Ariz. Expands School Choice Beyond Students With Disabilities

Just a year after Arizona lawmakers created a school choice and scholarship program for students with disabilities, the program has been expanded to other groups of students, doubling its potential reach.

On Monday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law a measure that expands eligibility for empowerment scholarship accounts, which can be used to pay for private school tuition, tutoring, online courses, or saved and spent on college tuition.

Earlier this year I wrote about how school choice programs, especially private school vouchers, often begin with students with disabilities. Those programs, largely unchallenged, are then expanded to include other groups of students.

Why? Generally, it comes across poorly to protest programs intended for students with special needs, several experts told me at the time.

The additions to the Arizona program will allow the children at D-graded schools, children of active duty members of the military, and children adopted out of the foster care system to qualify for a scholarship account, said Jonathan Butcher of the Goldwater Institute, a free-market think tank based in Phoenix. He helped craft the bill, and tweak it, after Brewer initially vetoed it. (Students at F-graded schools would be eligible too; Arizona just doesn't have any of those yet.)

These students would be able to use the accounts for the first time during the 2013-14 school year and will boost the number of students eligible to about 200,000, Butcher said, with most of the additional students coming from D-graded schools. Brewer, the Goldwater Institute's education director, had said offering those students choice was a priority. Already, Arizona students can choose to attend any public school, although transportation is typically provided only if students attend their neighborhood school.

The 150 students with disabilities who have signed up for accounts have received on average about $13,000, but other students will get less, about $3,400, Butcher said, because of the way state funding works.

"Thanks to this program's expansion, more students in Arizona will be able to customize their education—something we could have only dreamed of just five years ago. We're not talking about just choosing a different school, but a complete school experience specifically designed for each student," Butcher said in a press release. "This is the future of education in the U.S."

Feds Offer Guidelines on Discouraging Restraints, Seclusion

Nearly three years after U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan first sent states letters asking them to review policies and guidelines on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools, the Education Department has issued its own nonbinding guidance on the practices.

Restraint and seclusion, often used on students with disabilities, are intended to be used in emergency situations, when students are in danger of hurting themselves or others. But several reports, including one by the U.S. Government Accountability Office have found that the practices are being used inappropriately and incorrectly, leading to injuries, or even the deaths, of students.

"There is a difference between a brief time out in the corner of a classroom to help a child calm down and locking a child in an isolated room for hours. This really comes down to common sense," Duncan said in a statement.

The Education Department said its long-awaited 15 principles about restraints and seclusion should be used as the foundation of policies and procedures created by states and districts, but it isn't binding or required. The principles were a collaboration between the department and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"These principles stress that every effort should be made to prevent the need for the
use of restraint and seclusion and that any behavioral intervention must be consistent with the
child's rights to be treated with dignity and to be free from abuse," Duncan wrote in a letter at the beginning of the 40-page document. "The principles make clear that restraint or seclusion should never be used except in situations where a child's behavior poses imminent danger of serious physical harm to self or others, and restraint and seclusion should be avoided to the greatest extent possible without endangering the safety of students and staff."

Among the principles:

•Preventing the need for restraining or isolating students should be a priority.
•Mechanical restraints should never be used to restrict a student's movement, and schools shouldn't use drugs or medication to control a student's behavior unless these have been prescribed by a doctor or other health professional.
•Students shouldn't be physically held down or restrained except when they are in imminent danger of hurting themselves or someone else.
•Policies restricting restraint and seclusion of students should apply to all students, not only kids with disabilities.
•Isolating or restraining students should never be used as a form of punishment or discipline, coercion, retaliation, or as a convenience.
•Restraining or seclusion of a child should not involve restricting his or her breathing or anything else that harms the student.
•Multiple uses of restraint or seclusion of the same student should trigger a review and if necessary, a revision of the strategies in place to address dangerous behavior; and,
•Teachers and other staff should be trained regularly about appropriate use of effective alternatives to physical restraint and seclusion, such as positive behavioral interventions and supports, and safe use of restraint and isolation.

The Education Department also suggests informing parents about policies on restraint and seclusion at their children's schools, when the practices are used, and all incidents should be documented.

U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who has pressed for federal legislation about restraint and seclusion, applauded the Education Department's new document.

"Though some states have made progress developing policies on seclusion and restraint, the policies vary widely in what protections they afford students. A patchwork of protections, riddled with holes, is not acceptable when it comes to children. We cannot sit idly by as incidents of students being abused or inappropriately restrained continue to occur."

He said the 15 principles outlined in "Restraint and Seclusion: Resource Document" support the bill he first introduced in 2010, the Keeping All Students Safe Act.

The American Association of School Administrators, which has said it opposes federal legislation about restraint and seclusion, said it agrees with the tone and direction of the new guidance.

"The department's tone that seclusion and restraint are for student and employee safety not student discipline was important," said Bruce Hunter, the group's associate executive director, for advocacy, policy, and communications.

However the document may be overly reliant on the GAO report, he said, and AASA still prefers state-based policies on restraint and seclusion.

"State policy is more informed by the full range of stakeholders," he said. In addition, Hunter said the federal discussion on restraint and seclusion hasn't focused enough on injuries to teachers and other school employees that are serious enough to merit workers' compensation claims and sick leave, which is something his organization is researching now.

He said one of the best contributions the federal government could make regarding restraining and secluding students is by paying for training that would improve local practices and state policies.

More Students Receiving Accommodations During ACT, SAT

After reading this recent piece in the Chicago Tribune about students getting accommodations on the ACT, I couldn't help but wonder what the picture looks like nationally.

The Tribune's Diane Rado was able to drill down to the school level to find out how many students were getting extra time or other accommodations, factors that can make a big difference on the test, taken by all high school juniors in Illinois.

At one high school, she found that 1 in 6 test takers were granted extra time or a special testing format.

Nationally, as the number of students taking the ACT has increased in the last four years, so has the number of students asking for, and getting, extra time or other accommodations when taking the exam, the testing agency told me.

During the 2010-11 school year, 5 percent of all test takers were provided with some feature that was intended to adapt the test to their needs, ACT spokesman Ed Colby said, compared with 3.5 percent of test takers in the 2007-08 school year.

The numbers of requests have been rising among SAT takers, too, along with an increase in test takers overall. Once students are approved for an accommodation, they don't have to reapply. Of new requests—almost 80,000 during the 2010-11 school year, compared with 10,000 fewer five years earlier—about 85 percent are approved, said Kathleen Steinberg, the spokeswoman for the College Board. The ACT said roughly 90 percent of requests made are granted.

While the Tribune story delved into whether accommodations are too common, a Government Accountability Office report from late last year found that for some students with documented disabilities, getting accommodations can be a hassle. The testing companies have said that they have to be judicious in doling out special testing conditions to keep things fair.

Both companies said students with learning disabilities, followed by students with ADHD, are the most common among those requesting an adjustment to their testing experience. Most students want extra time, and in the last year, the SAT said at least one student was given four times the amount of time given to other testers to take the exam.

But are all students with learning disabilities or ADHD being accommodated? Or just the ones who can navigate the lengthy, and potentially costly, process? As I just wrote, the GAO found that sometimes getting the proper assessments testing companies require can cost from $500 to $9,000.

The newspaper analysis found that in the case of Illinois juniors taking the ACT, "schools in wealthy enclaves with predominantly white students were at the top of the list when it comes to students getting ACT testing accommodations." The colleges that students apply to are never told if a student was granted any alternate conditions for taking the test.

U.S. Lawmakers Create Caucus Devoted to Dyslexia

Two members of Congress with children who have dyslexia recently created a new caucus devoted to the learning disability.

In a letter to fellow members of Congress, Rep. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, and Rep. Pete Stark, a Democrat from California, note that dyslexia is the most common disability.

"All too often dyslexics are either misdiagnosed or misunderstood, and as a result their true skills and abilities go ignored," the pair wrote, noting a Government Accountability Office report released late last year that explored accommodations on standardized tests such as those required for college.

Disability experts and applicants also told us that, in some instances, they found testing companies' documentation requirements on providing a history of the disability to be unreasonable. ... For example, one applicant was asked to obtain a new evaluation of her disability even though school evaluations conducted every 3 years consistently showed that she has dyslexia. Applicants and disability experts we spoke with told us that obtaining these assessments can be cost prohibitive, and applicants reported costs for updating these assessments ranging from $500 to $9,000.

The representatives said there is much work to be done in raising awareness about dyslexia and changing policy to create opportunities and remove barriers for the success of those with dyslexia. A new movie, "The D Word," approaches dyslexia as a neurological issue, explaining that the struggle with the written word is not an indication of one's ability to think, to create, or to solve problems, and highlights successful people who have dyslexia.

Other congressional caucuses exist to rally around specific disabilities. One example is the Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus, formed in 2008. And the Autism Caucus was created more than 10 years ago.

School Using Shock Therapy Under Fire Yet Again

More than 225,000 people are beseeching Massachusetts school that has used shock therapy for years to stop the practice, noting that some groups including officials from the United Nations have called the practice torture.

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass. is a residential school for students with disabilities and behavior problems. Many of the students who attend have been placed there by school districts in Massachusetts and other states who say it is the best option for students they cannot serve.

One of the school's methods to curb or stop behavior, such as a student's refusal to eat or their violent tendencies, is through shock treatment developed by the school's former director. In a video on the school's website (choose the first link here) the then-director Matthew Israel, who retired last year, describes the treatment as the equivalent of a two-second bee sting.

Now, former employee Greg Miller, has created an online petition to push for an end to the practice, which has been challenged in court but remains legal. As this 2007 in-depth piece about the school in Mother Jones notes, the school is named after one of the Massachusetts judges who allowed the practice to continue in the 1980s.

The federal Department of Justice launched an investigation into the school two years ago, and the agency has been urged to speed up its work.

Miller said he worked as an aide at the school from 2003 to 2006, while he was studying alternative medical approaches for the treatment of children with learning difficulties and autism. Miller, who had previously been a teacher, now lives in California where he is studying Chinese medicine.

"I went through this change process myself from believing this was a place that could save these students to where I realized there were so many other things they could do and were not doing," Miller said in an interview with Education Week.

The school says treatment is only used with parents' consent and only after each student goes through an involved legal process in which they are assigned their own lawyer. A team of therapists evaluates whether the therapy should be considered.

Miller claims that with parents scarce at the school, the shock treatments were used far more frequently than the school maintains, and having experienced a shock during his training, it was far more brutal than a bee sting.

In this (also disturbing) video, which the school battled to keep private, a student who has autism shrieks and begs not to be shocked. Last month, his mother settled a lawsuit against the school out of court.

"I never signed up for him to be tortured, terrorized, and abused," Cheryl McCollins says on the video about her son, Andre. "I had no idea."

On Wednesday, Miller delivered the signatures gathered on Change.org to Massachusetts lawmakers. Miller and McCollins met with several legislators including the state's house speaker.

It isn't clear whether any of them will be compelled to act. A bill to end the shock treatments has repeatedly passed the state senate, but not the house.

"These parents are desperate," Miller said of those whose children end up at the center. (Before and after photos and video of students on the school's website show stark changes between students who have had therapy, and they include one girl who says she volunteered for the treatment.)

"As much as they try to show how much these kids need this electric shock," Miller said, "there are other methods out there."

Youth Disabilities Shift From Physical to Mental, Testing Resources

Unprecedented numbers of American children are being identified with special medical and educational needs, and over the past several decades, the types of predominant childhood disabilities have shifted from physical disorders to mental health disorders, according to the latest edition of the Future of Children, a publication from the Brookings Institution and Princeton University.

The new report says that ADHD is about three times more likely than asthma to contribute to reported childhood disability.

Why does this shift matter? The authors said research shows that on average, mental health disorders in childhood have larger effects than childhood physical health problems on adult health, years of schooling, participation in the labor force, marital status, and family income.

The editors said that the term "disability" is not standardized, complicating researchers' ability to understand increasing disability rates. Regardless, the prevalence of mental health problems among children and their potential effect on human capital are worrisome, they said. Although mental disabilities make up a growing share of children's disabilities, services haven't grown at as quick a pace.

The report also talks about health care for children with disabilities and the complex role health insurance plays in access to and quality of care. Other sections are devoted to disparities among children with disabilities and the role technology can play in reducing disabilities if equitably distributed.

A key goal for modern society, the authors say, should be to devote resources to prevent, diagnose, and manage health conditions in children to improve their ability to function and their future trajectories. The report shows that the costs of not doing so may be greater than the costs of many interventions to prevent and reduce childhood disability.

What Works to Prepare Young Children With Disabilities for School?

A new review of research tackles the effectiveness of different strategies that are meant to prepare young children, especially those with disabilities, for school. Early intervention can have a huge effect on whether students with disabilities are ready for school, and may even help them exit special education before or soon after they enter school.

In a recent review, the U.S. Department of Education's  What Works Clearinghouse found that something called milieu teaching appears to have no discernible effects on prepping young children for school, and more research is needed about another strategy known as play-based interventions.

When teachers use strategies embedded in regular activities to prompt students to do a specific thing, it may be a form of milieu teaching. For young children with disabilities, the method can be a way to prepare them in preschool for the rest of their educational life.

Here's an example from the Plano, Texas, school district.

"This might be placing favorite toys visible but out of reach, presenting the child with a new activity, or 'forgetting' to provide a key component of a familiar activity. When the child appears to want the item, the adult makes eye contact with the child. The adult may simply look expectant,anticipating the child's asking for the item. If the child makes the request (i.e. is able to produce the target skill), then he or she is praised by the adult and receives the item along with social praise. If he or she does not respond appropriately, then the adult may try one or more of a variety of prompts, usually starting with the least intrusive. These include: providing the child with a natural prompt ('What do you want?'), explicitly asking the child to make the request ('Make the sign' or 'Point to the picture'), modeling the request for the child, or physically guiding the child in making the request. ... When the child has produced the target skill using whatever assistance was necessary, he or she receives the item along with social praise. It is usually not a good idea to use too many prompts because this can confuse the child, or make the child prompt-dependent. ..."

The What Works Clearinghouse said it looked at 161 studies about milieu teaching, finding only one that met its criteria for research. Based on that study of 40 preschool children with developmental delays in Davidson County, Tenn., the WWC said there just isn't enough evidence out there to vouch for milieu teaching.

The agency also looked at research about play-based interventions. These are described as "practices designed to improve socioemotional, physical, language, and cognitive development through guided interactive play." (Please share an example if you have one.) An interventionist uses strategies to sustain and encourage child play activities, WWC says. "Through the use of appropriate play materials and the direction of the interventionist, the goal is for young children with disabilities to be better able to explore, experiment, interact, and express themselves."

But does it work? A review of more than 60 studies from the past two decades found that none met the WWC's criteria for quality research, (something that's been lamented in the past).

The agency says still more research is needed.

Bullying Can Trigger Anxiety, Depression in Students with Disabilities

A new study concludes that young people, already burdened with chronic medical conditions or developmental disabilities, are at risk for anxiety and depression if they are excluded, ignored or bullied by their peers.

The patients in the study had conditions including ADHD, cystic fibrosis, type 1 or 2 diabetes, sickle cell disease, obesity, a learning disability, autism, and short stature.

The researchers found that being bullied and/or excluded by peers were the strongest predictors of increased symptoms of depression or anxiety in the young patients.

"What is notable about these findings is that despite all the many challenges these children face in relation to their chronic medical or developmental diagnosis, being bullied or excluded by their peers were the factors most likely to predict whether or not they reported symptoms of depression," study leader Dr. Margaret Ellis McKenna, a senior fellow in developmental-behavioral pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina.

The small study, of 109 youths ages 8 to 17, recruited subjects during routine visits to a children's hospital. Patients and their parents completed questionnaires that screen for symptoms of anxiety and depression, and students were also asked about bullying or exclusion by peers.

"Professionals need to be particularly alert in screening for the presence of being bullied or ostracized in this already-vulnerable group of students," McKenna said.

Several organizations have tried to emphasize the need for special attention to prevention of bullying of students with disabilities. Early results from another study found that children with autism are more likely to be bullied than their siblings without the disorder.

McKenna said schools should have clear policies to prevent and address bullying and exclusion, as well as programs that promote a culture of inclusion and a sense of belonging for all students.

Senators, Advocates Call for Increase, Improvement in Teaching Braille

A quarter of the U.S. Senate is calling upon Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to take steps to ensure students who are visually impaired are taught Braille.

Education Department regulations say that students who are blind or visually impaired are supposed to be taught Braille, unless teachers find that it isn't appropriate for a particular student.

But according to some estimates, only about 10 percent of the nation's blind students are actually taught Braille.The reasons: There aren't enough Braille teachers, some teachers of blind children don't have enough training, and many educators do not think Braille instruction is even necessary, according to the National Federation of the Blind.

Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, doesn't agree.

"Students with blindness or a visual impairment who are inappropriately denied or delayed Braille instruction find themselves struggling in middle and high school, falling further behind their sighted peers," reads the letter sent this week from the group of 26 senators, led by Murray. "As this achievement gap persists, the student's ability to compete with sighted peers for post-secondary opportunities and employment is significantly compromised. This literacy gap is both unnecessary and preventable."

Murray's office said the letter is supported by the American Council of the Blind, American Foundation for the Blind, American Printing House for the Blind, Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired, Helen Keller National Center, National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, and the National Federation of the Blind.

The senators urge Duncan to consult stakeholders and write new regulations for the education plans of students who are blind or visually impaired, and give guidance to school districts on teaching Braille reading and writing. The group said IEP teams should evaluate students for instruction in reading Braille, and those evaluations should include a data-based learning media assessment that provides data from learning modalities including auditory and visual.

The group also wants the Education Department to provide additional guidance to school districts about when Braille instruction is beneficial to a student who is blind or has a visual impairment. While assistive technology, including devices or programs that convert text to speech are important, "for students with blindness or a visual impairment, providing instruction in assistive technology alone may not be used as the only reason for denying Braille instruction."

Of note, some states have taken steps recently to enhance their instruction in Braille.

Sen. Murray's office notes that, compared to sighted peers, fewer students who are blind or visually impaired attend college, and those who do make it to college often find themselves underprepared for the challenges they face. Teaching students to read and write Braille could help get them ready for higher education, the lawmakers contend.

"Instruction in Braille closely parallels instruction in print reading. Beginning in kindergarten, instruction focuses on fundamentals such as phonemic awareness, and in later grades continues into higher order skills such as comprehension. For students with blindness entering kindergarten, Braille instruction is begun immediately. However, as you know, many students with a visual impairment have a degenerative condition resulting in low vision or blindness during later childhood or adolescence," the senators wrote.

"For many of these students, Braille instruction is begun much later, once the student's visual acuity significantly decreases," they continued. "Often, the result is that the student is unable to access the grade-level curriculum because he or she lacks proficiency in Braille."

Common Standards Push States to Focus on Special Ed. Practices

As states across the country work on incorporating the Common Core State Standards, some states are paying special attention to how students with disabilities will tackle the content associated with them.

In one sense, the standards may make learning more manageable, said Carla Williamson, the executive director in the office of instruction for West Virginia's education department.

"Our curriculum has been a mile wide and an inch deep," she said. "These standards have removed that."

But the standards, more demanding than many states' existing standards, are still likely to prove a challenge for all students, including many with disabilities. As a result, states, including Williamson's, are incorporating strategies long associated with special education to ensure that students grasp the associated content regardless of their learning style or disability.

I explore the spread of universal design for learning and response to intervention because of the common-core standards in this piece, part of a larger collection of stories about the standards.

In West Virginia, RTI has been rebranded and retooled to shed its association with special education.

The new vision of "support for personalized learning" was developed collaboratively at the state level, she said. And there was "no better time to improve what we were doing."

Many teachers remain anxious about the standards, however, no matter the steps states may be taking to prepare.

"I worry that it will take years of mistakes and growth to get a working system, which means years of students failing and not living up to their full potential through no real fault of their own," said Richard Williams, who teaches students with disabilities at a middle school in the Atlanta area.

He's still waiting for more training opportunities to emerge, but he said he does feel hopeful about how the standards could one day transform his classes.

"I see my room slowly transforming into a colorful college classroom. I see desks moving from rows to circles or tables for group discussions. I see textbooks fading away to be replaced with 'libraries' of primary sources and topic-specific materials," said Williams, who blogs about his teaching experiences for the Council for Exceptional Children.

"I think even in special education where there is very little independent learning and high levels of guided learning, students will be increasing the level of self-discovery. I hope my teaching style will mature into less lecture/review and more into discussion/discovery."