Maybe first look at this video of the GOP nominee for state superintendent for NC’s public schools.
Her use of the “R” word is not the topic of this post. You can make your own judgement call about how she expresses herself and how she labels special needs students. But I will comment on a couple of her “arguments” and her lack of perspective.
She offers an anecdotal reference to two of her relatives with special needs who benefit from programs in their schools in New York.
Here’s a look at the Schott Foundation report “Grading the States”.
New York, while it has a C+ overall still far outranks North Carolina. They invest more.
Secondly, Morrow should know that New York is a union state that does not have the same “Right to Work” and “At Will” laws on the books as North Carolina. From my review of her words and platform, Morrow is no fan of unions, and unions tend to have the ability to secure more funding for schools.
And NC is 48th on that list.
Morrow also doesn’t reference the LEANDRO court decision which would go a long way to helping students with special needs.
Below are some excerpts and data points from the Leandro Report specifically dealing with Exceptional Children policy.
“The state reported 1,621 teacher vacancies — a consequence of declining supply and high turnover — that could not be filled by qualified teachers during 2017–18, with the greatest number of vacancies in positions for teachers of exceptional children at all levels, elementary school teachers, math teachers, and career and technical educators” (p.18).
“Consistent with prior research (Duncombe & Yinger, 2004; Taylor, Willis, Berg-Jacobson, Jaquet, & Caparas, 2018), the research team’s education cost function analysis indicates that more funding is required to produce the same outcomes for student populations with greater needs (e.g., English learners, economically disadvantaged students (EDSs), and exceptional children). Similarly, the professional judgment panels consistently noted that additional resources are necessary to adequately serve students with greater needs” (p.35).
(Recommendation of report) – “Revise the state’s funding system so that current and additional funding is distributed to students with the greatest need. In order to do this:
– Add weights to the position allotments to account for higher-need student groups.
– Increase the cap on exceptional children funding” (p.50).
“During the needs assessment, district CFOs reported that restrictions on the allowable uses of allotments, along with new restrictions around the Classroom Teacher allotment, hamper their ability to align funding to student needs. The analysis indicated that in 2010–11, allotments with substantial flexibility represented roughly three quarters of K–12 state funding. By 2018–19, allotments with substantial flexibility represented only about one fifth of K–12 state funding. This finding corroborates North Carolina’s Program Evaluation Division 2016 report, which found that the system’s local flexibility has been drastically reduced in recent years. The report notes the General Assembly’s new restrictions on various allotments, including the Teacher Assistants, Exceptional Children, Academically or Intellectually Gifted, and Textbook allotments (186-187).”
I believe every policy maker (or anyone vying to become one) who touts “personalized learning” and screams “differentiated instruction” in our schools to reach every child maximally without supporting the LEANDRO decision should sit in on some IEP meetings – the tough ones where parents and schools struggle to find what is not only appropriate for the student, but how those needs will be met.
And those policy makers (or “would-be” policy makers) should just be quiet.
And learn.
Because IEP meetings can tell you what the health of the school system is and how that school system lacks needed resources.
What Morrow should know is that many law-binding IEPs create obstacles for most schools as they are funded now. Since 2010, this state has lost over 7500 teacher assistants. Veteran teachers have not been respected who are experienced with EC curriculum and practices. Underfunding of resources and a stringent over-reliance on testing have encompassed every grade and every student.
And the very people who are making so many decisions about schools and how they operate and how they should be funded have never even been a part of the very system to have any full idea of what their actions are doing.
Simply put, tests and assessments that drive data-driven decisions many times can take away the personal link that exists between students and teachers. Solely placing students in situations that are based on numbers can impersonally label people. Add to that an anemic funding pattern that has taken place in the last decade plus.
But people truly make schools work. In those past IEP meetings, when the data were considered alongside the preferences of parents, the insight of teachers who knew him, and the willingness of administration to find every possible way to make my son successful in an environment that he knew and was comfortable in, we put aside the personal differences and made educational decisions based on the individual.
I wish that happened for all students who truly need their IEP’s. Too many times our public schools are forced to make due with limited funds for both human capital and needed resources – not just some technology that will be used to track more data and will never be replaced or updated because that’s how policy makers fund schools.
I would like to think that my son and his differently-abled self will teach a lot to the other students about how very similar we all are even if we have differences. But I know he would teach those policy makers so much more about how to better fund our schools.
