Tuesday AM News: NCLB scores and grades, Curie, Oprah, Freedom to blossom

Making grade just got easier Tribune
A record number of Illinois schools escaped federal No Child Left Behind sanctions this school year, largely because of changes in how schools are judged and alterations that made state achievement exams easier for students to pass.

How does your score compare? Tribune
This year, for the first time, parents of elementary pupils can see how their child performed compared to pupils around the country.

Scores stagnant at high schools Tribune
In a year when elementary schools posted record high gains on state tests, scores for Illinois' high schools continue to remain flat.

Decision to fire principal doesn't look good, so far Tribune
So far, it looks like the local school council at Curie Metropolitan High School is out of control. As you may have read, the LSC--a citizen governing board--has voted along racial lines not to renew the contract of an esteemed, veteran principal without giving the community one good reason.

Is Oprah's African school too strict for students? Sun Times

Oprah Winfrey says her new private girls school in South Africa is about "building dreams" and creating a new generation of leaders. Former South African President Nelson Mandela has called it one of the keys to his nation's future.

No Child scores soar, some credit tests  Sun Times
Significantly more Illinois schools hit testing goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law in 2006 than ever before, new state data released today shows.

Students given freedom to blossom Sun Times
By 7:30 a.m., Principal James "Jay'' Lalley is standing in his usual spot, in the front foyer of Chicago's Northside College Prep, greeting kids with a "Good morning'' as they stroll in the door before the 7:55 a.m. start of class.

Comments

[Rod Estvan]

Access Living sent out to the Sun Times the following letter on test scores today:

March 14, 2007

Letters to the Editor
Chicago Sun-Times
350 N. Orleans
Chicago IL 60654

The Sun-Times in its coverage of the 2006 state test results noted in passing that every subgroup improved performance over 2005, except for students with disabilities. In general, for the subgroup of students with disabilities, progress is measured by the extent they close the achievement gap with their non-disabled peers and the percentage of these students who tested at or above state standards.

The achievement gap for CPS students with disabilities relative to CPS students without disabilities has in fact been increasing since 2001. There has been an extremely small increase in the percentage of CPS students with disabilities reaching state standards since 2001, but there has been a significant improvement in the state mandated test scores of their non-disabled CPS peers. Reading scores for CPS students with disabilities are generally lower than for disabled students educated outside of Chicago.

The 2006 CPS district report card now indicates that 7% of high school juniors with disabilities can read at or above state standards. In 2001 only 4.6% of these CPS students were at or above state standards in reading. Clearly this dismal progress is not much to cheer about. It is even more distressing when one understands that the most seriously disabled students in CPS are given an alternative test that has been created by the state, many students with disabilities are provided with legally appropriate testing modifications, and a good number of students with disabilities have dropped out by their junior year.

Instead of providing additional resources for these students to succeed academically CPS has reduced these resources. Access Living last year opposed a $26 million dollar reduction for special education staff that was included in CPS FY07 budget. During the course of the school year CPS has reinstated some of these cut positions, but far from all were restored. Access Living along with all other disability advocacy organizations in Chicago, parents, and high school aged students with disabilities opposed these cuts because students with disabilities attending CPS were being left academically behind even before the budget cuts were approved by CPS.

It is time for the Chicago Board of Education to take ownership for the academic
achievement of the over fifty thousand students with disabilities attending public schools.
Yours truly,

Rodney D. Estvan
Education Outreach Coordinator

[kathleenclearypowers]

It is impossible for a special education teacher no matter how hard he or she works to meet the needs of 20+ inclusion students. The caseloads need to be lowered in our inclusion programs. The suburbs follow state law and treat inclusion programs as instructional programs and set a limit of 12 children. CPS is saving a lot of monies by treating inclusion programs as resource programs with caseloads of 22. Special education children are dumped into gen ed rooms with little or no support.
When the special education teacher is not with a group of children an aide needs to be in the general education classroom. In order for some children to access the general education curriculum they may neeed to be assigned one on one aides.(It is an exercise in futility to try to get an aide for an LD child.)
A general education teacher is not trained nor should she be expected to meet the needs of 8 special education inclusion students and 25 general education students when the special education teacher is spread out between three classrooms. Maybe this is why our special education students do not make AYP.

Hear, hear. And it gets exponentially worse in high schools, where the special education teachers may be spread among a full day of classes, and the regular teacher is dealing with 50 or more students with disabilities among the 150 or so students they see in a day. In some neighborhood high schools, the percentage of students with disabilities is as high as 40 percent.

My school was down a special ed teacher at the beginning of the year, and I was told I couldn't send failure notices on some kids because they hadn't had their required numbers of minutes as specified in their IEPs.

[fedupwithspeded]

This is so sad.

The drop of scores at Jones College Prep. is unbelievable. I wonder why the sudden drop?

[anniesullivan]

How many special education teachers left CPS in the last four years?
What is ISBE doing as far as monitoring CPS?

What are the parent advocacy groups doing in regards to special education?

What is the CTU doing to make working conditions better for special education teachers?

Has the CTU filed any grievances dealing with special education?

Are there any contract proposals that would help special education teachers in CPS?

Any answers will be greatly appreciated.

Does being laid off/fired count as leaving?

Even so, with all the area specialists they demoted to teacher coach positions (resulting in school support brain drain) it might look on paper like there was little movement at all.

Advocacy groups? That would be Rod, who only blogs to say don't blame Special ed leaders for taking bonuses to chop, because they are only 'following orders'.

Special Ed is responsible for making leadership aware of the implications of these cuts, not take money to keep the parents and protesters away.

That Al Gore movie featured a great quote from Upton Sinclair;
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

[kathleen clearypowers]

Re:6:18 The quote is all too true starting with school special education staff then to the regional special education personnel up to OSS. It has always amazed me that people will sell their souls for so little...

It is impossible to teach 5 classes, manage a caseload of 20, and collaborate with teachers in the 100 classrooms my caseload students are placed into during the day. I have not "sold my soul" I am doing the best I can do. My students are being shortchanged and I am exhausted. I took the case to the CTU today. I asked that the new contract address the problems in special education work load. They said I should take it to the LSC and ask them to appropriate funds to increase special education staffing if we needed help. We all know, if it's not in the contract, it's not going to happen.

[anniesullivan]

10:08 At least you care enough to try to get help for your students. I am sure the reference to "selling one's soul" is referring to those who shrug their shoulders and do nothing about special education abuses especially members of staffing teams who agree to IEPs that DO NOT meet the needs of the child.

CTU really told you to take it to the LSC!? Classic.

[George N Schmidt]

Thanks to Access Living and people here for filling in some details about the impact of the special education neglect in CPS.

Although the data analyzed by Access Living come from the 2005-2006 school year, they are probably a chilling prediction of what we will see if and when Illinois ever compiles the data from the tests that are being given now.

Please, let's not forget that one year ago, Arne Duncan was going around to the media and other publics claiming that he was being forced to cut $26.5 million in special education services in the upcoming budget, and that principals were being forced into a Procrustian Bed based on the "audit" forced on special education services out of the budget office (viz., Pedro and Tyra). By the way, when the Board's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report was finally released last month (to no media coverage) it showed, among other things, that Arne's "deficit" claims of a year ago and all those hoops the principals faced were unnecessary. As some of us said at the time, during the budget hearings in June, and at the Board meeting on June 28 -- these cuts are (and were) unnecessary.

Lies like that, no matter how carefully crafted, have terrifying consequences in the real lives of real children and the real people who work daily with those children. When those children are disabled, there should be as much of an outcry against the mistreatment of them as there recently was against the mistreatment of the war veterans who are coming home with disabilites.

Mistreating disabled people is unconscionable.

This week I have a hunch we are seeing another example of the impact of those CPS decisions.

I've been reviewing the current status of the special education non-teacher cuts from last summer and fall.

Only about 20 percent of the Child Welfare Attendants, Special Education Classroom Assistants, and bus aides are back at work after the vicious cuts that were made under the budget proposed by Arne Duncan and approved by the Board of Education June 28. Remember, all of the workers cut were experienced and trained, many of them having spent years at certain schools and with certain children. Despite all the nonsense mouthed by CPS representatives in court and in the media, the impacts were, in many cases, devastating.

As people here know, that budget was driven by a "bottom line" philosophy that maintained, in the face of the reality of special needs children and federal law, that a one-on-one aide was a waste of money. CPS people briefed the media to that effect, without regard to the actual needs of real children, the Corey H consent decree, or six years of ISBE findings that Chicago was out of compliance with Corey H.

It may be true that many of the discipline problems that are causing trouble in the upper grades and in the high schools are the result of these cuts. As classroom teachers have reported, it's challenging enough to have these children included when they have aides. When Arne and the Board cut those aides, it becomes impossible to provide for those children.

So: The problem may manifest itself again this year, and in more ways than just ISAT and Prairie State scores.

But other manifestations are probably taking place before our eyes, only we are failing to "connect the dots."

Is it reasonable to suspect that CPS has created discipline problems where there was once a legal and humane solution?

[helenkeller]

Special education students are entitiled to attend high school until they are 21. If they need aides but do not have them or the special education teacher is overloaded and can not service these students they will drop out. Then CPS saves lots of money. What a scam!

[fedupwithspeded]

How can CPS load blended preschool rooms with 13 gen ed pre-schoolers AND 7 special education pre-schoolers? What is the teacher student ratio?

I agree that it is impossible to meet the needs of the number of students that a special education teacher is giving and individualize in a way that true progress is possible. In addition the test (ISAT) is not normed to the special education population and therefore the test results are not valid. Reputable test designers know that this is a unique population and norming has to be carefully. For example, I have a letter from Millers Analogy stating that the results are invalid for the Learning Disabled population. One test should not be the be all and end all and determining progress for any group of students.

I also think that it is unfair that English speaking students are held back if ISAT scores are too low in 3rd, 6th and 8th grade but bilingual students are promoted even if their scores are low on IMAGE. I would think a discrimination lawsuit would be very viable. Either no students should be held back based on scores or the bilingual students should be held to similiar standards using their test.

[a mom]

AnnieS - You asked: "What are the parent advocacy groups doing in regards to special education?" What are the main parent advocacy groups on sped rights in CPS? I'm very interested in connecting with them and stepping up to the plate.