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Closing the Achievement Gap for Students with Disabilities: Fix General Ed and Special Ed Together
Posted May 1, 2018
Students with disabilities are not making the achievement gains they should make. The achievement gap between students with disabilities and students without disabilities has remained largely unchanged despite adaptive technologies and supposedly research-based methods. But we can improve outcomes for special education students by significantly improving general education and special education together.
(By Linda Diamond, founder and former president, CORE and author of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook)
Educators have long known that students with disabilities have not made the gains they should, despite placement in special education classes with individualized education plans or even mainstreaming into general education classrooms. The most recent 2017 NAEP confirms the persistence of this problem. As reported by Education Week (Christina Samuels, April 11, 2018), “Students with disabilities posted stagnant scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2017 and failed to close the gap with students not identified as having disabilities.”
Despite research-based methods and adaptive technologies, the achievement gap between students with disabilities and students without disabilities has remained largely unchanged (University of Texas, “Is Progress Being Made Toward Closing the Achievement Gap in Special Education?”, Oct. 5, 2017). Although the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires a free and equal education in the most inclusive environment possible (FAPE and LRE), little has improved. In fact, the most recent Supreme Court decision in Endrew F. v Douglas County School District, determined that every child needs “a chance to meet challenging objectives” (see my previous blog), but most special education students are not held to high expectations.
High-Quality General Education Leads to Progress for Special Education Students
High-quality general education leads to significant progress for special education students. The results of a new study of Boston Public Charter Schools by Elizabeth Setren confirms this claim. Indeed, she found that “attending a Boston charter school makes special education students 1.4 times more likely to score proficient or higher on their standardized tests, resulting in a 30% reduction of the special education achievement gap” (Brookings Report, “The Importance of high quality general education for students in special education”, Setren and Gordon, April 20, 2017). This finding is not really surprising. If overall teaching quality is better, then all students benefit.
Good Teaching First for Prevention and Achievement
This blog is not an argument for the benefits of charter schools; instead, it points to the importance of high quality first teaching both for prevention and to enable our most vulnerable students to excel. Schools where all students realize strong achievement generally have high expectations, aligned, evidence-based curricula, and expert teaching. This is precisely what is called for by implementing multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). If advocates for students with disabilities want them to have a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE), then we had better make sure that environment is of the highest quality. Mainstreaming students with disabilities into weak general education classrooms will do little to close the achievement gap for students with disabilities and will only make an already struggling teacher’s job more challenging.
Nonetheless, special education needs significant work as well. Special education teachers and paraprofessionals deserve high quality professional development, excellent materials, and the best possible support to enable them to help their struggling students, particularly students struggling with reading disabilities, the primary reason students are referred to special education in the first place. All too often special education teachers have been left out of school and district initiatives, and according to a recent report from the National Council on Teacher Quality, only 11 states require that special education teachers demonstrate knowledge of the science of reading as part of their preservice credentialing programs. In fact, in the best MTSS models, special education teachers and general education teachers work closely together supporting all students regardless of classification.
However, only focusing on special education at the exclusion of general education will simply perpetuate continued over-identification of students needing special education and over-representation by children of color in special education. We must work to simultaneously fix general education and make special education truly special.
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5 responses to “Closing the Achievement Gap for Students with Disabilities: Fix General Ed and Special Ed Together”
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I understand the concept of raising expectations on students with disabilities, but what you’re leaving out is the behaviors that come with raising these expectations. School staff do not want to get hit, kicked, or spit on to raise these expectations. I think that behaviors should be addressed over curriculum first. Make sure that these students can handle the expectations that are asked from them and teach them how to perform these expectations is the first step in closing the gap.
I firmly believe and have many former and current colleagues that will confirm that quality instruction and genuine relationships deter most inappropriate behaviors. These are two definitive and obvious reasons why two different teachers can get different results/behaviors from the same student. The third most significant factor in student achievement is the child’s perceived expectations of their teacher(s) (Hattie, J.) The solutions to instruction and classroom management aren’t elusive. The courage and willingness to accept responsibility without excuses are.
Danielle!!!
Bingo!! I too believe unless we change the mind-sets of those involved, embracing highly qualified and passionate educators who are in the business of CHANGE and desiring to support in making a difference, then nothing will work. Curriculum is an excellent beginning.
Check this out… Washington State excludes Students with Disabilities from their legislated work to close the achievement gaps and improve outcomes for ALL students! (Not sure how the state government interprets what ALL students means?) I guess students with disabilities are not part of ALL in Washington State.
Even though the legislators were told they can’t just leave out a protected class from the state-wide work, they continue to do so and justified that they have special ed. plans and aren’t part of general education. In Washington State, fixing general ed. isn’t the problem… fixing the mindsets of those making the laws is!
I agree with this article, that the achievement gap can start to be closed once there is inclusion of special education classes with general education classes. Although my son is on the general education side of his classes, he has been part of Integrated Co-Teacher (ICT) classes for four of his six years in elementary school. The ICT classrooms include both students with and without IEPs and have two teachers (general education teacher and a special education teacher) who work together to create lesson plans to ensure the entire class can participate, while keeping with the same expectations for all. When I first found out that my son was placed in the ICT class, I was skeptical about how this would work. I was concerned that my son would not be challenged and would the special education students be challenged too much. I also wasn’t sure how the instruction would work – with two teachers in the classroom, would they both be teaching at the same time? I had so many questions, that I feel many people have. After the first few months of my son being in his first ICT class during 1st grade, I knew it was a great classroom and school experience. All students in the class were held to the same expectations – and all were pushed to a higher level of learning. The assignments were the same with the same due dates, tests were the same, etc. and hearing from parents who had children with IEPs in that same class, saw a huge benefit to their child’s education and growth in their learning. My son hopes to be placed in ICT Classes each year. He loves having two teachers and being able to get challenged. The school has had such a great response to the ICT classes that more and more ICT classes are added to the grades each year.