Comments on: Williams’ editorial http://SpedPro.org/2006/03/28/williams-editorial/ A source for current professional information about special education Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:01:03 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Deanna Cash http://SpedPro.org/2006/03/28/williams-editorial/comment-page-1/#comment-72 Deanna Cash Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:17:22 +0000 http://johnl.edschool.virginia.edu/blogs/spedpro/2006/03/28/williams-editorial/#comment-72 As a former School Psychologist, I hardly know where to begin to address Mr. Williams’ commentary. Perhaps the best place is to express my concern that a Special Education teacher seems to have so limited an understanding of the diagnostic and educationally prescriptive process involved in identifying and then teaching students with Learning Disabilities. The general public, including many teachers and parents, has seemed for decades to ascribe to the view that any student who is functioning below grade level for whatever reason should receive Special Education services. Mr. Williams seems to feel that is the modus operandi of schools and Special Education programs as a whole. Yet, those of us who work in this field know (or should know) that our standards of eligibility are rather more specific and stringent than the general public’s perception. Special Education, then, is NOT responsible for ameliorating every academic difficulty, only very specific ones. Thus, Mr. Williams asks the fundamental question we have been answering in our Special Education identification process for decades: “What is the root cause of these student’s difficulties? It is fairly certain that there are teachers, schools, school systems, and Special Education programs which do not adhere to the strict definitions set forth for eligibility. This may be due to a myriad of reasons, including lack of understanding and training. No doubt there are many children receiving Special Education services who do not meet those criteria. In that case, would it not make more sense to analyze and correct the problems specific to those schools, systems, and programs rather than indicting Special Education as a whole? And are there not methods and programs other than Special Education which address academic difficulties? Of course there are! Mr. Williams says it here: “Interventions for struggling readers that produce significant and comparable performance improvement results for both ‘disabled’ students (classified as LD) and general education students are readily available.” Why then, does he not attack those interventions when he says, “…students must establish a record of ‘low achievement’ (i.e. failing) before anyone bothers to ask why they are not learning”? Mr. Williams further suggests that low achievement (in reading at least) is due to “educational experiences, and not in something deficient in the child.” He says, “ In other words the child’s capacity to learn to read is not the problem.” These statements seem to reflect a rather archaic view! How long has it been since we replaced such negative terminology as “deficient” with the more accepting “different”? Then again, it seems that Mr. Williams favors a more homogenous view of students, how students learn, teaching practices, and programs: Below grade level achievement is due to social promotion and “educational experiences.” According to him interventions to correct academic delays simply need to address educational gaps due to inadequate or faulty instruction (those pesky “’progressive’ teaching methods” Mr. Williams eschews). All students, regardless of their strengths, weaknesses, and reasons for those, should be held to the same standards. (At least he allows that a “modified timetable” for applying those standards might be acceptable.) Finally, though, there is one statement of Mr. Williams’ with which I agree: “A clear-eyed assessment of special education shows that it is bedeviled by the same cultural and institutional constraints that explain the inadequate performance of public education in general.” However, I disagree as to the nature of that bedevilment. In my mind, the constraints are in the narrow analysis of our educational system, a tendency to oversimplify complex systems, and a bent toward blame rather than correction. As a former School Psychologist, I hardly know where to begin to address Mr. Williams’ commentary. Perhaps the best place is to express my concern that a Special Education teacher seems to have so limited an understanding of the diagnostic and educationally prescriptive process involved in identifying and then teaching students with Learning Disabilities. The general public, including many teachers and parents, has seemed for decades to ascribe to the view that any student who is functioning below grade level for whatever reason should receive Special Education services. Mr. Williams seems to feel that is the modus operandi of schools and Special Education programs as a whole. Yet, those of us who work in this field know (or should know) that our standards of eligibility are rather more specific and stringent than the general public’s perception. Special Education, then, is NOT responsible for ameliorating every academic difficulty, only very specific ones. Thus, Mr. Williams asks the fundamental question we have been answering in our Special Education identification process for decades: “What is the root cause of these student’s difficulties?

It is fairly certain that there are teachers, schools, school systems, and Special Education programs which do not adhere to the strict definitions set forth for eligibility. This may be due to a myriad of reasons, including lack of understanding and training. No doubt there are many children receiving Special Education services who do not meet those criteria. In that case, would it not make more sense to analyze and correct the problems specific to those schools, systems, and programs rather than indicting Special Education as a whole?

And are there not methods and programs other than Special Education which address academic difficulties? Of course there are! Mr. Williams says it here: “Interventions for struggling readers that produce significant and comparable performance improvement results for both ‘disabled’ students (classified as LD) and general education students are readily available.” Why then, does he not attack those interventions when he says, “…students must establish a record of ‘low achievement’ (i.e. failing) before anyone bothers to ask why they are not learning”?

Mr. Williams further suggests that low achievement (in reading at least) is due to “educational experiences, and not in something deficient in the child.” He says, “ In other words the child’s capacity to learn to read is not the problem.” These statements seem to reflect a rather archaic view! How long has it been since we replaced such negative terminology as “deficient” with the more accepting “different”? Then again, it seems that Mr. Williams favors a more homogenous view of students, how students learn, teaching practices, and programs: Below grade level achievement is due to social promotion and “educational experiences.” According to him interventions to correct academic delays simply need to address educational gaps due to inadequate or faulty instruction (those pesky “’progressive’ teaching methods” Mr. Williams eschews). All students, regardless of their strengths, weaknesses, and reasons for those, should be held to the same standards. (At least he allows that a “modified timetable” for applying those standards might be acceptable.)

Finally, though, there is one statement of Mr. Williams’ with which I agree: “A clear-eyed assessment of special education shows that it is bedeviled by the same cultural and institutional constraints that explain the inadequate performance of public education in general.” However, I disagree as to the nature of that bedevilment. In my mind, the constraints are in the narrow analysis of our educational system, a tendency to oversimplify complex systems, and a bent toward blame rather than correction.

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