Many Schools Miss AYP Due to Special Education Scores (AL)
August 3, 2010
Monday’s release of school ratings brings to light a debate that has been going on in education circles since the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.
Should special-education students be held to the same standards and have to take the same tests as everyone else?
"Of course not," said James Sears, a Daphne attorney who helps design individualized lesson plans for special-education students.
Sears gave as an example a 12-year-old boy that he represents. The youngster is autistic, mentally disabled and emotionally disturbed. His speech and language are delayed, and he reads on a first-grade level. But he has to take tests as if he’s a seventh-grader.
"If he got any of the answers right, it’d be by mistake," Sears said. "It’s just pencil marks on a paper to him."
Of the 30 public schools in Mobile and Baldwin counties and Saraland that did not meet state standards, 24 missed just because of the test scores of special-education students. That was the case with most of the elementary and middle schools across Alabama that did not meet standards this year.
Under No Child Left Behind, schools are judged on how well students in all demographic groups — broken down by race, economic background, special-education status and English language ability — perform on standardized reading and mathematics tests.
If a school has 40 or more students falling into any of those groups, and that group does not perform up to par, the entire school is labeled as failing.
The number of students who must pass the tests rises each year.
School systems are allowed to exempt 2 percent of their students from taking the regular tests. Those students, who have some of the most severe handicaps, have a portfolio of their work submitted to the state as part of the Alabama Alternate Assessment.
The rest must take the Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test if they are old enough to be in the third through eighth grades or the Alabama High School Graduation Exam if they are old enough to be in the 11th grade.
The Mobile County Public School System, the state’s largest, has about 7,800 special-education students, about 12 percent of its student population. Thousands of students who are not exempt from the tests fall into a wide category of ability.
Some, said Shelia Martin, executive director of special education for Mobile County schools, should "have their feet held to the fire. If I make accommodations for them," such as giving them a test with larger print, "then they’re right where they need to be. But some, I can’t make accommodations for. And they shouldn’t be held to the same standards."
Special-education students now participate in a process known as inclusion, where they sit in a regular classroom with kids their age. They receive repeated one-on-one interventions to try to help them grasp the material. Martin said they are performing better now than they were years ago.
"Kids will surprise you sometimes," Martin said. "You don’t think they can do something, and they get it done."
Reneah Doherty, a special-education teacher at Stapleton Elementary in Baldwin County, said she sees special-education students making progress every year, just not enough to keep up with the testing requirements. She said she’s worked with children who went from reading 28 words a minute to 68. But they’re supposed to be at 90 words.
"You take a child that can’t read the test they’re taking, sit them in a classroom for hours and hours to take the test. It breaks your heart," Doherty said. "We’re excited when we see kids making progress, but if we see we haven’t met AYP for that particular reason, that’s disheartening."