What Happens to Special Education Students as Adults? | Psychology Today

What Happens to Special Education Students as Adults? | Psychology Today

What Happens to Special Education Students as Adults?

Each year, more than 6 million schoolchildren—roughly 13 percent of all public school students—receive special education services in the U.S. under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Since the inception of the program in 1975, researchers have debated how to assess its effectiveness, and the program itself has evolved over time, making it even more challenging to evaluate. Much of the research on special education has looked at short-term outcomes for some groups of special education students. However, little to no research has examined special education as a whole and its links to long-term adulthood outcomes.

Much of education research is short-term. This is understandable, given the extraordinary cost of a highly intensive intervention or program and the long-term follow up of such a program. Recently, however, Tyler Watts, Drew Bailey, and Chen Li have suggested, in a new paper in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, that education research should aim further than short-term evaluations of interventions, and the authors lay out how such longitudinal follow-ups of carefully implemented interventions might be incentivized broadly in education research.

Though ideally one would first conduct a randomized controlled trial and follow up with groups of both treated and untreated individuals well into adulthood, this ideal is not possible with special education due to the specific parameters outlined in IDEA. In "Exploring the links between receiving special education services and adulthood outcomes,” a new paper in the journal Frontiers in Education: Special Educational Needs, Tomoe Kanaya, Brenda Miranda, and I linked up publicly available large-scale datasets which allowed us to use a one-to-one propensity score matching technique alongside a unique research design. This helped us figure out CONTINUE READING: What Happens to Special Education Students as Adults? | Psychology Today

Watered Down Charter School Reform Bill Falls Short - LA Progressive

Watered Down Charter School Reform Bill Falls Short - LA Progressive

Watered Down Charter School Reform Bill Falls Short

lush with funding supplied by billionaires, the charter school industry has bought itself a lot of influence in the halls of the state capital building in Sacramento. This caused a significant obstacle as state legislators attempted to pass the first meaningful updates to a 25-year-old charter school law. Using millions of dollars in campaign cash, deploying scare tactics, and pulling on heartstrings, those who seek to privatize our public school systems had managed to stall the proposed bills. Only ten percent of students in publicly funded schools attend charter schools, but once again it appeared that charter school operators would be given priority over 90% of students attending traditional public schools.

In the compromise bill that will be voted on within the next couple of weeks, some important flaws in the law governing charter schools will finally be addressed.

Under Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, both with a personal history of being involved with charter schools, this defeat for public school students would have been final. However, in the last gubernatorial election, the charter lobby made a tactical error by backing Antonio Villalagrosa. This meant that the eventual winner, Gavin Newsom, a self-described “agnostic” on the issue, owed no debts to these publicly funded private schools. When the reform bills stalled, he forced both sides to the negotiating table and brokered a compromise. Students whose education is funded by the state will get protection from bad actors in the charter school industry after all.

In the compromise bill that will be voted on within the next couple of weeks, some important flaws in the law governing charter schools will finally be addressed. Unbelievably, for the first time, all new charter school teachers will have to be credentialed for the CONTINUE READING: Watered Down Charter School Reform Bill Falls Short - LA Progressive

2020 Conference - Network For Public Education

2020 Conference - Network For Public Education

2020 Conference

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DoubleTree by Hilton Philadelphia – Center City

237 S Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19107-5686

A BLOCK OF ROOMS HAVE BEEN RESERVED AT A DISCOUNTED PRICE FOR THE CONFERENCE HOTEL

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2020 Conference - Network For Public Education

Why cursive handwriting needs to make a school comeback – Raw Story

Why cursive handwriting needs to make a school comeback – Raw Story

Why cursive handwriting needs to make a school comeback

Teaching connected-style handwriting, otherwise known as cursive handwriting, has fallen out of fashion on many school curricula. Older generations have sometimes been shocked that some younger people today can’t sign their names on official documents or even read a handwritten note.

Canadian provinces have seen a decline in teaching and learning cursive. In Ontario schools, for example, teachers might introduce cursive, but it’s not mandatory.

Such a development is reflective of larger trends of focusing less on teaching and assessing handwriting for itself — and more on what it’s communicating.

Alberta’s kindergarten to Grade 9 curriculum, for example, stipulates that students learn to “listen, speak, read and write” and also envisions outcomes that require printing, such as connecting prior ideas. But the curriculum doesn’t mandate assessing printing skills themselves. In Alberta’s 2018 new draft curriculum yet to be implemented, cursive is mentioned, but it’s not identified as a competency. CONTINUE READING: Why cursive handwriting needs to make a school comeback – Raw Story

The crisis of anti-Black racism in schools persists across generations – Raw Story

The crisis of anti-Black racism in schools persists across generations – Raw Story

The crisis of anti-Black racism in schools persists across generations

Recent reports of the schooling experiences of Black students in elementary, middle and high school in Toronto tell a story of negligence and disregard. This disregard includes a lack of access to appropriate reading materials and supportive relationships with teachers and administrators.

In conversations about their school life, Black students talk about adverse treatment by their teachers and peers, including regular use of the “n-word.”

These issues contribute to alienating and problematic school days for Black students. And none of this is new: racism in Toronto and Ontario schools has been ongoing for decades.

Twenty years ago, former politician Stephen Lewis was appointed to advise the province of Ontario on race relations. The appointment came after a “stop anti-Black police violence” march turned into an uprising in Toronto. Lewis spent a month consulting with people and community groups in Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor and London and then presented a report on race relations.

He wrote:

The students [I spoke with] were fiercely articulate and often deeply moving…. They don’t understand why the schools are so slow to reflect the broader society. One bright young man in a Metro east high school said that he had reached [the end of high school] without once having a book by a Black author [assigned to him]. And when other students, in the large meeting of which he was a part, started to name books they had been given to read, the titles were Black Like Me and To Kill and Mockingbird (both, incredibly enough, by white writers!). It’s absurd in a world which has a positive cornucopia of magnificent literature by Black authors. I further recall an animated young woman from a high school in Peel, who described her school as multiracial, and then added that she and her fellow students had white teachers, white counsellors, a white principal and were taught Black history by a white teacher who didn’t like them… CONTINUE READING: The crisis of anti-Black racism in schools persists across generations – Raw Story

Michael Kohlhaas Reveals That Lawyer at Green Dot Released Emails to Him, Then Quit or Was Fired | Diane Ravitch's blog

Michael Kohlhaas Reveals That Lawyer at Green Dot Released Emails to Him, Then Quit or Was Fired | Diane Ravitch's blog

Michael Kohlhaas Reveals That Lawyer at Green Dot Released Emails to Him, Then Quit or Was Fired

Michael Kohlhaas has been drip-drip-dripping emails between and among the charter industry’s bigwigs in Los Angeles.

He reveals in this post that he filed a public records request for the emails and his request was granted by the in-house counsel for Green Dot charter chain, Keith Yanov. Lo and behold, Mr. Yanov has “transitioned” to the private sector, meaning that he either quit or was fired.

Kohlhaas writes:

KEITH YANOV — FORMERLY GENERAL COUNSEL FOR GREEN DOT CHARTER SCHOOLS — HAS “TRANSITIONED TO PRIVATE PRACTICE” — WHICH MEANS HE QUIT OR WAS FIRED — AND GIVEN THAT IT WAS ALMOST CERTAINLY HIS DECISION TO FOLLOW THE LAW AND RELEASE THAT MASSIVE SET OF EMAILS TO ME IN JUNE — REVEALING THE APPALLING INNER WORKINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION — THE WORLD-SHAKING MAGNITUDE OF WHICH IS STILL ONLY BARELY KNOWN — I WOULD VENTURE A GUESS THAT THE LATTER IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE — FIRING SOMEONE FOR FOLLOWING THE LAW CERTAINLY WOULDN’T BE OUT OF CHARACTER OVER THERE AT GREEN DOT — OR ANY OF THESE CHARTER SCHOOL CRIMINAL CONSPIRACIES FOR THAT MATTER

Kohlhaas began publishing the bombshell contents of the emails, Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times wrote about Kohlhaas’s revelations, and all hell broke loose.

Kohlhaas wrote:

And then things really blew up, as you may already know. Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times published two CONTINUE READING: Michael Kohlhaas Reveals That Lawyer at Green Dot Released Emails to Him, Then Quit or Was Fired | Diane Ravitch's blog

New California charter school rules may worsen the education war - Los Angeles Times

New California charter school rules may worsen the education war - Los Angeles Times

Charter school compromise could intensify L.A.'s school board battles

A major agreement aimed at setting stronger standards for charter schools stands to intensify power struggles for seats on the Board of Education in Los Angeles, setting the stage for more contentious and costly election battles between charter advocates and allies of the teachers union, a cross section of education leaders and experts said.

Under a compromise announced last week by Gov. Gavin Newsom, local school boards will have more authority to reject new charter school petitions, making their decisions crucial to the growth of the charter sector. The proposed law, which still needs legislative approval, also requires charter school teachers to hold the same credentials as those in traditional schools and attempts to increase accountability for charters — moves touted as better serving students.

In Los Angeles, school board elections already were the most expensive in the country — as the influential teachers union went head-to-head against better funded pro-charter school groups seeking a controlling majority on the seven-member body. A record breaking $15 million was spent in the 2017 race in which charter-backed Nick Melvoin, defeated union-backed school board president Steve Zimmer.

While the compromise may calm some contention at the state level, in Los Angeles “there are folks on both sides who are going to be even more crazy on local school board elections,” Melvoin said.

The stakes are especially high in Los Angeles, where close to 20% of public school students attend 224 charters, more than any other school system in the nation. Currently, the board is closely divided on many issues affecting charters, but leans toward tighter restrictions.

Union-backed board member Jackie Goldberg will be on the 2020 ballot. She won a special election to finish the term of a charter-backed board member who resigned after pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws.

“I think the charter folks identified that my election ended their four-vote majority and they’re going to try everything they can to get it back and then some,” Goldberg said. “Now they’re going to say if they don’t get it back, by God, there won’t be any new charters in L.A. Unified. That’s not true, but that’s what they’ll say.”

Both Melvoin and Goldberg generally support the compromise that was worked out, CONTINUE READING: New California charter school rules may worsen the education war - Los Angeles Times

Behind the Enemy Lines at the ALEC Annual Meeting in Austin | Diane Ravitch's blog

Behind the Enemy Lines at the ALEC Annual Meeting in Austin | Diane Ravitch's blog

Behind the Enemy Lines at the ALEC Annual Meeting in Austin

This is a fascinating article by Mary Tuma, published by the Austin Chronicle about the annual meeting of ALEC in Austin, the liberal city in the heart of red red Texas. ALEC–the American Legislative Exchange Council–is a hotbed of rightwing politics, funded by the Koch brothers, Betsy DeVos, major corporations, and other malefactors of vast wealth. (If you want to learn more about ALEC, read Gordon Lafer’s compelling book The One-Percent Solution.)

The 15-foot-tall fat cat clutches his money bag in one paw and the working man’s throat in the other. (Photo by John Anderson)
“Hey hey, ho ho, corporate lobbyists have got to go!” chanted around 100 labor, immigrant, environmental, disability, and social justice advocates outside the JW Marriott Hotel Downtown on Wed., Aug. 14. “Hey, ALEC, you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side!” they later continued. The protesters stood alongside a 15-foot, cigar­-chomping, inflatable cat wearing a pinstriped suit – with one paw he held a construction worker by the throat; with the other, he grasped a bag of cash. The “unwelcome reception,” organized by Progress Texas and joined by a coalition of advocacy groups, rallied against what was gathering inside the high-end hotel: the 46th annual American Legislative Exchange Council conference.

Better known as ALEC, the group markets itself as “America’s largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the CONTINUE READING: Behind the Enemy Lines at the ALEC Annual Meeting in Austin | Diane Ravitch's blog

Is the Opposition to Phasing Out Gifted Classes Based on Research or Implied Bias? | Ed In The Apple

Is the Opposition to Phasing Out Gifted Classes Based on Research or Implied Bias? | Ed In The Apple

Is the Opposition to Phasing Out Gifted Classes Based on Research or Implied Bias?

You wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, a nightmare and you realize; only a few weeks before school opens. No matter how long you’ve been teaching as the first day approaches you get nervous;  everything has to be perfect, you increasingly think about new lessons, you worry: How will I involve the parents? How can I address the needs of all the kids? Will the principal let me do what I know is “right” for my kids?

The Tuesday after Labor Day in my school the staff filed into the lobby, a few right off the plane from trekking across Europe, or, after teaching summer school and a few weeks off, still exhausted. A pile of still warm bagels and an urn of steaming coffee, the principal knew how to buy us off.

In the auditorium, the principal began that Day One speech: introduces the new teachers, who appear to get younger every year. The principal lays out the latest ukases from the overlords; and, if the principal is experienced, after his/her words of wisdom, turns the meeting over the union leadership, and leaves.

Schools have their own cultures and the “new thing” from whomever is leading the school system rarely resonates in schools and classrooms,

This is Year Two of the tenure of Richard Carranza, a tenure dominated by announcements about equity issues. Maybe you’ve spent a few hours in an anti-baas training workshop, or discussion about choosing literature by more diverse CONTINUE READING: Is the Opposition to Phasing Out Gifted Classes Based on Research or Implied Bias? | Ed In The Apple

NOLA 2018-19 AP Scores: Two High Schools Carry the Entire District. | deutsch29

NOLA 2018-19 AP Scores: Two High Schools Carry the Entire District. | deutsch29

NOLA 2018-19 AP Scores: Two High Schools Carry the Entire District.

New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) is a corporate-ed-reform nonprofit started in 2006 by Teach for America (TFA) alum, Sarah Usdin, to promote school choice in post-Katrina New Orleans. In 2017, NSNO former Recovery School District (RSD) superintendent Patrick Dobard became NSNO CEO.

NSNO also runs PR for promoting the success narrative related to now-all-charter New Orleans. As such, on August 12, 2019, NSNO published a piece entitled, “New Orleans Students Outperform State Average on AP Exams.”

The question is, which students outperformed… and which seriously underperformed.

Now, the article is almost correct when it states, “40% of New Orleans students who took one or more AP exams scored a three or above, compared to 35% of students statewide.” So far, NSNO is not shaping the story in favor of all-charter New Orleans.

On the state level in 2018-19, 20,819 students took at least one AP exam. Of those, 7,305  (35.1%) scored 3+. (See data here.)

In New Orleans in 2018-19, 2,150 students took at least one AP exam. And of those, 880 (40.9%– roughly 41%, higher than the 40% reported by NSNO) scored 3+.

But then, the article continues: CONTINUE READING: NOLA 2018-19 AP Scores: Two High Schools Carry the Entire District. | deutsch29

CURMUDGUCATION: Life Sized Teaching

CURMUDGUCATION: Life Sized Teaching

Life Sized Teaching

Like many teachers, I mostly hate movies and tv shows about teaching. There are too many about hero teachers, larger than life pedagogues who singlehandedly change the world and dramatically shift the course of entire lives (though they generally only teach one prep a day-- seriously, did Mr. Kotter or Mr. Feeney ever teach any other students?)

It's enough to make ordinary mortals feel inadequate.

It's easy for young teachers to develop feelings of inadequacy, to go home and night haunted by the knowledge that you did not change the life of every single child in your class today. I didn't get through to that one kid in third period math. I didn't know the answer to the question that one student asked. I don't have lesson plans done for next week, and it's already Wednesday.

Folks mean to be encouraging with all the rhetoric about teachers shaping the future and touching the future and shutting up some apocryphal guy at a cocktail party by pithily snapping, "What do I make? I make a difference!" But when we're not careful, the message we actually send is that teachers are Larger Than Life and More Than Human, that the only adequate level of teacher performance is Greatness. Which means of course that if you're just a regular human who had a pretty good day, well, you failed. I like to describe education as the work of helping students learn to be their best selves, how to be fully human in the world. And yet, to be a fully human teacher can feel like being Not Enough.

So for my brethren and sistern still in the classroom, on this Labor Day, here's a message from a CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Life Sized Teaching

Michael Kohlhaas Reveals More Secret L.A. Charter Emails: How a Grant of $325,000 from the Waltons Evaporated | Diane Ravitch's blog

Michael Kohlhaas Reveals More Secret L.A. Charter Emails: How a Grant of $325,000 from the Waltons Evaporated | Diane Ravitch's blog

Michael Kohlhaas Reveals More Secret L.A. Charter Emails: How a Grant of $325,000 from the Waltons Evaporated

Big Education Ape: JUSTICE FOR HILDA NOW! #BringBackHilda: Video Available Of August 29, 2019 Accelerated Schools Board Meeting Michael Kohlhaas Dot Org - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/09/justice-for-hilda-now-bringbackhilda.html

Michael Kohlhaas is combing through the treasure trove of leaked emails about the inner world of the Los Angeles charter industry.

He recently posted about the short and strange debut of Ganas Academy.

It got a grant of $325,000 from the Walton Family Foundation. The founder proceeded to pay herself $13,000 a month, spent $63,000 on consultants, and another $15,000 on lawyers, and so on, and soon the money was all gone. But the school wasn’t ready to open, even though the founder was paying a recruiter a bonus of $850 to sign up students.

Kohlhaas writes:

I just got a small set of records from everybody’s favorite star-crossed charter school horror show, that is to say GANAS Academy. The set is woefully incomplete, and it’s pretty clear that Sakshi Jain is lying to her lawyer about it yet again, but nevertheless there is some essential material in there, and you can browse through the whole pile of it over here on Archive.Org.

 And by far the most important material in here is GANAS CONTINUE READING: Michael Kohlhaas Reveals More Secret L.A. Charter Emails: How a Grant of $325,000 from the Waltons Evaporated | Diane Ravitch's blog

What are 2020 candidates saying about labor unions? - Education Votes

What are 2020 candidates saying about labor unions? - Education Votes

What are 2020 candidates saying about labor unions?

By Amanda Menas

Even on Labor Day, the National Education Association is focused on preparing its members for the major role they will play in the 2020 election. NEA’s 3 million members are directly impacted by state and federal labor laws that affect their rights to advocate for their profession and their students.

Some candidates offer specific policies to support union membership, while others express their support more broadly. There is a divide between candidates on whether union workers will stay on their healthcare plans or move into a public option.

But whether they are debating safety, pay, health insurance, or retirement, all candidates agree that union organizing has helped create the American middle class and are willing to fight for it.

In their own words:

I'm sick of this President badmouthing unions. Labor built the middle class in this country. Minimum wage, overtime pay, the 40-hour week: they exist for all of us because unions fought for those rights. We need a President who honors them and their work.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 29, 2019

If a company engages in job outsourcing, union busting or pays poverty wages, they will not get a dime in federal contracts from a Sanders administration. https://t.co/mD3MpAi6qL

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 22, 2019

We need to rebuild unions in this country. That's why I’ve proposed a new law banning states from passing so-called right to work laws that destroy labor unions. It will make sure that unions have a front-and-center seat at the table in any trade negotiation. https://t.co/yub6fAskkA

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 10, 2019

CONTINUE READING: What are 2020 candidates saying about labor unions? - Education Votes

The Past and Future of Labor Unions: An Interview with Stephen Greenhouse | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Past and Future of Labor Unions: An Interview with Stephen Greenhouse | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Past and Future of Labor Unions: An Interview with Stephen Greenhouse

Stephen Greenhouse was the labor reporter for the New York Times for 19 years.

In this interview with the California-based Capital & Main, Greenhouse reviews the history of the labor movement, the role it played in building a middle class, and its decline. He goes on to describe strong portents of a revival of power for working people.

https://capitalandmain.com/steven-greenhouse-on-labors-silenced-voice-0819

Greenhouse has written a new book about the labor movement and why it matters. The book is titled Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present and Future of American Labor.

He said,

One of the reasons I wrote this book is that there’s a phenomenon that far too few Americans understand. Worker power in the United States, not just union power, but worker power overall, has fallen to its lowest level, certainly since World War II and probably since the Great CONTINUE READING: The Past and Future of Labor Unions: An Interview with Stephen Greenhouse | Diane Ravitch's blog

'The Knowledge Gap' | NewBlackMan (in Exile) + Who's To Blame for the Knowledge Gap - Teacher Habits

'The Knowledge Gap' | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

The Knowledge Gap

'Education journalist Natalie Wexler joins All Of It to discuss her book, The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--and How to Fix It.'

            
        

Posted 19 hours ago by Mark Anthony Neal

'The Knowledge Gap' | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Who's To Blame for the Knowledge Gap - Teacher Habits - http://teacherhabits.com/?p=2364 via @Teacher_Habits

I’m finishing up The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler. It’s good. Teachers should read it. I won’t go into a long review here because other people have done so more capably than I could, but I do want to offer one veteran teacher’s perspective on where the finger should be pointed, which is a large part of the book.

Wexler does a thorough job of retelling the history of the Reading Wars and how the teaching of reading in our elementary schools has evolved to be skills-driven instead of content-driven. This, Wexler asserts, is a disaster, and one of the main reasons too many kids can’t comprehend text. It turns out that finding the main idea or making inferences aren’t transferable skills; it’s the background knowledge a reader has about a topic that matters. Therefore, teaching comprehension skills is mostly a waste of time. According to Wexler (and others whose work she cites), elementary schools should be in the business of erecting towers of factual information inside the brains  CONTINUE READING: Teacher Habits - http://teacherhabits.com/?p=2364

Controversial Black Lives Matter film hailed at Venice – Raw Story

Controversial Black Lives Matter film hailed at Venice – Raw Story

Controversial Black Lives Matter film hailed at Venice

Controversial US director Nate Parker said on Monday that he hopes his powerful new film about police violence against black men will help save lives.

“American Skin” received an eight-minute standing ovation after it premiered at the Venice film festival, with Spike Lee — who travelled to Italy to support Parker — comparing its impact to “scoring a goal to win the World Cup or a home run at the bottom of the ninth in American parlance”.

The veteran maker of “Do The Right Thing” and “Malcolm X” had earlier declared that “I haven’t been affected by a film like this… in a long, long time.”

The movie about a black Iraq war veteran, whose 14-year-old son is killed by police when they stop their car in a wealthy white area, is a blistering indictment of institutional racism.

It culminates in the avenging father taking his son’s killer hostage and putting him — and racist police attitudes — on trial after storming his local precinct.

Parker said he hopes the film will start a debate within CONTINUE READING: Controversial Black Lives Matter film hailed at Venice – Raw Story