On Special Education

Late last year I wrote an article on "universal design for learning," an educational philosophy that promotes using technology to supplement teaching materials and make them accessible to all types of students. UDL had found support among several disability advocacy organizations, who wanted the concept included in the reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Ricki Sabia, an advocate with the National Down Syndrome Society, just sent me a link that shows an example of universally designed texts created by the Center for Applied Special Technology in Wakefield, Mass., which has spearheaded the UDL movement.

This is really quite cool. As Ricki noted, the site offers text-to-speech technology, pop-up definitions of words, comprehension questions at four levels of difficulty, links to encyclopedia entries and translations between English and Spanish. It's a great example of the promise that UDL offers to make educational materials broadly useful. And it's fun, too -- I'm enjoying going through "The Tell-Tale Heart," one of my favorite spooky stories from middle school, and clicking on all the extra resources included as part of the text.

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My colleague David Hoff has a great article on our Web site now about a group that contends Asian-American children are being shortchanged under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund noted that the NCLB provisions for tracking ethnic subgroups are not adequate for Asians, and that Asian children who are English-language learners may have different needs and struggle in different areas than Hispanic students. Too often, the group contends, the unique struggles of Asian children are ignored because they're often seen as "model minorities."

This complaint reminds me of what I've heard from some disability advocates. Monitoring students with disabilities is the only way they feel they can get schools to care about their kids. There's real concern, though, that all the "flexibility" in the law may mean that children with disabilities will be left out in the cold.

It'll be fascinating to see what will happen to NCLB under a new administration, especially for students with disabilities. Right now, the candidates are full of promises, but offer few details. I've already told my friend Michele McNeil that I will have to deploy audience members strategically during any potential town hall meetings to grill the candidates about special education.

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I was excited to see an article about disability advocates' view of No Child Left Behind in the Washington Post earlier this week. It offers an interesting perspective about what the federal law has meant for children with disabilities. One of the articles featured source-extraordinaire Ricki Sabia, the associate director of the National Down Syndrome Society Public Policy Center. I've had the pleasure of interviewing Sabia several times.

An accompanying article asked whether a push toward inclusion by a local school district has, indeed, left some children behind who might be better served in "special schools" with other children who have disabilities. It's clear from parents quoted in the story that they believe inclusion isn't a panacea.

You can read my earlier take on the issue of NCLB reauthorization and children with disabilities here.

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The reauthorization of No Child Left Behind may have stalled, but that's not stopping education groups from trying to mold the law in their favor.

One of the latest suggestions for an amendment, backed by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, would start a pilot program to allow "out-of-level testing" for students with disabilities. The chief sponsor of H.R. 4100 is Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat from California. The bill is sitting in committee.

Under the pilot program, a 6th grade student reading at a 3rd grade level could take a 3rd grade reading test. This wouldn't count for adequate yearly progress, the bill states--the results would just be studied to see how fast the students in the pilot move toward grade-level proficiency.

Nancy Reder, the governmental relations head for NASDSE, was straightforward in saying that her organization wasn't trying to drum up support among disability advocacy groups. (She already knows they won't like it. Teachers won't push toward grade-level standards if the tests aren't there to hold them responsible, these groups believe.)

The U.S. Department of Education also has come down against out-of-grade-level testing. Even the "2 percent tests" that states are allowed to administer to slower learners must measure grade-level standards, although with simpler language and less complex problems than the regular grade-level tests.

"We support high expectations for students with disabilities, but there needs to be an element of realism in how kids are assessed," Reder said. And giving a grade-level assessment to students who are clearly behind is meaningless, she said.

"We're more interested in teaching kids where they are," she said.

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