1. “If it’s a school day, during school hours, one-fifth of the total American population consists of public school students K through 12. One in five Americans. And if you count teachers and administrators you are probably going to get pretty close to one-quarter of the population of the country at any given time on a weekday sitting in a public school building.” (Lemann, 2001)

2. The Emergence of Special Education
HISTORICAL CONTEXT

3. 1960’S Segregation no Longer Permitted
Disabled Students Denied Access to Public Schools
Litigation Brought Against Public Schools Seeking Access for Disabled
Public Schools Concede
School House Doors Opened

4. 1970’s States pass special education access legislation
Congress follows suit in
1975 Gerald Fords Signs PL
Promise of Federal $$ accompanies legislation
States implement federal law

5. Basic Tenets
Affirmatively find and education students with disabilities
Determine type of disability
Required to meet eligibility criteria
Extend and follow procedural due process requirements

6. IMPACT Found millions of students Capped #’s via limits on funding
Equated category/label with program
Once identified outcomes didn’t matter
For 35+ years taught educational personnel to refer kids if they don’t learn
Expanded number of categories

7. Interventions are NOT:
Activities which are intended to put students into alternative settings where appropriate interventions can occur. Or
A different setting or location:
Special Education
Title I
Day Treatment
Residential Programs

8. CONSEQUENCES Special Education students didn’t need to learn
General Education students didn’t need to learn
Parents, teachers, society, believed identification meant problem solved
Created two school systems

9. We Don’t Have Time to Think
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs. He feels that there really is another way… If only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
From Winnie-the-Pooh

10. Embrace RtI as general education model with other initiatives
RtI is a framework for student improvement, not another initiative
Other initiatives, if focused on the same outcome, will fit this framework (PBIS, PLC)
Consider how well school staff use data to make instructional decisions for student improvement
Consider how well current services for struggling students are coordinated/integrated
Not another initiative - but a framework (data, evidenced based practices using a problem solving model.
If you are thinking - Oh we do this already - ask yourself how well data are used to fully inform instructional decision making
• do teaching teams meet to review data, and plan instruction?
• is there a building team that reviews building data - identifying area of need and strength, making suggestions for resource allocation based on what students may need
• is there professional development support for teachers to increase skills in practices that have proven to be effective (prof. learning communities,
• consider current services for struggling students - does the classroom teacher know what the Title I teacher is doing with the students during that time, etc….

11. Experiencing Substantive Educational Reform Initiatives
Comprehensive
Enjoy broad political support
Priority federal/presidential agenda
Nothing like it in 35 plus years (ESEA)

12. CHALLENGES KEEP DOING WHAT WE ARE DON’T LOOK FOR SHORT CUTS
BE CAUTIOUS OF “TAKE IT TO SCALE.”
PATIENCE – OLDEST INTRACTIBLE INSTITUION
BATTLE VESTED INTERSTS WITH DATA, NOT OPINION
SUBSTANCE – NOT PROCESS