Special Education has a bad termite problem

Termites are a huge hidden risk for a house. They can cause a house to collapse and be worthless. Because of this when you buy a house there is a very clear dedicated single page termite inspection agreement to make darn sure you know that the house does or doesn’t have a termite problem.

This termite agreement is a protective guardrail.

Special education has a termite problem but it doesn’t have any protective guardrails.

Individualized Education Program Agreements work pretty well as long as a student is academically within one year of their general education peers.

But if a disabled learner is more than one year behind their general education peers the system starts to break down.

The structured delivery of curriculum over time dissolves into a scattered set of isolated goals that lack a coherent strategy.

… let’s back up a bit.

What the heck is an Individualized Education Program really?

To understand the problem you have to understand what an Individualized Education Program actually is . Get right when you get right down to it An IEP agreement is a blank page amendment to the education contract that allows the school district with the approval of parents to completely amend the education program that the school delivers.

This is necessary to support the wide range of needs of disabled learners.

However it is very dangerous in that a parent could inadvertently agree to an educational program that is almost without content.

What Education Contract?

So if an IEP as an amendment to an education contract, what is the education contract that you have with the school?

This actually exists.

It is the state mandated curriculum that all public schools follow in any state in the United States . You can look them up online . Every subject English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, PE, even preschool have a detailed set of what is supposed to be taught and learned at each grade level (the California standards are here – https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/index.asp)

If you check these requirements out in detail for each subject in each grade you will find something like 20 to 40 specific topics that need to be covered.

So far, so good.

if you look closely out IEP goals they typically map to a single state curriculum standard and students will have between 4 and 20 IEP goals .

No problem…

IEP goals support and reinforce overall education curriculum objectives…

BUT.

Some disabled learners are more than a year behind their general education peers… and this is where the system breaks down.

There are two red flags that you’ll find in an IEP today:

The that the student will be assessed by the state alternative assessment
Academic progress will be measured against IEP goals and not school district standards

Here is where our Termite guardrail is missing!

Special Education Termite Problem

Either or both of these red flags likely indicate that the school district does not believe that the disabled learner will complete a standard high school diploma.

(For us, this happened in second grade(!)… no one from the school district highlighted this as an issue until we started asking questions – lots of questions)

In addition once the IEP becomes the basis for promotion the curriculum that is taught basically collapses.

The number of goals in the IEP doesn’t grow (5 to 20 or so).

But, the loss of the overall state standards for promotion means that the number of overall educational objectives for the year shrinks from more than 100 (each of the 5 to 6 subjects having 20 to 30 individual standards)…

… down to 5 to 20 total goals/standards.

Total.

A reduction of 80 percent… maybe more (I’m not saying that the requirements need to be at peer grade level, just that there should be a comparable number of total requirements).

So, two big problems:

A lack of “appropriately ambitious” educational objectives – 5 to 20 standards for a year vs. more than 100 standards (of whatever grade-level)
No time-based program for delivery of curriculum targeted towards a diploma (or something else). A typical IEP agreement is just a one-year snapshot.

In California, this is even more problematic as the state has created an Alternative diploma for Disabled Learners who have been selected for the Alternative Assessment (this is limited to 1% of the district student population).

Opinion Alert!

My opinion is that, at least in California – but I suspect elsewhere:

IEP agreements are largely non-compliant with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for students who are more than one year behind their general education peers: Students who are not following the general education curriculum on schedule and receiving regular report cards are not being provided with a well-defined, appropriately ambitious education curriculum. (NOTE – this could be fixed in the short term by expanding the IEP to somehow cover 100 or so detailed state academic standards)
The lack of meaningful report cards reflecting a meaningful curriculum for ALL disabled learners (specifically those who are not being promoted based on the school district criteria) is likely a discrimination violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In California, school districts may not be attempting to have as many disabled learners as possible either earn a standard high school diploma or alternative diploma (California Education Code (EC) Section 51225.31 and Section 51225.32). https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/lr/om082523.asp – Especially as there are 359 college programs for students with intellectual disabilities – https://thinkcollege.net/college-search … real high school diplomas matter! For work and future educational prospects!

… if you know of someone doing this better, please let me know!… and if I’m off-base here… also let me know!

Termite Alert

One might argue that some students aren’t going to get a diploma of any kind. That may be true. But, at a bare minimum, parents should be made clearly aware that their child is at serious risk of not graduating with a diploma and what the options and implications are.

Not a nondescript “check the box” and bland “Alternative Assessment” form buried in a 30 page IEP with no further comment.