California Department of Education, Special Education Division’s special project, California Services for Technical Assistance and Training (CalSTAT) is funded through a contract with the Napa County Office of Education. CalSTAT is partially funded from federal funds, State Grants #H027A080116A. Additional federal funds are provided from a federal competitively awarded State Personnel Development Grant to California (#H323A070011) provided from the U.S. Department of Education Part D of the Individuals with Disabilities Education act (IDEA). Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the U. S. Department of Education.
Article List
By Edward Fergus, PhD, Deputy Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University
Since 1968 when Lloyd Dunn* brought to the attention of educators the over-representation
of students of particular ethnicities in special education, countless research
studies and reports—federal, state, and district—have documented the various facets of
educational practice that influence these rates. Based on this work, we know
a great deal about the effect of disproportionality on the educational and
social mobility of racial and ethnic minority groups. For example, students
in these groups are less likely to receive access to a rigorous and full curriculum,
and they are more likely to have limited academic and postsecondary opportunities,
limited interaction with “abled” or academically mainstreamed peers, and an
increased sense of social stigmatization. Finally, these students are also
more likely to be identified as needing special education services, saddling
them with a disabilities label throughout their remaining school years.
Even though we are not clear about how or why disproportionality happens, we do know the impact of disproportional representation on Black, Latino, and Native American students in special education. Researchers have added students who come from low-income families to that list, as well. Because the impact of disproportionality is generally negative, we have to examine how our educational policies and practices may be placing these racial and ethnic minority and low-income students at risk. Since 2004 this examination has been the work of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education (also known as the Technical Assistance Center on Disproportionality, at www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/tacd).
Our work at the center has involved helping school districts cited for disproportionality to
(1) understand the citation; (2) identify the root causes of this outcome; (3) develop a strategic plan for addressing the root causes; and (4) implement the plan and develop capacity to continuously monitor rates of disproportionality. Over the past six years we have developed and piloted a data-driven process for identifying disproportionality’s root causes, a process that has also given us insight into the driving forces (internal and external to a school district) behind these root causes. Our work has focused on examining various areas of the schooling process in order to understand the interaction of school practice and student outcomes.
We looked at three areas:
Endemic to most school districts is the question of instructional “wellness,” which includes responsiveness. Does—and can—the instruction maximize the learning capacity of all students? In our data-driven process of determining root causes, there were multiple causes related to the effectiveness of curriculum and instruction that emerged as contributing to disproportionality rates.
1. Minimally articulated core curriculum and lack of consistent support of
teaching ability
Due to various factors, many school districts did not have in place a current
curriculum or instructional approach that considered the range of ability
among learners. As a result, students who persistently could not attain proficiency
on the state exam were promptly considered for special education services.
Additionally, some districts were continuously changing or adding curriculum,
assessment, and instructional strategies from year to year. Although every
school district contends with such changes, we found that in the districts
we studied such structural changes affected struggling learners the most.
For example, students at the lowest quartile of performance were receiving
services to address skill deficiencies while curricular and assessment programs
were simultaneously changing. Therefore, instructional staff were going through
their own steep learning curve regarding new curriculum and/or assessment
while they were working with students to address skill deficiencies based
on the prior curriculum or assessment.
Remedy: Identify and sustain the implementation of appropriate reading and
math core programs that are sequenced for kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Additionally, sequence and sustain support for nontenured and tenured teachers
to build their ability to effectively implement curriculum and assessment.
2. Too many interventions for struggling learners
In our examination of curriculum and the related interventions, we found that many school districts maintained an exhaustive list of interventions
for students who demonstrate academic difficulty. This overabundance of interventions for struggling learners
meant that the core curriculum itself did not have the capacity to provide
support for a wide range of learners; it also meant that the related instructional
capacity of the staff was not organized to address the needs of these learners.
Unfortunately, without a well-articulated core curriculum and instructional
program that serves all students, this gap disproportionately affects not
only struggling learners but also students new to the districts (including
newly arrived English language learners [ELLs]).
Remedy: Identify and implement targeted, research-based intervention programs
for students who demonstrate academic difficulty while the core curriculum program is redeveloped.
3. Inconsistent knowledge of the purpose and implementation of curriculum, assessment, or instructional strategy
Various school districts were using inappropriate tools to diagnose reading-skill
deficiencies, and because the district staff was not thoroughly knowledgeable
in the use of these assessments, teachers used interventions and strategies
that were not tailored to meet the specific needs of the children involved.
As a result, instructional support teams and/or child study teams would receive
information about a child’s reading difficulty after a year of inadequate
interventions.
Remedy: Provide continuous professional development on the purpose, application,
and interpretation of curriculum, assessment, and instructional strategies.
4. Poorly structured intervention services for struggling learners
Even though legislation in some states requires academic intervention services
for struggling learners, particularly in Title 1 school districts, our root
cause process revealed that the implementation of these programs was inconsistent,
and they became the gateways for special education referrals. For example,
students referred and classified for special education tended to have below-basic
proficiency, and the staff responsible for academic interventions had not
received training in how to help these students become proficient.
Remedy: Develop a tiered system of academic supports for struggling learners;
identify research-based interventions for targeted groups of students; and
target professional development for academic intervention staff (both nontenured
and tenured teachers, including content specialists).
Our process of determining root causes also revealed the following inadequacies
that contributed to rates of disproportionality.
1. Inconsistency in the referral process, including intervention strategies
and referral forms
School districts are generally good at abiding by special education regulations,
including referral timeframes and the involvement of practitioners. We found,
however, that school
districts maintained inconsistent pre-referral information and used different forms for each school building
in a district. While most of these systemic inconsistencies were not intentional,
they did reflect the bifurcation that often exists in districts between special education and
general education. In many instances, special education directors described
how they could only suggest to building administrators that they adopt one common referral form or that
the administrators insist that general education teachers fill out the specifics
of the pre-referral strategies.
Remedy: Develop a common process and form for pre-referrals, and outline
annual reviews for examining the wellness of this process.
2. Limited information regarding intervention strategies
One of our steps in examining root causes involved reviewing a representative
sample of records; this ranged from 40 to 100 files, depending upon the number
of students in a district receiving special education services. On most forms,
we found a place for general education teachers to describe the strategies
they already had used in their effort to help a struggling student. In most
instances, these teachers noted how certain strategies—such as moving a student’s
seat, matching the student with a buddy, or providing the content or skill
again but at a slower pace—did not help, even though the teachers considered
each strategy viable. The plethora of strategies lacked any documented evidence
that they served as a competent response. Nor did teachers note any type
of pre- or post-evaluative summary of the strategies’ ultimate impact. Instead,
their standard answer was “I tried and it didn’t work.”
Remedy: Provide targeted and embedded professional development for teachers
and district staff regarding response to intervention (RtI), specifically
research-based interventions, assessments, progress monitoring, and instructional
support teams or teacher assistance teams.
3. Limited knowledge of assessment
Through our data analysis process with school districts, we discovered that
an inconsistency in knowledge surrounding the purpose and implementation
of curriculum, assessment, or instructional strategies also affected the
rate of referral to special education. Some school districts, for example,
were using assessment tools to diagnose reading skill deficiency when these
tools were designed merely to screen students at risk for reading difficulty.
The inconsistent knowledge surrounding assessments allowed for interventions
and strategies not tailored to meet the specific needs of children. As a
result, instructional support teams and/or child study teams would receive
information about a child’s reading difficulty after a year of inadequate
interventions.
Remedy: Provide targeted professional development on assessments, including
those from such clearinghouses as www.rti4success.org.
1. Special education is viewed as “fixing” struggling students.
In most school districts the general and special education staff rarely interact
with each other. General education teachers recommend students for evaluation
based on the belief that special education contains the “magic fairy dust”
that will “fix” the learning capacity and outcomes of students. As part of
our data analysis process, we developed a multi-disciplinary team comprised
of several core members: the district superintendent, principals, special
education teachers, general education teachers, content supervisors, a special
education supervisor, a psychologist, a parent-group representative, parents,
and the pre-referral interventions coordinator. In most instances when the
teams were initially convened, many of the individuals did not know each
other or understand each other’s mandate. Because many of these individuals
rarely interacted, their answers to instruction- and intervention-based questions
lacked any cross-disciplinary perspective.
Remedy: General and special education teachers participate together in professional development that
focuses on curriculum, assessment, and instructional strategies, including
special education regulations. Both general and special educators become
involved in the analysis of data regarding interventions for struggling students.
2. Poor and racial/ethnic minority students are viewed as not “ready” for school.
We commonly heard school district staff members struggling with the idea that somehow being from a low-income family and from a racial or ethnic minority group compromises how “ready” these students are for their school environment.
More specifically, school and district staff at times perceived that the
cultural practices of the home environment made students from low-income
and racial/ethnic minority families unable to learn. In one district, many
of the educators rallied around the concept of “urban behavior” to explain
why Black students were in special education. In another district, an ESL
teacher hypothesized that English language learners were over-represented
in special education with speech/language impairments because in “Latin culture
they listen to music loud.” And yet another district suggested that Latino
and ELL students are such a distraction in the classroom that they can be
better served with “other” disability groups. Unfortunately, such perspectives
are not found solely in school districts cited for racial/ethnic disproportionality.
In fact, such perspectives can be found in many urban, suburban, and rural
school districts. Part of the difficulty with these kinds of beliefs is that
they distract from an educator’s ability to address how teaching matters
in learning outcomes. That is, we found practitioners who were willing to
cite family and community as the reason why some students were struggling
academically, but they credit their own teaching practices for the performance
of proficient students. There needs to be a paradigm alignment regarding
the connection between teaching and learning.
Remedy: Provide continuous professional development that addresses how to
create culturally responsive school environments via leadership, coaching,
and mentoring.
No one pretends that these issues are easy to address. Taken together, the
root causes of disproportionality represent a significant set of circumstances
that few school districts can tackle alone. Support is available in many
states, and California is currently designing a system of technical assistance
for identifying and remedying the causes of disproportionality (see article,
page 3). Whatever challenges a school district faces, it is important to
remember that they all do not have to be addressed at once. Small, steady,
and determined changes—made with good heart—can lead to major transformations
for schools. And more importantly, for Black, Latino, Native American, and
low-income students.
* Exceptional Children; September 1968, Volume 35 Issue 1, pages 5–22.
By Fred Balcom, Director, California Department of Education, Special Education Division
I am honored to be selected as the new Director of the Special Education Division for the California Department of Education (CDE). I come to this position with a background and perspective that I believe will continue to enhance the quality of the Division as we work to meet the educational needs of students with disabilities. I have been a California teacher and school administrator, coordinated alternative and special education programs, drafted legislation and worked with legislators, written and executed grants, and managed statewide programs designed to improve our lowest-performing schools. I served as Executive Director of the Yolo County First 5 Commission, promoting the benefits of articulation between and among services and programs designed for children in early childhood and those for students of school age. In the 1990s I served as Director of Special Education for Idaho. Most recently I was the Director of the District and School Improvement Division of the CDE, where I provided statewide leadership for the implementation of all aspects of federal Title I programs, education for the homeless, and categorical program monitoring.
This range of experience and perspective has provided me with a broad-based knowledge of the numerous programs and efforts within the CDE in general but, specifically and most importantly, with a clear understanding of what it takes to meet the needs of the individuals we serve: what it takes is for all of us to work together. Collectively we are parents, teachers, administrators, service providers, and agency personnel. Only by working together will we be able to build local capacity to meet the needs of our students. Only by working together will we be able to mitigate the most serious effects of California’s current budget crisis. Only by working together will we all succeed.
As your new Director, I have already met with the Advisory Commission on Special Education, SELPA administrators, Parent Empowerment Center and Parent Training and Information Center directors, and other groups and shared my experiences and vision for new and enhanced relationships. I am fortunate to have inherited a committed, skilled, and experienced staff, whose members have provided tremendous support in my transition to this new role and who also believe in collaboration and in nurturing positive and productive relationships.
California offers many unique challenges and opportunities. As your new Director, I look forward to facing the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead as we work together to educate and support students with disabilities in California.
Across the country, students are disproportionately represented in special education by race and ethnicity. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is requiring California, along with other states, to measure and report on the occurrence of disproportionality in schools. The law calls for each state that receives IDEA monies to collect and examine data to determine two aspects related to disproportionality. The first involves whether or not “disproportionate representation” that is the result of inappropriate identification [20 U.S.C. 1416(a)(3)(C); 34 CFR §300.600(d)(3)] based on race or ethnicity is occurring in the state’s local education agencies (LEAs, usually school districts). The second aspect of the law requires states, “in a separate and distinct obligation, to collect and examine numerical data to determine” whether school districts present “significant disproportionality” based on race or ethnicity [20 U.S.C. §1418(d); 34 CFR §300.646(b)].1
There are numerous hypotheses for the causes of disproportionality: the failure of general education to know how to effectively educate children from diverse backgrounds; the misuse of tests; the fact that many children from minority backgrounds do not have access to effective instruction, good teachers, or sufficient educational resources in both the school and the home; and then the simple and unrelenting fact of poverty. Russ Skiba, director of the Equity Project at Indiana University, writes of disproportionality as a phenomenon caused by a very complicated set of interacting factors that probably include “student characteristics, teacher capabilities and attitudes, and unanalyzed sources of structural inequity and racial stereotype.”2 Given the complexities that Skiba writes about—and the complexities of the law itself—the task of measuring and reducing conditions of disproportionality can be daunting for any state, and particularly challenging for a state as large and complex as California.
The chart on the next page summarizes the California Department of Education’s (CDE) approach to identifying and addressing disproportionality. More importantly, CDE is interested in identifying resources to assist school districts. To meet this challenge, CDE secured the talents of the Technical Assistance and Consulting Services (TACS) at the University of Oregon, which also holds the contract to provide special education technical assistance to all Western states. TACS has expertise in the development and analysis of state and school district data, organizational development and systems change, and education policy. Under the guidance of Caroline Moore and Cesar D’Agord, California’s disproportionality assistance efforts are now up and running.
TACS is assisting CDE in two additional efforts in the state’s improvement strategies related to disproportionality issues. One involves the “Larry P.” ruling, which refers to a legal case that was filed in 1984 against the state of California by African American parents. These parents argued that their children were given intelligence (IQ) tests that were culturally biased and that, because of these tests, their children were inappropriately identified as mentally retarded and placed in special education classes. The court ruled in favor of the parents. As a result, California schools cannot use IQ tests for the purpose of identifying African American children as mentally retarded if those tests have not been validated or reviewed for evidence of racial and cultural bias by the Federal Court of Appeals.
Because the current guidelines and recommendations around the Larry P. findings were developed more than 20 years ago, TACS Consultant Sara Doutre is heading the effort to assist CDE in convening a taskforce that will examine the original guidelines and recommendations and bring them up to date with current research and practice.
The taskforce will include individuals who have a stake in the outcome: parents,
educators, consumers, psychologists, and P–16 Council and school board members.
This group “has held preliminary planning sessions and will be fully functional
in late summer,” according to Moore. The task force will ultimately issue a
report that updates guidance for accurate and effective assessment practices
for schools and school psychologists.
IDEA states that a student cannot be identified as having a disability if lack of instruction—or poor quality of instruction—is the problem. So California needs to ensure that its schools are implementing effective instructional practices. This leads to the final task that TACS has taken on for California, a task that Moore refers to as “the fun one.” With a team of fellow evaluators, they are looking for schools that “are doing it right.” By examining such data as school size, the composition of the student population, the performance of schools in statewide assessments, the socio- economics of the student population based on free and reduced lunch, and school discipline trends—and visiting school sites, the team will select academically successful school districts with diverse characteristics, but without disproportionality. “We are looking in particular for the successful implementation of positive behavioral interventions and supports [PBIS] and response to intervention [RtI],” says Moore. “We are hoping to find pockets of excellence and through that discovery determine what strategies, processes, and leadership approaches are successful in avoiding disproportionality. Essentially, we want to know what those schools are doing to make them successful.” The effective strategies and systems that this team discovers will help to inform a statewide technical assistance project that is currently in development.
An important part of the technical assistance that will be provided to California’s school districts will come out of the State Performance Plan Technical Assistance Project (SPPTA) at the Napa County Office of Education (NCOE). The SPPTA is bringing CDE staff and other national leaders together to design a system that provides support to schools and school districts in reducing and eliminating instances of disproportionate representation. The assistance will be available in three levels of intensity, called tiers.
The most intense tier of support, considered the third or top tier,3 is designed to provide technical assistance to those school districts that have been identified as being significantly disproportionate. Through this CDE-funded TA plan, these districts will have the opportunity to make use of facilitators who will be trained to help them access pertinent resources, link them to appropriate professional development for accomplishing their plans for reducing disproportionality, conduct regular check-ins, and generally assist them in improving their systems. One of the specific areas this TA is designed to examine is how and when students receive the services they need, in turn promoting the previously mentioned RtI as a proven approach to eliminating instances of “instructional disability.”
The second or middle tier of support is aimed at school districts with data that show some areas of disproportionality. Similar to what is being offered in tier three, tier two involves making consultants available to a select number of these districts. In general, this tier-two support will help districts examine their systems and get the help they need to identify and address the causes of their specific areas of disproportionality.
The first tier has the broadest reach: it focuses on increasing a general awareness of issues related to disproportionality and on disseminating information to any and all districts working proactively to ensure that students of certain ethnicities are not over- or under-represented in special education. CDE currently has a Web site describing the impacts of disproportionality on special education and providing a wealth of links to research-based information and resources (www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/qa/disproimpacts.asp). The SPPTA project is in the process of designing an additional site that supports CDE’s efforts by including Webinars and interactive training modules.
According to NCOE Project Specialist Linda Blong, the SPPTA is a process in development, with some parts currently in place and others still being shaped. What the Larry P. taskforce recommends, for example, will inform the resources and training modules that will be on both the CDE and the SPPTA Web sites, as will the successful strategies that Moore’s and D’Agord’s team discover in diverse but successfully non-disproportionate school districts.
A team of consultants from CDE who have expertise in issues of disproportionality
is currently working to design and integrate the entire SPPTA system, with
input from a focus group of parents, teachers, and SELPA and school district
representatives—all of whom “have strong and very helpful responses to what
is needed in the field,” says Blong. “These partners are working to refine
the three tiers, and this evolving effort is gradually constructing a plan
that will be flexible, cohesive, and responsive to the needs of individual
districts. The ultimate goal is to make sure that a school district’s efforts
to reduce disproportionality are effective and that they are integrated and
fold seamlessly into its master plan [Local Education Agency Plan, or LEAP],
so that all efforts are mutually supportive and none is duplicative.”
While the SPPTA system is initially being designed to address disproportionality, the ultimate goal is for the system’s essential structure to serve as a TA-delivery model for other important areas of school improvement, from preschool assessment to post-school employment. This system’s three tiers of support—the delivery of (1) a broad base of general information to all schools, (2) focused assistance to those schools or districts whose data show an emerging problem, and (3) detailed assistance where compliance violations exist—reflect careful planning from its inception, since the system is being modeled in both structure and philosophy on the pyramid framework of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS). Given the impressive track record of PBIS, California’s systematic effort to address disproportionality is being built on a solid foundation.
Notes
What Is Significant Disproportionality?
[34 CFR§300.646]
Significant disproportionality is the determination that a school district
(LEA) has significant over-representation based on race and ethnicity overall,
by disability, by placement in particular educational settings, or by disciplinary
actions.
A school district is considered to have significant disproportionality if it
If a school district is considered to have significant disproportionality, that district is required to
What Is Disproportionate Representation?
[34 CFR §§300.173 and 300.600(d)(3)]
Disproportionate representation is the determination that, within a school district (LEA), students in special education are over- or under-represented based on race/ethnicity overall or by disability due to
A school district is considered to have disproportionate representation if the district
If a school district is identified as having disproportionate representation, the district is required to complete corrective action plans developed by CDE and to publicly report any changes to their policies, procedures, and practices.
For additional Information about the terms, calculations, and requirements listed in this chart, visit CDE’s Web site at www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/qa/disproimpacts.asp.
A school psychologist is teaching a child a magic trick. It looks like they are playing, but the psychologist is actually recording data while he observes and assesses the child’s processing and problem-solving skills. All of this is taking place in a casual, non-threatening environment that is intentionally separate from traditional learning processes and settings. The psychologist’s observations will become one component of a multi-faceted approach to assessing students for special education.
This holistic assessment—looking at a child in multiple environments and conducting interviews with parents and “cultural brokers”—is being developed and field-tested by the Diagnostic Center of Northern California under the leadership of Mary Anne Nielsen, Director. The center’s current focus is on African American students who are already assigned to special education, but proponents of this approach to assessment say it could be used with other populations and at other times—for an initial assessment for special education, in particular.
It has been more than 30 years since a California court banned IQ (intelligence quotient) testing of African American students for placement in special education. The court case in question, Larry P. v. Riles (see page 3), was a class action lawsuit on behalf of minority children who were over-represented in special education classes.
They still are. Using 2006–2007 California Department of Education data, the Diagnostic Center found that African American students make up 7.6 percent of the public school population but comprise 16.2 percent of the enrollment in special education. (European Americans, on the other hand, make up 29.4 percent of the total population, but only 12.4 percent are assigned to special education.) And school psychologists are still struggling with how to implement the Larry P. decision.
To get a picture of the current state of assessments, the Diagnostic Center
surveyed psychologists in major school districts throughout Northern California
in 2006. “The survey confirmed our suspicions that people in the field were
unsure of what to do. They were generally confused and looking for some structure,”
says Renee Dawson, PhD, the center’s Assistant Director. Half of the respondents
indicated that they were not satisfied with the current, available methods
of assessing African American students. The survey showed that 71 percent of
the districts had no standard protocol for assessing African American students.
According to Dawson, the survey also showed that the Diagnostic Center could
serve psychologists by finding “an appropriate psychological process for examining
a child. A test in a room under artificial circumstances only measures how
good you are at pencil-and-paper tests,” says Dawson. “A lot of kids don’t
do well with pencil-and-paper tests but can problem solve and strategize in
other ways. We
say ‘look at the child in multiple environments.’”
So Dawson and her colleagues at the Diagnostic Center set out to develop a process for conducting culturally appropriate assessments without
using standardized tests. They created a matrix that looks at several competencies,
including reasoning, concept formation, planning, and memory and learning. The data to assess these functions are gathered in many ways, including observations in multiple settings; interviews
with parents, classroom teachers and, depending on age, the student; and reviews
of school records and examples of student work.
This plan, Dawson says, is aligned with the evaluation procedures outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004, which calls for the use of “a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information” about a student. The plan also follows current CDE guidelines, which state that an assessment cannot discriminate on the basis of “environment, culture, and economic disadvantage”; and the people who administer and interpret the test must be “knowledgeable of and sensitive to the cultural and ethnic backgrounds of students.”
“It’s necessary to step out of your comfort zone and observe the student,” Dawson says. “Watching a child on a playground, for example, allows you to observe social skills, problem-solving, language. Is his behavior working for him?” Watching a child play a game can indeed reveal much about his behavior: Did he remember the rules? Did he follow the steps? How did he react when he won or lost?
But not just any game will do. “You have to bring in activities characteristic
of the child’s culture,” Dawson says. “You have to know the appropriate games
and settings in which to observe.”
Dawson tells the story of an African American girl who was selectively mute
and didn’t speak in the classroom. “We took out a board game that she knew
and began to play. I pretended to be confused about the rules of the game.”
Eventually the girl spoke to Dawson. Without the anxiety and stress of the
classroom setting, “I could see she had language and could use it appropriately.”
Yet, “we can’t assume we understand behavior just from observing,” Dawson says. Interviews are necessary to determine
if what is observed—and how it is interpreted—is accurate. For that, a cultural
broker is required. That person could be a parent, another staff person, or
a community member who is familiar with the history, beliefs, and patterns
of the student’s culture and can bridge the gap between cultures. A parent,
Dawson says, is the ideal broker, “and through careful interviewing, significant
information can be obtained.
This process of observation and interviewing is not new, Dawson says, “but it is challenging and time-consuming,” especially in its initial phase. “We’re always exploring and modifying the process, and we believe over time it can move faster.” But it will continue to require a collaborative effort at the school and district levels.
The Diagnostic Center’s idea of holistic assessment is being field tested in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Contra Costa County, where Carolyn Sakkis is the lead school psychologist. “We were on board with this from the beginning,” she says, “because we’ve long been concerned with over-identification” of minority students “and we’d like to do better assessments of these kids.” (In the 2008–2009 school year, African Americans were 5.2 percent of the general population at Mt. Diablo but 9.3 percent of the special education population.)
Four psychologists for the Mt. Diablo USD were trained by and are working
with a psychologist from the Diagnostic Center in this pilot project. “It’s
a work in progress,” says Sakkis. “It’s about changing your mindset. A child
is more than just a number on a test. You have to get to know the quality of
the child, how they learn or don’t learn. By paying close attention to what
you are observing and learning through interviews, you are picking up nuances you didn’t get historically when tests were skewed to middle-class
whites.”
The pilot project is working with students who have already been identified
as needing special education services, most of whom are in elementary school
and have been in special education for at least three years. But Sakkis and
others see the potential for using this assessment earlier in the special education
process. “I’d like to try this with students not yet identified,” she says.
And Dawson wonders: “If we did this at the initial assessment, would we have
fewer children in special education?”
Thus far, Dawson says, field testing shows that some children, with support,
can be removed from special education. The pilot phase of the project will be completed in December 2010. Dawson says the Diagnostic Center anticipates “going public” in fall 2011.
Beyond addressing the question of over-identification of minorities in special education, the intent of the process, Dawson says, is to direct the instructional process. Information gathered in the matrix about the student’s reasoning, processing, learning, and other skills allows educators to approach instruction in such a way that the student is able—in fact, encouraged—to use those skills in the classroom. The holistic assessment, she says, can serve “as a road map to assist in making education more successful for the child.” —Janet Mandelstam
The RiSE (Resources in Special Education) Library freely lends materials to California residents; the borrower
only pays for return postage. Go to www.php.com/services/libraries to view
the library’s complete holdings. To order materials, phone or e-mail RiSE
librarian Judy Bower: 408-727-5775; judy.bower@php.com.
Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools
Glenn Eric Singleton and Curtis Linton. 2006. 304 pages. Examining the achievement
gap through the prism of race, this book explains how to help educators understand
why performance inequity persists and how to develop a curriculum that promotes
true academic parity. Includes facilitator’s guide. Call #24150, 24151, 24152,
or 24153.
The Culturally Proficient School: An Implementation Guide for School Leaders
Randall B. Lindsey. 2004. 192 pages. Designed for principals, assistant principals,
and other school leaders, this book offers practical strategies, tools, and
resources for making schools culturally proficient. Call #24137.
Cultural Proficiency: A Manual for School Leaders
Randall B. Lindsey. 1999. 274 pages. This guide provides school leaders with
practical and field-tested applications of concepts about cultural proficiency.
The book includes structured activities for developing cultural proficiency
in educational settings. Call #24145 or 24146.
Improving Schools for African American Students: A Reader for Educational Leaders
Sheryl Denbo and Lynson Moore Beaulieu, eds. 2002. 288 pages. This collection
of articles addresses such issues as policy reform, the importance of high-quality
teaching, and the improvement of schools in order to
support the academic
achievement of African American
students. Call #24138.
Leadership on Purpose: Promising Practices for African American and Hispanic
Students
Rosemary P. Papa. 2002. 105 pages. By drawing on the best practices of 13 exemplary
schools, this book highlights how ethnically diverse (African American and
Latino) students can attain educational success. The book offers leadership
strategies for principals, tactics for successful curriculum and classroom
instruction,
and approaches for meaningfully connecting with parents. Call #24144.
The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children
Gloria Ladson-Billings. 2009. 256 pages. In this second edition of her critically
acclaimed book, the author shows how cultural relevance in a classroom is achieved
by working with the unique strengths of each child. The book challenges readers
to envision intellectually rigorous and culturally relevant classrooms that improve the lives of not just African
American students, but of all children. Call #24143.
English Language Learners with Special Education Needs: Identification, Assessment, and Instruction
Alfredo Artiles and Alba Ortiz, eds. 2002. 250 pages. While describing the
challenges involved in identifying, placing, and teaching English language
learners with special education needs, this book describes model programs and
approaches, assessment methods, strategies for parent/school collaboration,
and more.
Call #24133 or 24134.
How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You: Culturally Relevant Teaching Strategies
Bonnie M. Davis. 2006. 184 pages. Constructed as a reflective workbook for
teachers who work with students from varied backgrounds, this book offers
successful strategies for teachers of all subjects and grade levels and for
establishing a school climate for teaching diverse learners. Call #24149.
Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners
in the Mainstream Classroom
Pauline Gibbons. 2002. 165 pages.
This book explains how mainstream elementary classroom teachers with little
or no English-as-a-second-language training can meet the needs of linguistically
diverse students. Call #24147 or 24148.
Teaching African American Learners to Read: Perspectives and Practices
Bill Hammond. 2005. 368 pages.
This book guides teachers, educators, and administrators in selecting the best
research-based practices for successfully teaching African American learners
to read. It identifies best practices, considers the significance of culture
in the teaching and learning process, and explores issues of assessment. Call
#24136.
Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap
Ronald F. Ferguson. 2007. 283 pages. The author synthesizes 15 years of
research into how progress in narrowing the achievement gap is influenced by
school policies and practices, and on the importance of lifestyles and informal
social processes that play out between children and their parents and peers.
The author sets forth a wide-ranging and compelling vision for closing the
achievement gap. Call #24132.
Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education Committee on Minority Representation in Special Education. 2002. 488 pages. This book examines why racial and ethnic minority students are disproportionately represented in special education and gifted and talented programs. Call #24142.
www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/qa/disproimpacts.asp
Materials related to critical values and beliefs, background, data, and strategies
regarding disproportionality are featured on this page from the California
Department of Education’s Web site.
www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/qa/disproresources.asp
The California Department of Education lists tools for California local education
agencies (LEAs) to use in addressing
issues of disproportionate representation and significant disproportionality.
www.nccrest.org/Briefs/students_in_SPED_Brief.pdf
Sources of federally sponsored technical assistance, demonstration projects,
information, and scientifically based research to help states and LEAs decrease
instances of disproportionality are listed at this site.
www.maec.org/cross/index.html#return
Cross-Cultural Communication: An Essential Dimension of Effective
Education explains how students with different cultural norms are at risk of
school failure “if teachers have little knowledge, sensitivity, or appreciation
of the diversity in communication styles.” This booklet, available at the above
URL, explains how teachers can use vernacular language systems to enrich their
instruction of standard English. Techniques for this approach are discussed.
www.newhorizons.org/strategies/styles/guild.htm
“Diversity, Learning Style, and Culture” examines the impact of diversity on
student learning, exploring how a teacher’s understanding of learning styles
and culture can help him examine his own “institutional practices and become
sensitive to providing diverse learning experiences. Intentional instructional
diversity will benefit all students.”
www.nccrest.org/publications/tools/assessment.html
Equity in Special Education Placement: A School Self-Assessment Guide for Culturally
Responsive Practice is a self-assessment instrument designed to help elementary
schools create culturally responsive programming and instruction for all students,
including those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/tl-strategies/crt-principles.shtml
Principles for Culturally Responsive Teaching outlines the characteristics
of a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students’ cultural
references in all aspects of learning.
www11.georgetown.edu/research/gucchd/nccc/documents/Checklist.CSHN.doc.pdf
Promoting Cultural Diversity and Cultural Competency: Self-Assessment Checklist
for Personnel Providing Services and Supports to Children with Disabilities & Special
Health Needs and Their Families is a checklist created to heighten the awareness
and sensitivity of personnel to the importance of cultural diversity and cultural
competence in human service settings. The document provides concrete examples
of the kinds of values and practices that foster such an environment.
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9853#toc
This newly expanded edition of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and
School connects classroom activities with learning behavior; it also offers
new research about the mind and the brain, answering such questions as “How
do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers
and schools do with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods to
help children learn most effectively?”
English Language Learners
www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/nclr/edells_assessment.pdf
Educating English Language
Learners: Understanding and Using
Assessment guides schools in developing their capacity to provide appropriate
curriculum, instruction, and assessment for students who are English language
learners. It also offers suggestions for increasing educators’ awareness of
how to access relevant resources. While its emphasis is on charter schools,
the guide would be of use to any K–12 school.
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/practiceguides/20074011.pdf
Effective Literacy and English
Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades, from the
What Works Clearinghouse,
is a guide developed by experts for teachers, principals, staff specialists
and district-level administrators; it offers
five recommendations for literacy instruction for English learners in the elementary
grades.
http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/Learning_Support/Special_Education/Evaluation_Program_Planning_Supports/index.html
The ELL Companion to Reducing Bias in Special Education Evaluation (available
through the “ELL Companion Manual” link on the right column of the Web page
above) provides assessment and eligibility determination guidelines to special
education professionals. These guidelines can be used where traditional evaluation
procedures may not be appropriate. The guidelines reflect a broad view of connections
between ELL programs and special education. The manual’s conclusions are based
on such aspects of diversity as race, culture, the acculturation process, high
mobility among families, and poverty rates.
October 14–17
Division for Early Childhood (DEC) 26th Annual International Conference on Young Children with Special Needs and Their Families
This DEC conference will disseminate effective practices that result in better
outcomes for young children with disabilities, their families, and the personnel
who serve them. The event is designed for family members of children with disabilities
and the personnel who work with them. Kansas City, MO. Contact 406-543-0872
or dec@dec-sped.org; or go to www.dec-sped.org/Conference.
October 28–30
Seventeenth National Forum on Character Education
This national conference is sponsored by the Character Education Partnership
and features keynote speakers Sandra Day O’Connor and Dr. Hal Urban. The conference
will focus on current research in character education, the effect of character
education on efforts to permanently change school culture and climate, and
support for at-risk students. The event also includes pre-forum workshops (addressing
such subjects as “The Neurology of Performance” and “Optimizing the High School
Experience”), more than 70 breakout sessions, hot-topic discussions led by
experts, tours and school-site visits, and opportunities to network with colleagues
and experts. The event is designed for anyone interested in character education.
San Francisco, CA. Contact Becky Sipos at rsipos@character.org, 202-296-7743;
or go to www.character.org/2010forum.
November 11–13
Pathways to Wellness, Healthy Minds, and Resilience
This 22nd Annual International Convention for Children and Adults with Attention
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is designed for family members, physicians,
psychologists, educators, health care providers, and social workers who want
the most current, science-based information about ADHD. Atlanta, GA. Contact
301-306-7070, conference@chadd.org or CHADD
conference@chadd.org; or go to www.chadd.org.
November 14–16
Secondary Transition Symposium: Blueprint for Success
This symposium, sponsored by the California Community of Practice on Secondary
Transition (CoP), is open to teachers, administrators, WorkAbility staff, transition
specialists, service providers, student leaders, family members and care givers,
and interagency and business partners. The event is designed as a forum for
sharing professional activities, including educational practices and research-supported
strategies for improving transition services for students with disabilities
ages 16–22. Content strands include “School-based Learning Activities,” “Career
Preparation and Work-based Learning Activities,” “Connecting Activities,” “Family
Involvement and Supports,” and more. Participants are encouraged to come as
a team. Los Angeles, CA. For questions, contact Jill Larson (jlarson@cde.ca.gov or
916-327-0866); for registration, contact Karen Nichols (knichols@cde.ca.gov or 916-323-2538). Or go to www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/ac/cop2010.asp for more information.
December 8–9
Adolescent Literacy: Equity and Opportunity for All
Sponsored by the California Department of Education, this Secondary Literacy
Summit X highlight best practices for improving adolescent literacy achievement,
with a focus on reading, academic vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and content
literacy. Sessions will also address the Common Core Standards, response to
intervention (RtI), and instructional strategies for closing the achievement
gap for English learners and students with special needs. Costa Mesa, CA. For
more information, contact Sharon Johnson at 916-323-6269 or shjohnson@cde.ca.gov.
Or go to www.cacompcenter.org/cs/cacc/print/htdocs/cacc/secondaryliteracy.htm.
The Civil Rights Act became law nearly 50 years ago, but there are still abundant
sources of inequity related to race in our nation’s educational system, according
to educator
Jonathon Kozol.1 One of these sources involves the disproportionate representation
of certain ethnic minorities in special education. Researchers have studied this disproportionality for decades and posit numerous
and conflicting reasons for its persistence. One solution, however, has earned
strong support from researchers and educators alike: directly instructing general
educators in how to successfully teach children from diverse backgrounds. This
amounts to creating “culturally responsive classrooms and schools, [where]
effective teaching and learning occur in a culturally supported, learner-centered
context, whereby the strengths students bring to school are identified, nurtured,
and utilized to promote student achievement.”2
In 2007, California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell launched an initiative to address educational inequities and close “the persistent achievement gap between our highest- and lowest-performing students.” According to O’Connell, that achievement gap “has left our students of color, poor students, our English learners and students with disabilities lagging behind their white and Asian peers.” Later that year O’Connell charged his California P–16 Council “to develop, implement, and sustain a specific, ambitious plan that holds the State of California accountable for creating the conditions necessary for closing the achievement gap.” The council emerged with 14 recommendations—among them, providing culturally relevant professional development for all school personnel. In short, helping teachers create classrooms that are “culturally responsive to the diverse racial, cultural backgrounds and needs of its student populations.”
Moving forward with this specific charge, staff members of the P–16 Division of the California Department of Education (CDE) realized that they were not the only ones struggling to help under-performing students. “We started working with colleagues in other CDE divisions—Curriculum and Instruction, Learning Support Services, and Special Education—to determine the nature of what we needed,” says Dr. Shadidi Sia-Maat, Education Programs Consultant for the P–16 Division, and staffer for the California P–16 Council. “We all realized we can’t do this work alone and knew there were very experienced folks across the country that could assist us.” So Dr. Sia-Maat and his colleagues convened an expert panel to help create a framework for culturally responsive professional development for teachers. The panel—which ultimately included such notables as Dr. Geneva Gay, (Professor of Education at the University of Washington-Seattle who, according to Sia-Maat, “wrote the bible on culturally responsive teaching”), Dr. Christine Sleeter (Professor Emerita in the College of Professional Studies at California State University Monterey Bay), and Dr. Joyce E. King, (Benjamin E. Mays Chair, Professor of Social Foundations of Education at Georgia State University)—emerged with a framework of what educators needed in their professional development to effectively teach an increasingly diverse student body.
The P–16 Division, says Dr. Sia-Maat, “then took the framework on the road.
We had three focus group meetings in Northern, Central, and Southern California
to get input from school and district personnel.” In October 2008, “we brought
the framework and focus group input to Equity Alliance at Arizona State University
and said ‘this is what we have to work with.’ We asked them to assist us in
developing culturally responsive professional development modules for teachers.”
CDE could not have found a more qualified organization. In the words of Equity
Alliance’s Co-Director of Technical Assistance, Kathleen King Thorius, the
organization has “been involved with disproportionality work through a variety
of projects for a number of years.” This is perhaps an understatement. Originally
funded after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Supreme Court’s landmark
“Brown vs. Board of Education” decision, the earliest version of Equity Alliance
was charged more than 40 years ago with aiding in the desegregation of public
schools. Possibly best known as the National Center for Culturally Responsive
Educational Systems, (NCCRESt), Equity Alliance is housed at Arizona State
University and has, since its inception, promoted “equity, access, participation,
and outcomes for all students.” Led by principal investigators and professors Elizabeth Kozleski and Alfredo Artiles, nationally renowned experts on disporportionality,
and Director JoEtta Gonzales, the center was recently “awarded a federal grant
to serve as the Region IX Equity Assistance Center,” says King Thorius. “Our
job is to support state and local school systems in Arizona, California, and
Nevada with equity-related issues, working also with the Office of Civil Rights,
the Department of Justice, and the Department of Education.”
Taking up the charge from the P–16 Division, Equity Alliance “developed content in collaboration with CDE and other California educational
stakeholders and then developed the processes and platform” for delivering
the content, says King Thorius. The project has since met with numerous additional
groups—Safe and Healthy Schools, California’s Disproportionality Workgroup,
the Special Education Division, district teachers and administrators from throughout
the state, and representatives from several county offices of education—whose
input has helped to further develop and refine the content and process for
professional development.
The first part of this system involves online courses for teachers, but this
module does more than offer instructional strategies. “To get at issues of
equity,” says King Thorius, “it is so important for teachers to examine their
own identities before they look at issues of practice. So [through these online
courses] we help teachers look at and question their own beliefs, attitudes,
and values and how these factors—often unconsciously—show up in the classroom.”
The module also will help teachers reflect on the value of non-English languages
that are the first language of some of their students; recognize the importance
of any differences between the culture of school and that of students and their
families and then, when possible, mitigate those differences; recognize and
incorporate into classroom activities the cultural values that children bring
to school; and provide instructional materials that are culturally responsive.
With the module for teachers almost completed, Equity Alliance is currently focused on creating a professional development strand for school leaders and administrators that will support the implementation of the courses for teachers. According to King Thorius, “it is critically important to involve individuals who know the cultural climate, people who can address needs and negotiate the process, given the needs of a particular locale. Our intent is to make the learning contextual. So we are doing our best to build a design that includes people who are aware of the specific issues at every step of the way.
“This [leadership strand] will help district leaders and administrators learn how to lead conversations about the content of the online modules. We can’t simply put the modules up and tell the districts to just ‘do it.’ District leaders need to understand and believe in the value of the content, but they also need to be aware of the possible range of reactions that teachers might have as they engage the content and be able to lead both formal and informal conversations about race, culture, and educational equity. So this leadership strand will also help bring teachers and administrators together in real time so they can discuss the content and build on the new information, on the needs of the teachers, and on the needs of the students.”
The model has been beta tested, and both the online course and the leadership strand will be piloted in the fall. “We are currently in the process of selecting three districts to help us refine the whole system,” says King Thorius. “There will then be teacher and administrator representatives from three schools from each district and two liaisons from each district, one who understands the requirements of the technical infrastructure and the other who understands the cultural context and content needs of the schools. We will revise the modules based on their suggestions and roll everything out at a larger scale.”
While the approach and design for these modules are informed by the experience
of Equity Alliance, they also are grounded in research and theory, particularly
the work of John Bransford, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking,3 who posit that
learners operate within two cultural realms. As King Thorius explains, one
realm involves “the cultural beliefs, knowledge, and habits learners acquire
in their cultural community throughout their lives,” and the second “encompasses
the cultural practices of the institutions in which [learners] receive formal
education—schools and classrooms.” Educators’ awareness of these two realms
is important, says King Thorius, because research shows that the cultural practices
of schools and educational systems “can perpetuate inequitable conditions for
groups of students that have been historically marginalized due to their race,
language background, gender, or national origin.” Equity Alliance’s focus is
on “designing new approaches to solving intractable, culturally bound issues
like equity.”
Of course, the implementation of these new approaches ultimately rests with
teachers and school administrators. And what research seems to be suggesting
is significant: that the success of some minority children is inextricably
bound to the ability of the teacher not just to deliver content but to reflect
on and “understand the nature of the learner from both of these cultural perspectives”—and
then to respond with pedagogical creativity and cultural sensitivity. Equity
Alliance is weaving strategies for developing these kinds of skills into both
professional development strands, shaping them into more than simple delivery
systems for information on race and culture. Both strands will involve cycles
of inquiry and strategies for actively engaging participants in the content
and directly applying it.
Equity Alliance has done other work with building the capacity of leaders to
deal with issues of race and culture, and its staff members have designed and
taught many online courses. But, says King Thorius, “this is the first time
the focus on cultural responsiveness, online training, and face-to-face capacity
building have all come together in one set of learning experiences for educators.
It is very exciting.”
King Thorius, Sia-Maat, Gonzales, and the many others active in developing
these training modules are deeply committed to the importance of culturally
responsive teaching. And their effort seems to carry with it a refreshing degree
of pragmatism. “We are trying to find a way to close the achievement gap and
impact disproportionality,” says Sia-Maat. “The folks at CDE are interested
in continuing to refine both pieces [the strands for teachers and for administrators]
to make sure we have the right kind of training. Essentially, we’re flying
and building at the same time.” And then he adds, “But if we launch this pilot
and find it is not working, we will close it down. If it’s not going to close
the achievement gap, we’re not going do to it.”
Given the commitment of everyone involved in the project, their thorough approach
to determining the best content and process, and the track record of Equity
Alliance, this professional development system holds great promise for the
success of teachers and students alike.
For more information, e-mail Shadidi Sia-Maat at ssiamaat@cde.ca.gov.
Notes