Let's begin with a point of clarification...the last audit of our school system by the Virginia Department of Education, was "a scathing report pointing out six areas where the ACPS public-school system failed to meet federal standards" the results of which were based on the status of our city's schools pre-Sherman. So, while we at The Underground are profoundly disappointed by the Superintendent's lack of accountability to the citizenry (not a word in response to the ten questions posted, last week on this blog), we do not/cannot extend our disappointment to data driven by ineptitude that predated Sherman's arrival.
We will however jump all over Sherman for his feeble and disingenuous attempt at addressing a key component of the latest audit--discipline. According to the Department of Education, "When the last audit was conducted, a special education student in Alexandria was three times as likely to be suspended than a student without a disability." No credible argument can be offered that this is not an area of grave concern with no less than all students' civil rights and physical well-being at stake.
According to Michael Pope's recent article in the Alexandria Gazette, "When auditors arrive in Alexandria next week, they will find two new programs in place that Sherman says have been successful in reducing the number of discipline referrals for special-education students. One is called Response to intervention and the other Positive Behavioral Intervention Support."http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/articleprint.asp?article=349263&paper=59&cat=104
While the severity of the discipline crisis among our special education students cries out for serious, school based interventions that are both proven and feasible Mort Sherman has instead turned, yet again, to the world of profit-driven, money-focused, quick fix, gimmicky programs.
Just read what Jay Greene, endowed chair and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. has to say about Response to Intervention.
" My point is that the systems that school districts have adopted for the evaluation and identification of disabilities are shaped by these financial incentives so that even well-meaning practitioners will tend to over-identify disabilities when there are financial rewards for doing so.
Of course, RTI does nothing to address these financial incentives for increasing special ed enrollments. In fact, it may contribute to those perverse incentives because schools are rewarded even more by placing more students in special education because they now get to divert 15% of that money for general education, which is essentially fungible. And to make matters worse, diverting 15% of special education money away from disabled students may short-change truly disabled students who need those resources."
Next, is the program with which I have quite a bit of firsthand knowledge and experience, Positive Behavioral Intervention Support or PBIS. This is the program, as it is implemented in our schools, that bestows instant and long-term rewards (toys, toys, trinkets, privileges) upon students whenever they demonstrate a modicum of socially acceptable behavior. At some schools there is a gift/toy catalog that recalcitrant students pore over before robbing some decent child of his PBIS tickets and later exchanging them for gifts and toys.
In their article, Positive Behavior Support, A Paternalistic Utopian Vision, the authors (Mulick and Butter of OSU and Columbus Children's Hospital) point out that "PBS is not a science, but rather a form of illusion that leads to dangerously biased decision making. What little benefit in education or community service settings PBS practitioners might be able to provide is more than offset by the cost to them and their students of distorting the reality of the very behavioral processes they seek to alter and use to benefit people with disabilities."
These studies concerning the two programs ostensibly put in place to help our special education population, exposes them for what they are--costly, ineffective and, in some cases, harmful approaches to a deep rooted crisis. Rather than solicit input from those with the most at stake, here, the parents and teachers, we witness Sherman executing the 'end around', again. Force programs down the throats of all, without assessing needs or efficacy, keep the public out of the loop, spend money unfettered and expect everyone affected to shut up.
I witnessed the unthinkable at a recent school board hearing. A father deigned to speak to the board about his child at James K. Polk, inappropriately placed in the 'mainstream' classroom and enduring little success and many hardships. When he finished his very moving testimony, Sherman said nothing, indeed never changed expression and the gentleman was thanked for his time by Ms. Ffolkes and forgotten.
"I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way."
— Voltaire Note- One point of clarification on the statistic that "a special education student in Alexandria is three times as likely to be suspended than a student without a disability." That's not a statistic from the Virginia Department of Education. It comes from an Alexandria Gazette Packet story from September 2009that combined data from the Washington Area Boards of Education with statistics from ACPS to show the disproportionate nature of discipline in the school system.
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