our kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boy is sitting next to an aide, a blank worksheet on his desk. The teacher is in the middle of a writing lesson. “What’s the difference,” she asks the class, “between revising and editing?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boy in the second row stands up. He walks to the front of the classroom and stops in front of the board so that his head and shoulders are blocking his classmates’ view. He’s there to fish around in a small blue bucket filled with sharpened No. 2 pencils. The pencils, pointed upward like flowers in a flower pot, rattle against the sides of the bucket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Class continues. Students don’t complain that they can’t see the board. The teacher doesn’t tell the boy to sit down. Raised voices, the principal whispers, are a trigger for the boy, who before coming to Denver’s Green Valley Elementary was in a separate program for students with emotional disabilities. After about a minute and a half of softly jangling the pencils, the boy picks one. He calmly returns to his seat — and with his new pencil, begins his worksheet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is what inclusive practices look like at a Denver elementary school that is educating students with disabilities in general education classrooms, as opposed to separate special education classrooms, nearly all of the time. Denver Public Schools wants to move all of its schools in the same direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A districtwide goal\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In June, the school board passed \u003ca href=\"https://go.boarddocs.com/co/dpsk12/Board.nsf/files/BD4VUF826E1D/%24file/Board%20Resolution%20Inclusion_61219.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a resolution\u003c/a> committing the district to becoming “a model … in the nation” for inclusive practices. The resolution was inspired by a task force of parents, educators, and advocates. Their overarching \u003ca href=\"https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2019/03/18/improving-special-education-denver-task-force-suggests-more-screening-less-segregation/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recommendation\u003c/a>: Stop segregating students with disabilities when research shows including them benefits all students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Denver, like most districts, has a long way to go to get there. Only about 65% of the more than 10,000 Denver students identified as having a disability are included in the general education classroom more than 80% of the time, according to district data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district uses what it calls “center programs” to serve students with significant cognitive and emotional disabilities. The centers are separate classrooms, staffed by special education teachers and aides, where students do most of their learning. They may join their peers for lunch or recess, or for non-academic subjects like art. If they’re strong in math, they might go to the general education classroom for math lessons, but return to the center for reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A growing chorus of voices in Denver wants to blow up that model. District officials want to improve \u003ca href=\"https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2018/04/26/only-33-black-students-with-disabilities-in-denver-met-expectations-on-state-tests/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">startlingly low test scores\u003c/a> for students with disabilities. A majority of parents of students with disabilities said in a survey they want their child to spend more time in the general education classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they’re just visiting classrooms once in a while for the projects people think they can handle, they will always be just outsiders looking in,” said Taryn Omran, whose 6-year-old daughter Maayan has Down syndrome and attends Willow Elementary, an exemplar for inclusive practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was no public opposition to the resolution calling for Denver to become a national model for inclusion. But principals at schools experienced with it say some teachers initially worried if they’d be able to serve all students, especially those whose behavior could be disruptive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were unaware and uneasy about, ‘How am I going to support a student of this severe need?’” said Hammond of Green Valley Elementary. “We had a conversation with staff the next year to say, ‘This is where we’re moving. If you want to be on board, stay with us. If it’s not something you’re interested in, there are other opportunities out there we can help you find.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, three years in, Hammond said the staff is committed. That was driven home recently, he said, when he heard a second-grade teacher say about one of her students with significant disabilities, “That’s my baby.” Hammond said it brought tears to his eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What a world we would be in if every person thought about kids as, ‘That’s my baby,’” he said. “If you take that mindset into the work that we do, there is no other way but inclusion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The ‘why’ and the ‘how’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Special Education Director Robert Frantum-Allen is tasked with shepherding the change at the district level. He is a former Denver teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, and he has a disability — dyslexia — himself. He thinks most educators believe in inclusion, at least in theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the community is compelled to understand the ‘why,’” Frantum-Allen said. “Where they struggle is ‘how.’ How do I do this when we have high-stakes testing?…How do we have diverse learners in classrooms and be able to meet the rigorous standards out there?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than starting with a mandate that all schools adopt inclusive practices immediately, Frantum-Allen is focusing this year on changing educators’ mindsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the summer, the district trained all principals on the basics of inclusive practices. Principals also completed a self-evaluation and chose one or two goals to work toward. This semester, principals will read a book on inclusive practices and discuss it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some schools might perceive that they can’t serve these kids,” Frantum-Allen said. In those cases, the student is transferred from their neighborhood school to a school with a center program, which might require a long bus ride and separate the student from siblings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want the attitude or belief to be, ‘We’re going to try everything we can to keep them at this school before we make an attempt to move them,’” Frantum-Allen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Exemplar schools\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A handful of schools are already doing that. They include Green Valley and Willow, both in northeast Denver. (Willow was formerly called High Tech Elementary.) Rather than having a center program that serves students with one type of disability, such as autism, the schools take a “cross-categorical” approach to serve students with a range of disabilities. Every student is rostered to a general education classroom, where they spend as much of their day as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an expectation they participate in everything,” said Hammond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green Valley made the switch to inclusive practices after the elementary school, the city’s biggest and perennially bursting at the seams, ran out of room for its center program. The school didn’t want to lose those students, so it began exploring what it would take to keep them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, Willow was fully inclusive from the start. It opened in 2014 to serve a growing neighborhood, and its founding principal, Amy Gile, is a former special education teacher. She knew how isolating special education could be, and she didn’t want that for her school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my previous experience, we’d have a mindset of, ‘We will include students with significant disabilities when they show us they’re ready for that,’” Gile said. “It seemed to me to perpetuate some of the isolation. … We’ve reached a place where that’s not happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willow has two classrooms that in a typical school would be set aside for center programming. But they’re not used that way. One is full of gym and play equipment, including a trampoline, a giant swing, and kid-sized tents filled with stuffed animals. Any student, whether they have a disability or not, can go there with an adult if they need a break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other is used by teachers to meet with students in small groups. The school has an innovative practice called “walk to read,” wherein every student, across grade levels, gets up and walks to a small group for instruction based on their academic level. The idea is to reduce the stigma of students with disabilities being the ones to leave the classroom for extra help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willow aims to further reduce that stigma by having special education teachers co-teach math lessons alongside classroom teachers, rather than focus on helping a single student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been in places in the past where it’s like, ‘You’re Amy’s teacher. You’re here for Amy,’” said Janis Dickman, who started at Willow as a special education teacher and is now the school’s director of culture. When a special education teacher shows up under the co-teaching model, she said, “it’s like ‘You’re here because it’s math time and you teach math.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘He’s going to be OK’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Parents of students with disabilities appreciate Willow’s approach. Sharon Alvarez’s son Maurice has been at Willow since it opened. Alvarez adopted Maurice out of foster care when he was 3, and she said he’s always struggled with anger and impulse control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went to a different Denver public school for preschool, but Alvarez said that school told her it wouldn’t be able to handle Maurice in the more academic setting of kindergarten. A district administrator told Alvarez about Willow, and because the school was still under construction, Alvarez met Gile at a Starbucks. Gile, she said, told her she’d love to have Maurice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Maurice has thrived there, Alvarez said. While he still struggles with impulse control, he’s improving all the time. He has teachers he connects with, and friends who don’t ostracize him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was a child that most people would have never let in their school because he’d be so out of control,” Alvarez said. At Willow, she said, “they’d just call me and we’d work through it. I’d be so upset, thinking they’re going to kick him out. They’ve never done that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’ve always made me feel that he’s going to be OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://chalkbeat.org\">Chalkbeat\u003c/a> is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Originally posted on \u003ca href=\"https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2020/02/06/denver-public-schools-inclusion-students-with-disabilities/?utm_source=republish&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=republish\">Chalkbeat\u003c/a> by Melanie Asmar on February 6, 2020\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Principal Blake Hammond slips into the back of a quiet fifth-grade classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Second row in,” he whispers. “He’s one of our kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boy is sitting next to an aide, a blank worksheet on his desk. The teacher is in the middle of a writing lesson. “What’s the difference,” she asks the class, “between revising and editing?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boy in the second row stands up. He walks to the front of the classroom and stops in front of the board so that his head and shoulders are blocking his classmates’ view. He’s there to fish around in a small blue bucket filled with sharpened No. 2 pencils. The pencils, pointed upward like flowers in a flower pot, rattle against the sides of the bucket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Class continues. Students don’t complain that they can’t see the board. The teacher doesn’t tell the boy to sit down. Raised voices, the principal whispers, are a trigger for the boy, who before coming to Denver’s Green Valley Elementary was in a separate program for students with emotional disabilities. After about a minute and a half of softly jangling the pencils, the boy picks one. He calmly returns to his seat — and with his new pencil, begins his worksheet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is what inclusive practices look like at a Denver elementary school that is educating students with disabilities in general education classrooms, as opposed to separate special education classrooms, nearly all of the time. Denver Public Schools wants to move all of its schools in the same direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A districtwide goal\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In June, the school board passed \u003ca href=\"https://go.boarddocs.com/co/dpsk12/Board.nsf/files/BD4VUF826E1D/%24file/Board%20Resolution%20Inclusion_61219.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a resolution\u003c/a> committing the district to becoming “a model … in the nation” for inclusive practices. The resolution was inspired by a task force of parents, educators, and advocates. Their overarching \u003ca href=\"https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2019/03/18/improving-special-education-denver-task-force-suggests-more-screening-less-segregation/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recommendation\u003c/a>: Stop segregating students with disabilities when research shows including them benefits all students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Denver, like most districts, has a long way to go to get there. Only about 65% of the more than 10,000 Denver students identified as having a disability are included in the general education classroom more than 80% of the time, according to district data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district uses what it calls “center programs” to serve students with significant cognitive and emotional disabilities. The centers are separate classrooms, staffed by special education teachers and aides, where students do most of their learning. They may join their peers for lunch or recess, or for non-academic subjects like art. If they’re strong in math, they might go to the general education classroom for math lessons, but return to the center for reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A growing chorus of voices in Denver wants to blow up that model. District officials want to improve \u003ca href=\"https://chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2018/04/26/only-33-black-students-with-disabilities-in-denver-met-expectations-on-state-tests/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">startlingly low test scores\u003c/a> for students with disabilities. A majority of parents of students with disabilities said in a survey they want their child to spend more time in the general education classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they’re just visiting classrooms once in a while for the projects people think they can handle, they will always be just outsiders looking in,” said Taryn Omran, whose 6-year-old daughter Maayan has Down syndrome and attends Willow Elementary, an exemplar for inclusive practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was no public opposition to the resolution calling for Denver to become a national model for inclusion. But principals at schools experienced with it say some teachers initially worried if they’d be able to serve all students, especially those whose behavior could be disruptive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were unaware and uneasy about, ‘How am I going to support a student of this severe need?’” said Hammond of Green Valley Elementary. “We had a conversation with staff the next year to say, ‘This is where we’re moving. If you want to be on board, stay with us. If it’s not something you’re interested in, there are other opportunities out there we can help you find.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, three years in, Hammond said the staff is committed. That was driven home recently, he said, when he heard a second-grade teacher say about one of her students with significant disabilities, “That’s my baby.” Hammond said it brought tears to his eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What a world we would be in if every person thought about kids as, ‘That’s my baby,’” he said. “If you take that mindset into the work that we do, there is no other way but inclusion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The ‘why’ and the ‘how’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Special Education Director Robert Frantum-Allen is tasked with shepherding the change at the district level. He is a former Denver teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, and he has a disability — dyslexia — himself. He thinks most educators believe in inclusion, at least in theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the community is compelled to understand the ‘why,’” Frantum-Allen said. “Where they struggle is ‘how.’ How do I do this when we have high-stakes testing?…How do we have diverse learners in classrooms and be able to meet the rigorous standards out there?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than starting with a mandate that all schools adopt inclusive practices immediately, Frantum-Allen is focusing this year on changing educators’ mindsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the summer, the district trained all principals on the basics of inclusive practices. Principals also completed a self-evaluation and chose one or two goals to work toward. This semester, principals will read a book on inclusive practices and discuss it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some schools might perceive that they can’t serve these kids,” Frantum-Allen said. In those cases, the student is transferred from their neighborhood school to a school with a center program, which might require a long bus ride and separate the student from siblings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want the attitude or belief to be, ‘We’re going to try everything we can to keep them at this school before we make an attempt to move them,’” Frantum-Allen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Exemplar schools\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A handful of schools are already doing that. They include Green Valley and Willow, both in northeast Denver. (Willow was formerly called High Tech Elementary.) Rather than having a center program that serves students with one type of disability, such as autism, the schools take a “cross-categorical” approach to serve students with a range of disabilities. Every student is rostered to a general education classroom, where they spend as much of their day as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an expectation they participate in everything,” said Hammond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green Valley made the switch to inclusive practices after the elementary school, the city’s biggest and perennially bursting at the seams, ran out of room for its center program. The school didn’t want to lose those students, so it began exploring what it would take to keep them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, Willow was fully inclusive from the start. It opened in 2014 to serve a growing neighborhood, and its founding principal, Amy Gile, is a former special education teacher. She knew how isolating special education could be, and she didn’t want that for her school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my previous experience, we’d have a mindset of, ‘We will include students with significant disabilities when they show us they’re ready for that,’” Gile said. “It seemed to me to perpetuate some of the isolation. … We’ve reached a place where that’s not happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willow has two classrooms that in a typical school would be set aside for center programming. But they’re not used that way. One is full of gym and play equipment, including a trampoline, a giant swing, and kid-sized tents filled with stuffed animals. Any student, whether they have a disability or not, can go there with an adult if they need a break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other is used by teachers to meet with students in small groups. The school has an innovative practice called “walk to read,” wherein every student, across grade levels, gets up and walks to a small group for instruction based on their academic level. The idea is to reduce the stigma of students with disabilities being the ones to leave the classroom for extra help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willow aims to further reduce that stigma by having special education teachers co-teach math lessons alongside classroom teachers, rather than focus on helping a single student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been in places in the past where it’s like, ‘You’re Amy’s teacher. You’re here for Amy,’” said Janis Dickman, who started at Willow as a special education teacher and is now the school’s director of culture. When a special education teacher shows up under the co-teaching model, she said, “it’s like ‘You’re here because it’s math time and you teach math.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘He’s going to be OK’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Parents of students with disabilities appreciate Willow’s approach. Sharon Alvarez’s son Maurice has been at Willow since it opened. Alvarez adopted Maurice out of foster care when he was 3, and she said he’s always struggled with anger and impulse control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went to a different Denver public school for preschool, but Alvarez said that school told her it wouldn’t be able to handle Maurice in the more academic setting of kindergarten. A district administrator told Alvarez about Willow, and because the school was still under construction, Alvarez met Gile at a Starbucks. Gile, she said, told her she’d love to have Maurice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Maurice has thrived there, Alvarez said. While he still struggles with impulse control, he’s improving all the time. He has teachers he connects with, and friends who don’t ostracize him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was a child that most people would have never let in their school because he’d be so out of control,” Alvarez said. At Willow, she said, “they’d just call me and we’d work through it. I’d be so upset, thinking they’re going to kick him out. They’ve never done that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’ve always made me feel that he’s going to be OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Why Teachers Are So Excited About the Power Of Sketchnoting",
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"content": "\u003cp>Once a month, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/rlfreedm?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rayna Freedman\u003c/a>’s fifth-graders present their genius hour projects. They get to explore anything that interests them and present what they’ve learned to the class in whatever way they want. Freedman likes \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51827/10-ways-to-start-shifting-your-classroom-practices-little-by-little\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">genius hour projects\u003c/a> because students often get more excited about researching and sharing their knowledge about a topic that interests them. But she was never sure what the other kids were getting out of listening to the presentations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day she noticed a student in the back of the class drawing during the presentations. She went over, ready to reprimand him for not paying attention, but instead asked him what he was doing. He explained he doodles what his classmate is talking about to help him remember later. A lightbulb went on for Freedman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought that if the kids had a way to show me what they were learning, I would know what other kids were getting out of it,” Freedman said during a presentation on how she uses sketchnoting in her classroom at the \u003ca href=\"https://novemberlearning.com/education-conference/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Building Learning Communities conference\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This first step into doodling for learning has opened up an \u003ca href=\"http://msfreedmanagent24.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-sketchnoting-odyssey.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">extensive new classroom practice\u003c/a> for Freedman. She’s been encouraging students to take visual notes for only a little over a year, but she’s seen it help some students tremendously. Now she dedicates about five minutes a day for a month to sketchnote practice. She gives students lots of choices in how they want to do it -- on a whiteboard, on a digital tablet, or with paper and pencils. The point is to give them dedicated time to familiarize themselves with how they might express themselves visually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did have students complain about it,” Freedman said. But she told them that if after a month of building up their visual vocabulary and giving it a shot, they wanted to take notes in other ways, that was fine with her. In the end, many of her students chose to sketchnote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freedman has come to see sketchnoting as a bridge between early elementary, when students necessarily think visually because they are still learning to read, and middle school, where suddenly all visual thinking seems to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://carriebaughcum.com/\">\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-54658\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1700\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting.png 1700w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-160x113.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-800x565.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-768x542.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-1020x720.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-1200x847.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One of my girls at the end of the year said that, 'I learned that sketchnoting helps me remember things more,' \" Freedman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freedman uses sketchnoting resources on the website of \u003ca href=\"https://sylviaduckworth.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sylvia Duckworth\u003c/a>, a former teacher and author who has become a sketchnoting celebrity. Duckworth breaks down the elements of a sketchnote like icons, containers and font to help the artist think about organizing the sketch. Freedman has found those tools help her students organize their thinking as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My students have their own podcast and they sketchnote their segments on notecards,” she explained. Storyboarding in this segmented way allows them to move things around, finding a structure and coherence that doesn’t come as naturally when writing is the first step in the process. “They wouldn’t have been able to do that if it were on paper. They just don’t see it that way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s also found that allowing students to sketchnote an outline or first draft of a writing assignment can dramatically improve the quality of the thinking and writing she receives. Freedman says her students always want the first draft to be the final draft, and they often write the bare minimum. But when they sketch first, not only do they organize their thoughts better, but they also tend to add more detail and evidence from what they’ve read. They have a template to follow, one that didn’t feel as intimidating to make.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/gY9KdRfNN9w\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the genius project experiment, Freedman has offered sketchnoting as an option to her students in many other ways. She’s found that student sketches are a great jumping-off point to ask them more about their thinking -- they look at what they’ve drawn and can tell her far more than they used to. And, she can easily spot when there are misconceptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, she quickly realized her students didn’t understand what theme was because, when she asked them to sketchnote the story’s theme, they would draw characters and setting. That was an immediate sign to Freedman she needed to reteach the idea of theme, something she might not have known from the cryptic sentences her students used to write in response to the same kinds of questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It allows me to ask better questions because I’m not just looking at a simple answer or a paragraph,” Freedman said. “I’m trying to interpret what’s in front of me, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freedman has also found sketchnoting to be surprisingly helpful dealing with the inevitable conflicts that crop up in the middle grades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ss learning about what sketchnoting is \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/HeckAwesome?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@HeckAwesome\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/sketchnote?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#sketchnote\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/manuelherrera33?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@manuelherrera33\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/ZajacSLP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ZajacSLP\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/jjpride?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#jjpride\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/hIwdRg2vgN\">pic.twitter.com/hIwdRg2vgN\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Rayna Freedman (@rlfreedm) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/rlfreedm/status/1046782566945165312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 1, 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“I had these two girls that were up each other's throats,” Freedman said. She asked them to stay in from recess one day, but rather than lecturing them, she asked each girl to sketchnote how she was feeling. Then they each looked at the other person’s drawing and drew what it made them think. The drawings revealed the misunderstanding at the bottom of the conflict, and gave each girl enough emotional distance to truthfully express how they were feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/zajacslp?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kim Zajac\u003c/a> is the speech and language pathologist at Freedman’s school. She has also found sketchnoting to be a powerful tool for her students. One boy was regularly in conflict with other classmates. Zajac encouraged him to sketch out what happened in those interactions and to imagine and sketch alternative ways to handle it next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make it less of a criticism process and more of a social expectation process,” Zajac said. This student wouldn’t have been able to talk about how these interactions made him feel without the sketches. They gave him a concrete reference for his feelings and reactions to other kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another instance, Zojac had a student who struggled to keep his speech rate up when he presented. To support him, she first had him explain his ideas to her while she sketched them. Later, when he presented in front of the class, he had the sketch as reference, which helped him stay on track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they can just dump it out, put it in some symbolic form, then it allows them to recall it back, think deeper, and present it in a different form,” Zojac said. And for the kids she supports, who have speech and language issues, sketchnoting offers important insights into their thinking that is otherwise difficult to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It isn’t about things being pretty,” Zojac said. “It’s not about creating a piece of art. It’s about creating a piece of thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nSketchnoting With Special Needs Students\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carrie Baughcum teaches students with special learning needs at South Middle in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Her students have a range of disabilities from motor challenges, to language challenges, to emotional and behavioral issues. She usually has students for English, math, social studies and a resource class, but they are integrated into other subjects throughout the day. And, as they become more independent learners throughout their time in middle school, they often transition out to the general classroom more often.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Baughcum discovered sketchnoting, she used a fairly traditional approach with her students. She was focused on building their comprehension skills and did a lot of skill practice with them. She always saw gains and made solid progress on her students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), but she hadn’t done a lot of thinking about how to get them excited about what they were learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum had begun drawing at home with her daughters as a way of spending time with them. It was an uncomfortable experience for her. She didn’t feel like a good artist, but noticed herself improving as she kept at it. And, she loved the insight she got into her own children’s minds through their drawings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was certain that the students in my special education classroom, two to three years below grade level, that they couldn’t do it,” Baughcum said at the Building Learning Communities conference. But she decided to test the theory one year with a group of students that happened to be all boys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was one of the most challenging groups I’ve had in 20 years of teaching,” Baughcum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were reading an adapted version of Edgar Allan Poe's story, \"The Fall of the House of Usher.\" Baughcum asked her students, “What movie is playing in your head when we read this paragraph?” No one said anything. So, she started narrating out loud what she imagined as she read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_54660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1700px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-54660 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins.png\" alt=\"An example of Carrie Baughcum's students sketchnoting in the margins of a text.\" width=\"1700\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins.png 1700w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-160x113.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-800x565.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-768x542.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-1020x720.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-1200x847.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An example of Carrie Baughcum's students sketchnoting in the margins of a text. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Carrie Baughcum)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She modeled drawing those thoughts into the margin of the book. Her students dutifully copied down what she had drawn. That went on for a while. Baughcum would walk around the room and ask her students questions about what they were drawing, even though the drawings were copies of what she had described. One day, a student decided to draw something different. Baughcum calls it the “going rogue moment.” It transformed her classroom; overnight every student wanted to show that they imagined something unique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since that moment when he went rogue, all the other students embraced the idea that they had these ideas in their head and we can draw them,” Baughcum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her students didn’t have a lot of experience visualizing, but once she started asking them to do so, and they got comfortable with the idea, Baughcum has seen the practice deepen their comprehension. But, she cautions, it doesn’t always look how she expects. She's even written a guide to sketchnoting in the classroom called \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://carriebaughcum.com/book/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">My Pencil Made Me Do It\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their drawing could be so off base, but if I can go over and ask them about it, and they can connect it, then that’s the right image for them,” Baughcum said. She’s adamant that the drawings themselves are not the point. It’s the thinking behind the drawing that interests her. To keep her students focused on the process and not the product she’s careful to use phrases like “visual thinking” and “doodling to learn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum doesn’t care what the drawings look like, as long as her students can talk about the ideas they represent. She never gives feedback on the drawings themselves, only on the thinking. She often spots misconceptions in the drawings her students have made -- valuable information for her -- but also opportunities to discuss editing the drawing to fill in those comprehension holes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The conversations we have in my classroom have become richer,” Baughcum said, and there’s less lag time retrieving thoughts. She points out to students how much cognitive processing is happening as they sketchnote. They’re listening to information, making sense of it, connecting it to other information they know and to a visual image, and then drawing it. It’s an active process, which is why Baughcum has found it to be so powerful for her students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That offers this really wonderful desire to want to do it more because they’re feeling good about what they're thinking,” Baughcum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sketchnoting has changed what she expects from her students. But she acknowledges that using this practice in class is a marathon, not a race. It takes time to help students learn how to visualize, to see a picture in their heads. And, she’s worked with them to think carefully about the icons, fonts and containers they’re sketching. She wants them to have a reason for each choice they make in their sketchnote because those choices are directly connected to the material they are learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we’re sketchnoting in class I tell students is it new, is it interesting, does it make you feel something? If so, it’s probably worth taking down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum also says it’s important for teachers to sketchnote with their students. Drawing can make people feel vulnerable, so when the teacher acknowledges she’s new to this as well, and makes mistakes, it creates room for students to try new things, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Before I started sketchnoting with my students, I wasn’t really a drawer,” Baughcum said. “I have noted that opening up this new permission to draw and learn has opened up opportunities for students to show me parts of themselves they may not have shown before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_54661\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1700px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-54661\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote.png\" alt=\"A student's sketchnote.\" width=\"1700\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote.png 1700w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-160x113.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-800x565.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-768x542.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-1020x720.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-1200x847.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student's sketchnote. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Carrie Baughcum)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And she’s seen huge successes. Like the first-year student who struggled tremendously with reading. Getting through a whole paragraph was almost impossible for him. But by visualizing the story as it was read to him, doodling in the margins, and connecting the ideas on the first read-through, he could then read it on his own. Baughcum was also quick to point out that students can sketch on Post-it notes pasted into books if they aren't allowed to write in the texts themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It surprised me that my students, no matter how impaired their cognitive level might be, or their reading level might be, how well their potential to visualize and connect to doodling is,” Baughcum said. She even has students who use assistive technology to write because their motor skills make handwriting very difficult, but they can sketch. And the social worker on her team has picked up on the sketchnoting success to help make social and emotional learning themes more concrete for students as well. Students have created an icon library of their feelings that they use to express their emotions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum isn’t suggesting that every teacher drop what they’ve been doing for years to start sketchnoting. But she says if teachers open the door for sketchnoting, even allowing students to sketch as part of another note-taking strategy -- like Cornell notes -- it may be helpful to some students. She thinks of it as a layering strategy. She didn’t stop covering her curriculum to only sketchnote. She gradually exposed her students to different elements of sketchnoting, building up their visualizing capacity and organization skills by practicing it alongside existing social studies or reading activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also says teachers have to be patient with themselves and with their students. Often mindsets are the hardest things to overcome. Baughcum has had students who refuse to draw. But she’s found ways around that. One student was adamant that she could not draw, but Baughcum still wanted her to visualize because she saw how much it helped her other students in their comprehension. She let the student print out pictures and glue them to her sketchnote to make visible her thinking. And ultimately, the girl decided to give sketchnoting a shot after all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum says she’s always been a fearless teacher, ready to try anything that might help her students learn. But sketchnoting has stretched her in ways she didn’t know she needed to be stretched. It’s revealed some of her own mindsets about what she believed students with learning disabilities could and couldn’t do. Her students have shown her those beliefs just weren’t true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was never that they couldn’t do it, it was that I never gave it a try to see if they could,” Baughcum said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Many teachers are using sketchnoting or \"doodling for learning\" in their classrooms as a way to make thinking visible. Many are finding the practice improves memory, engagement and comprehension.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Once a month, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/rlfreedm?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rayna Freedman\u003c/a>’s fifth-graders present their genius hour projects. They get to explore anything that interests them and present what they’ve learned to the class in whatever way they want. Freedman likes \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51827/10-ways-to-start-shifting-your-classroom-practices-little-by-little\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">genius hour projects\u003c/a> because students often get more excited about researching and sharing their knowledge about a topic that interests them. But she was never sure what the other kids were getting out of listening to the presentations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day she noticed a student in the back of the class drawing during the presentations. She went over, ready to reprimand him for not paying attention, but instead asked him what he was doing. He explained he doodles what his classmate is talking about to help him remember later. A lightbulb went on for Freedman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought that if the kids had a way to show me what they were learning, I would know what other kids were getting out of it,” Freedman said during a presentation on how she uses sketchnoting in her classroom at the \u003ca href=\"https://novemberlearning.com/education-conference/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Building Learning Communities conference\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This first step into doodling for learning has opened up an \u003ca href=\"http://msfreedmanagent24.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-sketchnoting-odyssey.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">extensive new classroom practice\u003c/a> for Freedman. She’s been encouraging students to take visual notes for only a little over a year, but she’s seen it help some students tremendously. Now she dedicates about five minutes a day for a month to sketchnote practice. She gives students lots of choices in how they want to do it -- on a whiteboard, on a digital tablet, or with paper and pencils. The point is to give them dedicated time to familiarize themselves with how they might express themselves visually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did have students complain about it,” Freedman said. But she told them that if after a month of building up their visual vocabulary and giving it a shot, they wanted to take notes in other ways, that was fine with her. In the end, many of her students chose to sketchnote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freedman has come to see sketchnoting as a bridge between early elementary, when students necessarily think visually because they are still learning to read, and middle school, where suddenly all visual thinking seems to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://carriebaughcum.com/\">\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-54658\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1700\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting.png 1700w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-160x113.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-800x565.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-768x542.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-1020x720.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/what-sketchnoting-1200x847.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One of my girls at the end of the year said that, 'I learned that sketchnoting helps me remember things more,' \" Freedman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freedman uses sketchnoting resources on the website of \u003ca href=\"https://sylviaduckworth.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sylvia Duckworth\u003c/a>, a former teacher and author who has become a sketchnoting celebrity. Duckworth breaks down the elements of a sketchnote like icons, containers and font to help the artist think about organizing the sketch. Freedman has found those tools help her students organize their thinking as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My students have their own podcast and they sketchnote their segments on notecards,” she explained. Storyboarding in this segmented way allows them to move things around, finding a structure and coherence that doesn’t come as naturally when writing is the first step in the process. “They wouldn’t have been able to do that if it were on paper. They just don’t see it that way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s also found that allowing students to sketchnote an outline or first draft of a writing assignment can dramatically improve the quality of the thinking and writing she receives. Freedman says her students always want the first draft to be the final draft, and they often write the bare minimum. But when they sketch first, not only do they organize their thoughts better, but they also tend to add more detail and evidence from what they’ve read. They have a template to follow, one that didn’t feel as intimidating to make.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/gY9KdRfNN9w\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the genius project experiment, Freedman has offered sketchnoting as an option to her students in many other ways. She’s found that student sketches are a great jumping-off point to ask them more about their thinking -- they look at what they’ve drawn and can tell her far more than they used to. And, she can easily spot when there are misconceptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, she quickly realized her students didn’t understand what theme was because, when she asked them to sketchnote the story’s theme, they would draw characters and setting. That was an immediate sign to Freedman she needed to reteach the idea of theme, something she might not have known from the cryptic sentences her students used to write in response to the same kinds of questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It allows me to ask better questions because I’m not just looking at a simple answer or a paragraph,” Freedman said. “I’m trying to interpret what’s in front of me, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freedman has also found sketchnoting to be surprisingly helpful dealing with the inevitable conflicts that crop up in the middle grades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ss learning about what sketchnoting is \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/HeckAwesome?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@HeckAwesome\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/sketchnote?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#sketchnote\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/manuelherrera33?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@manuelherrera33\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/ZajacSLP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ZajacSLP\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/jjpride?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#jjpride\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/hIwdRg2vgN\">pic.twitter.com/hIwdRg2vgN\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Rayna Freedman (@rlfreedm) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/rlfreedm/status/1046782566945165312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 1, 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“I had these two girls that were up each other's throats,” Freedman said. She asked them to stay in from recess one day, but rather than lecturing them, she asked each girl to sketchnote how she was feeling. Then they each looked at the other person’s drawing and drew what it made them think. The drawings revealed the misunderstanding at the bottom of the conflict, and gave each girl enough emotional distance to truthfully express how they were feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/zajacslp?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kim Zajac\u003c/a> is the speech and language pathologist at Freedman’s school. She has also found sketchnoting to be a powerful tool for her students. One boy was regularly in conflict with other classmates. Zajac encouraged him to sketch out what happened in those interactions and to imagine and sketch alternative ways to handle it next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make it less of a criticism process and more of a social expectation process,” Zajac said. This student wouldn’t have been able to talk about how these interactions made him feel without the sketches. They gave him a concrete reference for his feelings and reactions to other kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another instance, Zojac had a student who struggled to keep his speech rate up when he presented. To support him, she first had him explain his ideas to her while she sketched them. Later, when he presented in front of the class, he had the sketch as reference, which helped him stay on track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they can just dump it out, put it in some symbolic form, then it allows them to recall it back, think deeper, and present it in a different form,” Zojac said. And for the kids she supports, who have speech and language issues, sketchnoting offers important insights into their thinking that is otherwise difficult to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It isn’t about things being pretty,” Zojac said. “It’s not about creating a piece of art. It’s about creating a piece of thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nSketchnoting With Special Needs Students\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carrie Baughcum teaches students with special learning needs at South Middle in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Her students have a range of disabilities from motor challenges, to language challenges, to emotional and behavioral issues. She usually has students for English, math, social studies and a resource class, but they are integrated into other subjects throughout the day. And, as they become more independent learners throughout their time in middle school, they often transition out to the general classroom more often.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Baughcum discovered sketchnoting, she used a fairly traditional approach with her students. She was focused on building their comprehension skills and did a lot of skill practice with them. She always saw gains and made solid progress on her students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), but she hadn’t done a lot of thinking about how to get them excited about what they were learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum had begun drawing at home with her daughters as a way of spending time with them. It was an uncomfortable experience for her. She didn’t feel like a good artist, but noticed herself improving as she kept at it. And, she loved the insight she got into her own children’s minds through their drawings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was certain that the students in my special education classroom, two to three years below grade level, that they couldn’t do it,” Baughcum said at the Building Learning Communities conference. But she decided to test the theory one year with a group of students that happened to be all boys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was one of the most challenging groups I’ve had in 20 years of teaching,” Baughcum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were reading an adapted version of Edgar Allan Poe's story, \"The Fall of the House of Usher.\" Baughcum asked her students, “What movie is playing in your head when we read this paragraph?” No one said anything. So, she started narrating out loud what she imagined as she read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_54660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1700px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-54660 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins.png\" alt=\"An example of Carrie Baughcum's students sketchnoting in the margins of a text.\" width=\"1700\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins.png 1700w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-160x113.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-800x565.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-768x542.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-1020x720.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-margins-1200x847.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An example of Carrie Baughcum's students sketchnoting in the margins of a text. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Carrie Baughcum)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She modeled drawing those thoughts into the margin of the book. Her students dutifully copied down what she had drawn. That went on for a while. Baughcum would walk around the room and ask her students questions about what they were drawing, even though the drawings were copies of what she had described. One day, a student decided to draw something different. Baughcum calls it the “going rogue moment.” It transformed her classroom; overnight every student wanted to show that they imagined something unique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since that moment when he went rogue, all the other students embraced the idea that they had these ideas in their head and we can draw them,” Baughcum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her students didn’t have a lot of experience visualizing, but once she started asking them to do so, and they got comfortable with the idea, Baughcum has seen the practice deepen their comprehension. But, she cautions, it doesn’t always look how she expects. She's even written a guide to sketchnoting in the classroom called \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://carriebaughcum.com/book/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">My Pencil Made Me Do It\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their drawing could be so off base, but if I can go over and ask them about it, and they can connect it, then that’s the right image for them,” Baughcum said. She’s adamant that the drawings themselves are not the point. It’s the thinking behind the drawing that interests her. To keep her students focused on the process and not the product she’s careful to use phrases like “visual thinking” and “doodling to learn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum doesn’t care what the drawings look like, as long as her students can talk about the ideas they represent. She never gives feedback on the drawings themselves, only on the thinking. She often spots misconceptions in the drawings her students have made -- valuable information for her -- but also opportunities to discuss editing the drawing to fill in those comprehension holes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The conversations we have in my classroom have become richer,” Baughcum said, and there’s less lag time retrieving thoughts. She points out to students how much cognitive processing is happening as they sketchnote. They’re listening to information, making sense of it, connecting it to other information they know and to a visual image, and then drawing it. It’s an active process, which is why Baughcum has found it to be so powerful for her students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That offers this really wonderful desire to want to do it more because they’re feeling good about what they're thinking,” Baughcum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sketchnoting has changed what she expects from her students. But she acknowledges that using this practice in class is a marathon, not a race. It takes time to help students learn how to visualize, to see a picture in their heads. And, she’s worked with them to think carefully about the icons, fonts and containers they’re sketching. She wants them to have a reason for each choice they make in their sketchnote because those choices are directly connected to the material they are learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we’re sketchnoting in class I tell students is it new, is it interesting, does it make you feel something? If so, it’s probably worth taking down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum also says it’s important for teachers to sketchnote with their students. Drawing can make people feel vulnerable, so when the teacher acknowledges she’s new to this as well, and makes mistakes, it creates room for students to try new things, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Before I started sketchnoting with my students, I wasn’t really a drawer,” Baughcum said. “I have noted that opening up this new permission to draw and learn has opened up opportunities for students to show me parts of themselves they may not have shown before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_54661\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1700px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-54661\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote.png\" alt=\"A student's sketchnote.\" width=\"1700\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote.png 1700w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-160x113.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-800x565.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-768x542.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-1020x720.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2019/10/baughcum-student-sketchnote-1200x847.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student's sketchnote. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Carrie Baughcum)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And she’s seen huge successes. Like the first-year student who struggled tremendously with reading. Getting through a whole paragraph was almost impossible for him. But by visualizing the story as it was read to him, doodling in the margins, and connecting the ideas on the first read-through, he could then read it on his own. Baughcum was also quick to point out that students can sketch on Post-it notes pasted into books if they aren't allowed to write in the texts themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It surprised me that my students, no matter how impaired their cognitive level might be, or their reading level might be, how well their potential to visualize and connect to doodling is,” Baughcum said. She even has students who use assistive technology to write because their motor skills make handwriting very difficult, but they can sketch. And the social worker on her team has picked up on the sketchnoting success to help make social and emotional learning themes more concrete for students as well. Students have created an icon library of their feelings that they use to express their emotions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum isn’t suggesting that every teacher drop what they’ve been doing for years to start sketchnoting. But she says if teachers open the door for sketchnoting, even allowing students to sketch as part of another note-taking strategy -- like Cornell notes -- it may be helpful to some students. She thinks of it as a layering strategy. She didn’t stop covering her curriculum to only sketchnote. She gradually exposed her students to different elements of sketchnoting, building up their visualizing capacity and organization skills by practicing it alongside existing social studies or reading activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also says teachers have to be patient with themselves and with their students. Often mindsets are the hardest things to overcome. Baughcum has had students who refuse to draw. But she’s found ways around that. One student was adamant that she could not draw, but Baughcum still wanted her to visualize because she saw how much it helped her other students in their comprehension. She let the student print out pictures and glue them to her sketchnote to make visible her thinking. And ultimately, the girl decided to give sketchnoting a shot after all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baughcum says she’s always been a fearless teacher, ready to try anything that might help her students learn. But sketchnoting has stretched her in ways she didn’t know she needed to be stretched. It’s revealed some of her own mindsets about what she believed students with learning disabilities could and couldn’t do. Her students have shown her those beliefs just weren’t true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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