Comments on: Closing the Achievement Gap for Students with LD

By: ken mutch

ken mutch — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:45:36 +0000

Many years ago I worked at length with a direct instruction remedial reading program that did improve low reading achievement readers’ scores more than one year, sometimes in as little as 5-6 months. There were always a very few students, about 1.5% that were very slow in their advancement/development of effective reading skills. NIH, under G.Reid Lyon and many others completed substantial research that mostly supports something close to my experience. Given instructionally appropriate/effective reading skill development support, even by para-pros, the majority of children can learn to read. Now that’s where the magic is. Appropriate/effective instruction. I believe that’s where it will get interesting in Baltimore, amid defining individual needs, and budget cuts, it will get very interesting to follow closely what actually happens day to day in instructional interventions given (observed by some human), and student gains made. Let’s follow this together, if the system will open up to public support and observation. By the way, in that school district long ago and far away, only about 1.5-3% of the student body was technically defined as having a learning disability.

By: Candace Cortiella

Candace Cortiella — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:31:50 +0000

HI Buzzy:

Thanks for all of your great work on behalf of students with disabilities in Baltimore. I believe your initiative – One Year Plus – is essential if we are to right the ship of special education, which has been cruising aimlessly for decades.

The latest iteration of the IDEA clearly states that special education is, in fact, specially designed instruction which involves “adapting, as appropriate to the child’s needs, the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction to address the unique needs of the child that result from the child’s disability to ensure access of the child to the general education curriculum, so that the child can meet the educational standards within the jurisdiction of the public agency that apply to all children.”

The last part of that definition is critical – “so that the child can meet the educational standards within the jurisdiction of the public agency that apply to all children” – meaning that special education services should be designed to provide the additional growth needed to get students to – or close to – proficiency on state assessments (which are based on the state’s educational standards.) For too long parents have accepted IEPs formulated to provide little if any accelerated progress – despite this statement that appeared in the 2006 release of the federal regulations for IDEA: ““Accelerated growth toward, and mastery of State-approved grade-level standards are goals of special education.”

Let’s hope that Baltimore is using some of its millions of additional IDEA federal funds from the Recovery Act to address the needs you point out.

And let’s hope that parents and advocates across the country will stop settling for the dismal academic achievement of students with learning disabilities. One helpful approach is to develop “standards-based IEPs” which are designed to identify achievement gaps against state standards and write goals that aim to close that gap. The Advocacy Institute wrote a guide to Standards-based IEPs for the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Its available via our Web site’s Resources section [www.advocacyinstitute.org/resources].

Keep up the fine work in Baltimore!

By: Susan Baum

Susan Baum — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:07:30 +0000

I applaud lofty goals for students with learning disabilities. However, if these students truly have a learning disability, it may require more time to catch up. Some of these students will not be ready to read until they are a bit older, Many students with dyslexia don’t read until puberty. To set such time restraints will make these youngsters feel like failures if they are not reading like their age mates within a year’s time. We need to take into consideration developmental asynchrony, anxiety, and other real issues that may interfere progress.