John Thompson: "Choice" Leaves Detroit's Special Ed Students Behind
Guest post by John Thompson.
The Detroit Free Press's Chastity Pratt Dawson reports that the decline in Detroit's overall school population has increased the percentages of its special education students, making it harder to meet high-stakes accountability goals. The percentage of students on IEPs has increased from 14% to over 18% since 2005. In Michigan, 12% of all students and 10% of charter school students are on IEPs.
The big issue, in my experience, is not the number of IEP students. The problem is the concentration of too many students with the most serious disabilities in classes and schools. Dawson explains the effect of school closings on a couple of autistic students. In contrast to the normal special education class size of six, one autistic student was placed in a class with 20 cognitively impaired students.
Such an outrage brings to mind the work of Paul Tough and Nadine Burke. They explain the culture of hitting and fighting which occurs when 8 to 10 students, who have been traumatized to the point where their cognitive
The Detroit Free Press's Chastity Pratt Dawson reports that the decline in Detroit's overall school population has increased the percentages of its special education students, making it harder to meet high-stakes accountability goals. The percentage of students on IEPs has increased from 14% to over 18% since 2005. In Michigan, 12% of all students and 10% of charter school students are on IEPs.
The big issue, in my experience, is not the number of IEP students. The problem is the concentration of too many students with the most serious disabilities in classes and schools. Dawson explains the effect of school closings on a couple of autistic students. In contrast to the normal special education class size of six, one autistic student was placed in a class with 20 cognitively impaired students.
Such an outrage brings to mind the work of Paul Tough and Nadine Burke. They explain the culture of hitting and fighting which occurs when 8 to 10 students, who have been traumatized to the point where their cognitive