Re: special education students and grade level

[Csubstance@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/7/07 3:54:00 AM, taunar@plateautel.net writes:

<< I got an earful and it seemed to me, a lecture for daring to question the 
90-95% idea. One of the things they pointed out to me was the range within 
each grade level, for example in 4th grade, the range of 4.0 to 4.9. >>

12/7/07

This is the standard counterattack against reason when "standards and 
accountability" are invoked.

Instead of asking them "Is this right?" maybe you should asked them to 
provide you with some research articles -- including underlying data sets -- making 
their claim feasible.

You might want to have some fun with them, too. 

Next April, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) meets in New 
York City. So if your colleagues have evidence that such a thing is possible 
and has been proved in a reasonably scientific way, they should be up front 
with this great news via AERA.

Otherwise, they're blowing smoke. 

Now let's frame the research we need. (It's early morning and we just 
completed our publication cycle here at Substance, so I've got a little time)...

1. What is meant, in this iteration, by "special education." For starters, 
the question is of course what is "special education." If, as in Chicago, your 
specialized services department also includes "gifted" kids, then you might 
nudge closer "on average" (but only because of this sleight of hand). Also, the 
data sets should be subject to disaggregation and a second look. 

2. What do we mean by "grade level" and in what subject (or subjects) or 
skills area (or areas)?

Grade level in piano? In lifting heavy objects? In kissing?

I bet your colleagues never get beyond the "threshhold problems" however. 
Just ask the questions and you get to an even more interesting ones. A few years 
after Chicago had been using "grade level" on the ITBS (Iowa Tests of Basic 
Skills) for student retention (and school probation and reconstitution) 
decisions, Riverside Publishing was finally prodded into telling CPS that "grade 
level" was not a reasonable way to interpret any of the data the ITBS provided. 
Suddenly, "grade level" disappeared from the "standards," replaced by the 
Illinois "standards" (and since "No Child..." that stuff about proficient, etc.

Just because many dumb reporters and the President of the United States talk 
about "grade level" as if it has some reasonable meaning -- and a world of 
self-interested propagandists then chatter on and up along the same track -- try 
to make the median into "grade level" doesn't mean we should allow that 
nonsense to continue unchallenged within the profession. Just as medical science 
once supported eugenics and even bleeding using leeches, so in our meager science 
we have to challenge such nonsense even as it's being spread from the highest.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net
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