Category: Special Education

The Kids Are Not All Right

The stats are in and confirm what we already knew: academic achievement is in trouble.  This crisis parallels the mental health crisis students face.

We already knew that student mental health struggles dramatically increased during the pandemic; I’ve written about this often enough. Suicidal ideation and completed suicide rates have both risen. New data from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show that suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 10 to 34, and the rate for people aged 15 to 24 rose 8 percent. Last July nationwide hotline for mental health emergencies experienced  a 45 percent increase in calls, texts and chats in its first month after changing to a simpler phone number [washingtonpost.com]. The stats from the Center for Disease Control offer little hope:

  • From February to March 2021, the number of hospital emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts jumped by 51 percent for girls and 4% for boys compare to that period in 2019.
  • Provisional data for 2021 showed an increase in the national rate from 2020 to 2021, especially for people ages 15 to 24.
  • Nearly 45 percent of high school students were so persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 they were unable to engage in regular activities.
  • Almost 1 in 5 high school students seriously considered suicide.
  • 9 percent of teenagers surveyed by the CDC tried to take their lives during the previous 12 months.
  • The percentage of gay, lesbian, bisexual, other and questioning students reporting a suicide attempt is even higher.
  • Nearly 30 percent of students said an adult in their home had lost a job, and 24 percent said they went hungry for a lack of food.
  • More than 230,000 U.S. students under 18 are believed to be mourning the ultimate loss: the death of a parent or primary caregiver in a pandemic-related loss, according to research by the CDC, Imperial College London, Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Cape Town.
  • The loss for Black and Hispanic children was nearly twice the rate of White children.
  • Schools don’t have enough mental health professionals. Professional organizations recommend one school psychologist per 500 students, but the national average is one school psychologist per 1,160 students, with some states approaching one per 5,000, well below the recommended rate of one for every 500 students. Similarly, the recommended ratio of one school counselor per 250 students is not widespread. [washingtonpost.com]

Now layer that with the disappointing test results for academic achievement. The National Educational Assessment of Progress scores released in April show stark declines, especially in math. “Math scores for eighth grade fell by eight points, from 282 in 2019 to 274 this year, on a 500-point scale, and in fourth grade, by five points — the steepest declines recorded in more than a half century of testing.” These declines come on the heels of a pre-pandemic decline in both math and reading for 13-year-olds [washingtonpost.com]. Many 2019 scores were bad, and current scores are even worse. And the declines play favorites: low-income students and students of color fared far worse [nytimes.com]. Older students – with less time left in their public education to make up learning losses – are recovering more slowly than younger children [washingtonpost.com]. Support for virtual learning during the pandemic varied dramatically among communities, and students who were in virtual learning longer fared worse as well [Ibid.]. I live in Illinois, where schools were closed for a long time. That choice may have supported how much better Illinois did with Covid than many states, but our state’s children now pay the price.

Expressions of concern and hand-wringing over troubling scores will not move us off the dime. I support the call for a historic investment in education published by leading educators in an opinion piece for the Washington Post entitled “To help students shoot for the moon, we must think bigger and bolder” [washingtonpost.com]. Their metaphor of a moonshot is apt; we must support a major effort to address these losses that is both immediate and effective. Under President Kennedy, NASA realized they would need a much bigger rocket to reach the moon than we’d ever built, and major investment allowed the development of the Saturn V that took us to the moon. Research offers several solutions to our current crisis in education:

  • Providing students with three hours of tutoring, with three or fewer students per teacher — each week can produce a year’s worth of additional growth.
  • Summer school provides an academic quarter of growth.
  • One additional period of algebra instruction can teach a semester’s worth of algebra [Ibid.].

 I would add a number of other strategies:

  • Offer classroom teachers more support and professional development.
  • Offer parents/guardians specific work that they might help their students accomplish.
  • Increase the teacher pipeline so we don’t have classrooms being combined and supervised by non-teachers, a serious problem now. We need teachers to feel valued and supported, not exhausted.
  • Increase mental health services on site for both students and faculty/staff.
  • Increase the mental health pipeline.
  • Find a way to limit political attacks on school board members so that they can focus on the urgent issues we all face.

None of this will be inexpensive. As a nation, though, we need a 21st century work force of critical thinkers, collaborative workers, and quality producers. We need a comprehensive approach to mental health issues, behavior, and academics. That won’t happen unless we seize this opportunity for another “moonshot.”

Becoming a “Lighthouse”

This week I had the privilege of attending a Special Education Eligibility Hearing for a student for whom I’m a Guardian ad Litem. I drove a fair distance to an unfamiliar school; there I was welcomed and made to feel included.
 
Eleven of us gathered around a conference table to explore how best to support this student. An innocent victim of a tragic accident, this student has very specific needs for services to support vision and hearing. I have attended hearings like these as a teacher, but my perspective at this hearing felt so different. As a teacher, I might have worried about how to manage the required accommodations, but as a guardian I worked to be sure those accommodations would be made available.
 
My first teaching job in 1970 preceded any kind of special education for students like this. Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, wasn’t signed into law until late 1975.The EHA guaranteed a free, appropriate public education to each child with a disability in every state and locality across the country.  It has been renamed and amended since then, but the purpose remains: to guarantee an appropriate education for every student, at no cost to parents, in the least restrictive environment, with an “Individualized Education Program” that identifies each student’s individual needs and how they will be met.
 
Our group included the DCFS Caseworker, the foster mother, and eight staff members, including teachers, the school psychologist, the vision support specialist, the speech therapist, the social worker, and the chair of Special Education. As I listened to these committed, compassionate adults develop an action plan, I thought about what would have happened to this student in the early days of my teaching, before 94-142. My student would have faced untold struggles and been unlikely to achieve a fulfilled and independent adult life, yet this is a resilient youth whose struggles were caused by others and who deserves assistance to achieve success in school and build a full life.
 
When I was still teaching, I enjoyed collaborating with our Special Education Department. I worked with special ed English classes on creative writing, I helped them produce a newsletter as well as a performance where they read their work to family members, and I co-taught an American Literature inclusion class for juniors with six to eight special education joining other students to be team-taught by the special ed department chair and me. I thought I was a supportive enough advocate, but this week’s hearing strengthened my resolve. Providing special resources and accommodations like extra time on tests or different kinds of printed materials certainly is a burden on already overloaded schools and teachers. But it’s necessary and right, and I remain in awe of a team like this that is not only making it happen, but that also works on how to make it acceptable for a student like mine who desperately wants not to be seen as different.
 
That would have been epiphany enough for this week – smile – but yesterday reinforced it when I got to hear Steve Pemberton speak. Pemberton wrote A Chance in the World, his personal memoir of being raised in a series of abusive foster homes and what helped him find his way to a fulfilling adult life. His follow-up book, The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World, shows how ordinary people can become “human lighthouses” for those in situations like those of his childhood. Yesterday Pemberton spoke about the three lighthouses who changed the trajectory of his life; then he encouraged us to continue to be lighthouses for others. His talk, delivered with humor and without a trace of self-pity, inspired me to recommit to my guardian work. It made me want to share his perspective with the people who sat around that table, each and every one of whom is a lighthouse. Last night I had a wonderful call with the foster mother of my student, and I explained to her why she is a lighthouse. When I finish the book, I’ll pass it on to her – she’s earned it! And I will continue to push myself to be a lighthouse for the youths in my cases. Every child deserves a fair chance, and we all can make a difference.

Best Buddies at Graduation

Last week we had the pleasure and privilege of attending our middle granddaughter’s graduation from a Chicago public magnet high school. The ceremony was held at the Arie Crown Theater at McCormick Place in Chicago because the school auditorium was too small for the class of over 450 and all of their supporters. The event was lovely if long, and we especially enjoyed seeing a certain young woman prance across the stage with grace and confidence to receive her diploma. The class stats were mind-boggling: every student was headed to a four-year college, and they’d logged countless volunteer hours in the community, won numerous academic and athletic championships, and earned $56 million in scholarships! Memorable and impressive, to be sure. That’s part of the package of a top-notch magnet school.

The part we didn’t anticipate happened when the Special Education students walked across the stage to pick up their diplomas and certificates. Part of the mission of Whitney M. Young Magnet School is “To give students with disabilities the same high school opportunities as their non-disabled peers.” In addition to a sizable faculty and staff, the school has a Best Buddies program that pairs regular and special ed students. Some of these students could not make it across the stage without physical support; a couple had trouble following the directions. But each and every one of them received the same response from the audience of parents, friends, and peers: loud cheering and applause with great gusto. This is a truly inclusive community where high-achieving students whose academic success is often a given appreciate and celebrate the success of those who have overcome obstacles to be able to march across that stage. Their genuinely joyful response was uplifting.

When I commented on it, I was assured that those who have attended multiple Whitney Young graduation ceremonies experience that every year. Being part of that kind of school culture, with genuine inclusion, prepares students to work and live with others regardless of their circumstances. It gives me hope for the future.