{"id":10868,"date":"2014-03-06T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T13:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=10868"},"modified":"2014-03-06T10:09:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-06T14:09:00","slug":"children-with-disabilities-learn-succeed-how-baltimore-public-schools-are-transforming-special-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/children-with-disabilities-learn-succeed-how-baltimore-public-schools-are-transforming-special-ed\/","title":{"rendered":"Children with Disabilities Learn &#038; Succeed! How Baltimore Public Schools are Transforming Special Ed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Children%20with%20Disabilities%20Learn%20%26%20Succeed%21%20How%20Baltimore%20Public%20Schools%20are%20Transforming%20Special%20Ed\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>&#8211; by guest blogger Kalman R. Hettleman, former member of the Baltimore school board, former state human resources secretary, and tireless advocate for children with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>We encourage you to download <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abell.org\/pubsitems\/ed-transspecialed1013.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Students with Disabilities Can Succeed! How Baltimore City Public Schools Is Transforming Special Education<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and the <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a title=\"Students with Disabilities Can Succeed! by Kalman Hettleman\" href=\"http:\/\/www.abell.org\/pubsitems\/arn1013-b.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">companion article by Mr. Hettleman<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in The Abell Report. We include a portion of Mr. Hettleman&#8217;s article in this post.<\/p>\n<p>To borrow from Mark Twain\u2019s quip about the weather, everyone complains that special education focuses too much on procedural compliance and too little on academic achievement, but no one does much about it.<\/p>\n<p>The One Year Plus policy of Baltimore City Public Schools described in <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a title=\"Students with Disabilities Can Succeed! How the Baltimore City Public Schools Are Transforming Special Education by Kalman R. Hettleman\" href=\"http:\/\/www.abell.org\/pubsitems\/arn1013-b.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">the Abell Report<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a title=\"Students with Disabilities Succeed! How Baltimore City Public Schools Are Transforming Special Education by Kalman Hettleman\" href=\"http:\/\/www.abell.org\/pubsitems\/ed-transspecialed1013.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">this Special Report<\/span><\/a><\/span> has the potential to breathe new life into \u201cspecial education\u201d for students with disabilities. In recent decades, waves of K-12 education reform\u2014 including the No Child Left Behind Act, charter schools, alternative teacher recruitment paths, tougher teacher evaluations, better data to drive instruction, and a stronger research base for \u201creading by nine\u201d\u2014 have produced trickle-down gains for students with disabilities. But special education, despite its lofty ideals, remains not nearly special enough.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>Raising the Bar for Academic Progress\u00a0<!--more--><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That situation could change as a result of One Year Plus, Baltimore\u2019s transformative initiative, implemented systemwide in 2012-2013. One Year Plus raises the bar dramatically for the academic progress that students with disabilities are expected to achieve. Under the policy, students who are not severely cognitively disabled have a <strong><em>right to special education services<\/em> <em>that will enable them to meet\u00a0state academic standards<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a title=\"Students with Disabilities Can Succeed! \" href=\"http:\/\/www.abell.org\/pubsitems\/arn1013-b.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">this article<\/span><\/a><\/span>, Mr. Hettleman describes how One Year Plus works and the foundations on which the policy is built. First &#8230; most students with disabilities have the cognitive ability to achieve state academic standards. Second &#8230; these students are legally entitled to specially designed instruction and other supportive services that will enable them to actually achieve the standards. These foundations are misunderstood or ignored by policymakers, parents, advocates, and even the most dedicated educators.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Low Expectations and Self-fulfilling Prophecies of Low Academic Achievement<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Special education policy is ambitious and daunting, and there are many reasons why it falls far short of its lofty aims. But one reason towers above the others: <em><strong>low expectations<\/strong><\/em>. By and large, educators fail to understand and take appropriate action to recognize the wide range of legally recognized disabilities under the federal Individuals with\u00a0Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In particular, educators [do not] distinguish between students with severe cognitive disabilities, who in general\u00a0are not able to meet the same academic standards as nondisabled peers, and students who are not severely cognitively disabled and are able to meet the standards with the right supports.<\/p>\n<p>The line between them is not easy to draw and generates controversy. What is clear, though, is that the public prominence of the most severe disabilities\u2014like intellectual impairment, severe autism, and multiple disabilities\u2014masks a big surprise: <strong><em>Students with the most severe disabilities comprise only about 20 percent of all students with disabilities<\/em>.<\/strong> The National Center on Educational Outcomes, the leading research organization on accountability for the achievement of students with disabilities, concludes, \u201c<em>The vast majority of special education students (80-85 percent) can meet the same achievement standards as other students if they are given specially designed instruction, appropriate access, supports, and accommodations, as required by IDEA<\/em>.\u201d (italics added)[1] But they don\u2019t receive what they are entitled to, and therefore perform far below their cognitive potential.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Most students with disabilities have the cognitive ability to meet state standards<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Who are the 80 to 85 percent of students with disabilities who\u00a0have the cognitive ability to achieve state academic standards if they receive appropriate instruction and other supports?<\/p>\n<p>They are generally students with the following disabilities or a combination of them: Specific Learning Disability, ADHD, Speech\/Language Impairment, and Emotional Disturbance.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, most of these students fail to come close to meeting grade-level standards. Nationally, the number of all students with disabilities scoring at proficiency on state tests is <em>30 to 40 percent lower than their nondisabled peers<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Most revealing, students in the largest category of disabilities\u2014 those identified as having a Specific Learning Disability (LD) such as dyslexia\u2014have cognitive abilities that range from low average to above average. Yet, national data show that in high school, at least one-fifth of them are reading at five or more grade levels below their enrolled grade level, and close to half are three or more grades below. <em>Students with an LD are on average 3.4 years behind their enrolled grade level in reading and 3.2 years behind in math<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In addition,\u00a0students with disabilities drop out at about twice the rate of their non-disabled peers.[2]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8211; by guest blogger Kalman R. Hettleman, former member of the Baltimore school board, former state human resources secretary, and tireless advocate for children with disabilities. We encourage you to <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/children-with-disabilities-learn-succeed-how-baltimore-public-schools-are-transforming-special-ed\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[1128,1136,1127,243,1137,1138,66,1135],"class_list":["post-10868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-policy","tag-reading-by-nine","tag-baltimore-city-public-schools","tag-education-reform","tag-kalman-hettleman","tag-low-academic-achievement","tag-low-expectations","tag-nclb","tag-one-year-plus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10868"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11208,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10868\/revisions\/11208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}