The topic of special education and standardized testing came up in a big way at the monthly Board meeting in the Capital School District. Here’s where I take my impartial glasses off and announce that I spoke at the meeting. I gave public comment to the Board concerning my article yesterday about Federal interference with IDEA and Special Education laws.
I read parts of the letter the US Republican Senators sent to the US DOE and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about how the US DOE is potentially breaking the law with results-driven accountability and NAEP testing as a performance indicator for special education students. I advised that since a national test like NAEP is skirting around IDEA laws, then the state is doing the same with Smarter Balanced Assessments by having it put into Indicator 17 on the new special education audit system the state of Delaware has to give to the Feds. Because of this, I advised the Board that no child with an IEP should be required to take the Smarter Balanced Assessment. I also said parent opt-out shouldn’t even be an option, it just shouldn’t happen at all.
Board Vice-President Matthew Lindell also brought up the subject of standards-based IEPs and their impact on Capital School District. It appeared Superintendent Dr. Michael Thomas was going to look into this subject. I wrote about the standards-based IEPs last week and how the state of Delaware is incorporating Common Core and the controversial results-driven accountability as part of their “counseling” to schools for these new standards.
Dr. Thomas also briefly discussed the United States Supreme Court decision on Schaffer v. Weast, from 2005. This decision indicated the burden of proof for due process hearings on special education matters rests with the party initiating the case for the student, usually the parents. In using this framework, Dr. Thomas had a slide up which wrote: “This creates a number of practical problems and is a significant reason school districts are regularly expending vast amount of public funds to settle what are at time dubious claims.”
There was not much actual discussion about this matter, but the fact that it was introduced seemed odd. I am quite sure, speaking from experience, that to parents of special needs children, their claims are not dubious and are a result of months of effort to obtain proper special education for their children. For more information on the 2005 Supreme Court Ruling, please read here: http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/caselaw/ussupct.schaffer.weast.htm
The Season Of Myths 