I agree-there should be a huge bonus to school boards with the least special ed placements by grade 3.
In no way should they be compensated for creating reading disabled students-nor spelling disabled,grammar disabled and math disabled….

By the way,the problems with these students are so tragic,many require mental health professionals-I see children from stress clinics-in grade 1 and 2 -when they learn to read and spell-and write-guess what happens ?
We really need to do better in our prevention work and we NEED to learn about reading research.We need to show we care about children not just be political.

This may sound like a stupid question but what is the goal of the special needs program in Ontario?

Is it to a) stay the course and just get the student through the system, or b) to move the child out of the program into the mainstream?

I ask this because of the large number of special needs educators, specialists and para-professionals we currently employ and wonder what would happen if by some miracle the special needs kids could learn with the mainstream and those “communication disorder” children could read…..wouldn’t we put many people out of work? 

Is it really about doing what’s right for kids?

There is a suspicious lack of interest in doing better Chuck-you have to wonder.

The fact is there are FAR too many kids being labelled as sp ed because boards get more money for identifying more students. There was a time when LD actually meant a specific LD but now it simply means “the child is not progressing as fast as the group and we don’t quite know why.”

Boards actually hire people to go through their OSRs finding kids who used to get SE and now do not in order too get them back in to get the higher grant. This is corrupt and the false labelling actually hurts the students.

This is an odd one but I actually agree with Chuck above but only up to a point. He would take the savings from SE and make it a tax cut. I would re-invest it in class size reductions where it can do ALL kids some good.

People do not realize that SE is not a “pit stop” it is a whole school career stream. There are far more kids “identified” than the literature says ought to need help.

This is why we get SE. Hard pressed inner city principal say “Can I have more money for class size reductions?” The answer is no. They then ask “Can I have more money for remedial or booster programs for kids who are a little bit behind but don’t need an IPRC.” No is the answer. They then ask, “OK then can I have the following kids IPRCed to get them special help.” The board responds that, just like the rat who found the leaver that gives a food pellet instead of a shock, YES you can have those students IPRCed and for sure some or all will be chosen for SE.

The net result is that we get too much SE and too little of everything else in school because it is the secret formula for getting more money. The TBE ran this scam on the old Metro board for years because one had the money and the other had the “needs”.

The Special Ed funding structure does not reward boards for “finding more special ed” kids. It used to, but that has been changed.  The Ministry and the board actively DISCOURAGE schools from taking students to IPRC for identification as Special Education students. One reason, I suspect, is that identification gives the student (and parent) some legal rights, but it does *not* generate more money, so the school/board/Ministry do not want to be bothered. It is official Ministry policy, but not public, to do everything possible to discourage people from taking students to IPRC.

Identified or not, most Special Ed students (so-called) spend their school career in regular classrooms along with everyone else. They often get no “extra help” of any kind. A resource teacher in a school may have a caseload of 175 students that s/he is supposed to “monitor”—usually by helping the classroom teacher with the paperwork involved.  The “special ed” kids have an “IEP” (individual education plan) which simply means that they are graded on their report card at a lower grade level. Parents often do not realize this.  They get Tommy’s report card, which has mostly B’s and C’s, and don’t get the fact that Grade 7 Tommy is being marked on Grade 2 expectations.  The report card has a standard statement that “the mark for <subject> is based on the expectations in the IEP, which vary from those of Grade <X>,.” but it does not state what grade level the student *is* working at.

  There are supposed to be multiple conferences with parents about IEPs, but realistically this is not feasible.A classroom may have 12 children on IEPs (only some or none of these classified SpEd through IPRC), and the logistics of multiple meetings many times a year with parents (who work and often don’t speak English) are daunting. Most parents sign the “consultation” form but rarely understand what is involved.

The Education Act requires principals to implement an IEP for any student consistently unable to do grade-level work, so in schools with a high-needs population up to a third of the students have IEPs, and more ought to, if the regulation were actually followed. Parents are to be consulted, but they do not need to agree.

Self-contained classrooms for children with LD, intellectual disability or other special needs have been severely cut back. It is easier to win the lottery than to get your child into a LD class. 

Through a loophole in the regulations, boards can hold onto their special ed funding until the next fiscal year, when it can be rolled into reserves and spent on anything. Much of the money allocated to Special Ed is not going to meet the needs of Special Education students. Where is it going? Only a forensic audit will show.

While better instruction could prevent some “LD,” the high-expense category in Special Education is children with autism. Most also have mild to severe intellectual disability, and do not do well in the mainstream. Some require as many as 3 adults assigned to them for safety reasons. CYW’s (Child/Youth workers) and educational assistants are paid less than teachers, but the cost of multiple caretakers for a single child can be astronomical. They also need completely individualized learning materials.  Once rare, autism is increasing in frequency and affects about 1 in every 150 children (as against 1 in 10 000   30 years ago). As a society, we will be faced with a tremendous challenge trying to care for these individuals when they get older, especially when their parents can no longer care for them.
For a gripping and multifaceted look at the issues, see the recent book, “Boy Alone” by Karl Greenfeld:
http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Alone-Karl-Taro-Greenfeld/dp/0061136662

Note to Jo Anne Gross: it is extremely unusual for a child to be classified “LD” before Grade 4, as a significant discrepancy (usually interpreted as two or three years) must exist between the student’s assessed intellectual ability -IQ measured by the WISC-4- and his or her academic achievement.  This is impossible before Grade 3 at the earliest.

Far from seeing “too many students in Special Ed” I see too many students whose needs cannot be met in the mainstream who receive no services, even those not costing the school system any money (speech therapy, occupational therapy and other services are covered by other branches—medical, community services, etc.).  When these kids prove disruptive and hold an entire classroom hostage, as does happen, they are not only losing their own chance at an education—most could be effectively taught, and perhaps brought to a skill level where total inclusion would be appropriate—but they disrupt the leaning of other students as well.  A lose-lose situation.

Special education students are often poorly served or not at all. Where the money goes is a good question. A senior official at the TDSB assured me that the money is “not for the students.” (exact words).

I’m glad to see they have moved in this direction. SE is not the answer for most kids who “ARE BEHIND”.

The engine of special education which costs tax payers millions of dollars annually is broken.It is a cancerous institution that labels children ,types up IEP`S and files them AND EMPLOYS MANY.All testing should be informal-autism,blindness and deafness are medical conditions that should be labeled by Dr.s.Communication disorders are ridiculous in this day and age and are an enterprise for psychologists and speech pathologists.The intervention for reading,spelling and handwriting problems should be cured with Orton Gillingham methodology and MULTISENSORY phonological awareness training.Math problems are often a consequence of fuzzy reading which will be greatly enhanced with the above.Jump Math is the intervention for Math,a systematic program like Orton Gillingham.
Read Sally Shaywitz from Yale University -Overcoming Dyslexia-Dyslexia is simply a term which means difficulty with language and is 95% treatable.Move the money to intervention-EARLY-shake things up at the Ministry-CARE ABOUT CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS!

I neglected to address this point:

“As it happens, by far the greatest increase in special education students is in the category of “communication disorders”, which is sort of code for “learning-disabled”. “

In fact, the term “communication disorders” is a category that includes ‘learning disability’ but it is not a code word for LD. Communication disorders include autism and other neurological conditions, such as verbal dyspraxia, specific language impairment (a very *real* condition), aphasia and more. These are diagnosed by physicians, not school personnel. Autism, not LD, is the fastest-growing diagnosis.

The evidence is that for children with autism, good, early (before age 2) intervention with protocols such as Intensive Behaviour Intervention can make a quantum difference in the child’s development and facilitate a more normal life, with the possibility of being reasonably self-sufficient as adults (most will require some degree of care). Unfortunately, the way the government has structured funding, only a fraction of eligible children receive appropriate intervention, and that intervention stops when they reach school age.  School personnel do not have the needed training to work effectively with students with autism.

As long as autism rates continue to climb, “communication disorder” will remain a growing category.  There is a growing tendency to lump children who would more accurately fall into the category of behaviour disorder, physical handicap or mild cognitive disability into the “LD” category (parents can be more accepting of this), so that partially inflates “LD” numbers—but special services for “LD” students are rarely provided..

At some point we will have to confront our failure to address the needs of the severely impaired, because the cost of “warehousing”  adults is astronomical. Cognitive science has developed to the point where many effective methods and materials have been developed for people with severe challenges, but these have rarely made their way into schools.

TDSBNW-Research shows that 70%of students in special education are LD-15% are autistic and the rest are the other designations.My plan would stop your industry,fire most of the labelers and spend the money training teachers to intervene in teaching children to hear,read,spell,articulate and write language simultaneously-trust me-I had a meeting at OISE this summer.The Institute agrees that the research is conclusive-the teachers remain untrained to do this work
because the professors that train churn out degrees to well intentioned teachers without training them how to do it according to the research.The research department at OISE and the teacher trainers are divided.Your industry labels-Autism is growing but it is still 15% of the special education sector-LD is70% and early intervention can stop the necessity of the label-but once you hang it on a child-serve them with all the money you get and Train the Teachers-be accountable-

I don’t see the purpose of insults.  Nor do I know what “my industry” is supposed to be. I am not teaching Special Education. However, I know a great deal about it and have family members with aphasia, autism, SLI and traumatic brain injury. BTW, I am trained in Orton-Gillingham and have a nephew at an O-G private school.

Writing in anger and haste and slandering people is probably not a good method to improve teaching in the schools. We can agree teacher training needs a lot of improvement.

I regret responding to your concern about students identified LD in Grades 1 and 2 with information about how the process actually works.

OMG I agree with most of Jo-Anne’s content but not her style, too aggressive for me.

Jo-anne be chillin.

When a Dr.withholds penicillin to patients in need it is referred to as malpractice-yet we allow this to go on annually-educational malpractice.Someone needs to be extremely aggressive.I have met too many parents and kids to be relaxed on the issue-thanks for the advice though.

Someone has to call the SE “industry” what it is. It is not a “pit stop” where kids get some help and back into the race, It has become a “stream” in and of itself in which nobody seems to calculate the damage done to the young person by the labelling process which to a kid, is like stamping “dumb” on your forehead.

SE teachers like it because it is seen in schools as an easy job. Boards and even the union like it because it generates jobs and revenue. These are not bad people. They all think they are doing the right thing but drift into becoming a self fullfilling establishment. Since there is no guarantee that the money saved will be retained by the sysyem and put to places where it would do more good, everybody defends the status quo and urges even more funding.