AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MICHIGAN BOARD OF ED FORUM

To: Members, Michigan State Board of Education

Date:  March 11, 2013

My name is Kathleen Kosobud.  I am a “temporarily retired” special educator working on my dissertation, and offering technical support and advocacy to parents of students receiving special education all over the state. I am here today to speak to you about the impact of “school reform” and the ever more rigid standards that affect these children.  

Almost two years ago (May 26, 2011), I addressed members of the Board about the effects of withholding a Personal Curriculum option from students with disabilities, until their senior years. Since then, I have had two more years working with students who have experienced exclusion—in the name of “improving education”.  Some of these actions are against Federal and Michigan law, some are merely immoral:

• I heard from a student’s parent in an EAA school who is trapped in the school where he is being bullied because his IEP is not current, and his new public school won’t accept him without a current IEP. 

• I was contacted by a parent whose child was suspended from school for three months on a disciplinary issue, and is not being allowed back until the parent has him evaluated for emotional/behavioral problems.

• I have been called by parents who can’t keep their children in charter schools, because their children’s needs don’t fit the services at the charters.

• I represented a child in foster care who had been suspended for a year, placed in a virtual high school, and had been stripped of the other services that his IEP called for because the virtual school claimed that they didn’t offer those services.

• I have represented several children whose parents have requested evaluations, only to be told that they must wait for a “response to intervention” program before they could be evaluated…even though their children are failing academically, or have behaviors that are so severe and frequent that they are missing countless days of school. 

• And finally, after leaving school, I was contacted by an adult who was told by the local adult literacy organization that his entry test scores made him unsuitable for literacy instruction—he was unlikely to make enough progress to support the literacy organization’s funding.

I am worried, and I think that I have a right to be worried that school reform is nothing more than code for “reform school” for these children and adults—who are destined to leave school because they are not supported—by dropping out, or being pushed out through a steady diet of “we don’t serve people like you”.

Having recently read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, I am left to wonder if our weak Michigan economy is being bolstered by feeding the School-to-Prison Pipeline, a growing economy that starts with the alienation of disempowered youth.  And what more disempowered group than students with learning and behavioral disabilities, left unattended by our schools?

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About N Kathleen Kosobud:  Kathleen Kosobud is completing her dissertation at Michigan State University focusing on family-school relationships in special education.  Kathleen has blogged for LDA of Michigan at http://ldamiexchange.blogspot.com/, and for her own amusement at http://backburner-nkk.blogspot.com/.  She was one of the contributors to restructuring of the teacher education program at Michigan State University’s School of Education through a project to infuse inclusive content into all teacher education courses for the preparation of new teachers, under the guidance of Susan J. Peters, Ph.D. After achieving National Board Certification as an Early Adolescence/Generalist as a teacher of middle school mathematics in a special education resource classroom, she served as a teacher-in-residence for Assessment Development at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.  She is the parent of two adult children with learning disabilities, and identifies as a person with learning disabilities, herself.  You can reach her by e-mail.

What Kind of Teachers Do We Want?

On Diane Ravitch's blog today: The Future of National Board Certification, a guest posting by Nancy Flanagan.  She says:

Here’s what I worry about: NBPTS has now been taken over by Pearson. The teacher-led, teacher-developed goals of the original founders’ mission–using teacher expertise to shape education reform–are so far from what we’re doing now it’s frightening. And–the US Dept Of Ed decided not to put the National Board in their last budget. They gave $$ to Teach for America instead.

I, too, am a National Board Certified Teacher. Like Nancy, I also took time away from the classroom to work for the National Board in assessment development, and then returned to teaching. I was one of the first 87 teachers in the country to earn the distinction of being board certified, at a time when there was NO context for such an attainment–one had to make one’s own. I continued to teach and found myself more articulate about my teaching decisions, and more observant about how my students learned. And I agree with Nancy’s comment:

NB Certification has nothing to do with credentialing–largely because credentialing has little to do with increasing student learning…NB Certification is all about what happens in the classroom; advanced degrees focus on other issues and knowledge.

My greatest hope for education reform was that the interesting work of teachers would take center stage, and that many more teachers would be engaged in sharing their practices with future generations of teachers. Instead, teachers have been shoved to the margins, and operations like Pearson have grown into giant ed-factories, bending to political influence and financial expedience.
What is central to my concern is what gets funded, and who gets funded–Teach for America, and the Common Core. We march ever forward, reducing education to a technical exercise, measuring accountability with machine-scored tests, and staffing the neediest schools with fewer and fewer committed, career-minded educators. Once schools lose the trust of their family community, the project of dismantling public education becomes easy to sell–parent triggers, emergency manager takeovers, and farming out the business of public education to for-profit charter operators.

Pearson, formerly Harcourt, used to run the operations side of National Board Certification–booking the needed rooms for training and running the scoring operations, making sure that assessments were properly logged in and distributed to scoring sites, handling applications and so on. Other organizations ran the assessment development portion of the work of the National Board–Educational Testing Service, Educational Development Center, WestEd, etc. Each of these organizations brought their most knowledgeable resources to the table to create assessments that were authentic representations of the essential elements of teaching practices in each field. I think that it is wise to be concerned when all aspects of an operation such as National Board Certification are under one roof. One might reasonably speculate that such an arrangement might lead Pearson to revise National Board Certification processes with profit and power, rather than student development and growth, in mind.

My first grandchild enters kindergarten this fall. I hope that his early years in school will mark the beginning of a turnaround where all children, not just my grandson, will experience the joyfulness of being “known” by committed teachers in healthy environments where learning provokes awe.
I saw that in many of the National Board Certified Teachers whom I met after becoming one myself. Too bad that we aren’t about funding that kind of effect.

SOME OF US ARE MORE EQUAL...

The Michigan House of Representatives has been pretty busy lately. First, they passed this bill (HB 5040 of 2012) which makes it okay for students in counselor training programs to engage in discriminatory practices against LBGT clients, by refusing to counsel them. Then they passed House Bill 5711 of 2012 which places draconian restrictions on facilities that offer abortion as part of their services. And, in response to the word ("vagina") used by Democratic state Rep. Lisa Brown in speaking out against HB 5711, HB 5712, and HB 5713, the Republican Majority Floor Leader  banned her from speaking the next day.

It seems to me that these actions aren't about decorum or conscience or manners--they're about Power--who is entitled to wield it, and who is not. This quote from Animal Farm is apt in describing the situation: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others"- George Orwell, Ch. 10. The latest targets are women, but the "Freedom of Conscience Act" troubles me because, although it targets LGBT people, there is nothing to prevent other vulnerable groups from the "equal opportunity" of discrimination.

I really waffle about this "Freedom of Conscience Act".
 
Would I want someone who is so clearly biased counseling me? What if my being overweight or having red hair set off a gag reflex in some counseling intern and (s)he decided to tell me that I made them sick, it was against their religious principles to treat fat redheads, and I'd have to go to someone else?  

Would I be hurt? You bet! 

Would I argue over their reaction to me?  No--but I might say something pretty choice to their supervising instructors. 

Would I be likely to seek counseling from another intern in the program? Not very...

Isn't this like allowing a doctor to refuse to treat a (name your persecuted minority) patient?  Yes, it is.  We cringe in horror when we recall the shunning that patients with leprosy, tuberculosis, and later AIDs were treated.  We fight to close the institutions for the disabled because they are inhumane.  And yet, our legislature thinks it's okay to hide behind (Christian) religious beliefs to refuse to give counsel?

Of course, then it occurs to me that no amount of counselor training is likely to make a difference. Maybe it's a losing proposition to try to open such a closed mind.  Maybe it's okay to discriminate, as screwed up as that sounds?


Now, this Act only singles out students in counseling programs.  But what if we take it another step further?  What if our legislature decides that this "protection" should be extended to teaching interns?  What happens when the legislature extends its' attack to teacher education (e.g. I only teach (name your privileged class)? This is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

But then, I guess that "Some of us are more equal than others".

On the death of laptops

Quick rant:

Once again, I have worn out a laptop. I hate when this happens.  First of all, it's never at a convenient time.  Second, it invariably means that I also have to figure out what software has been lost in the data transfer...and then either re-load it or replace it.  Both are expensive--one in time, and the other in actual dollars...and time. And finally, it means learning the new hardware, system software, and customizing it all to my idiosyncratic need for same-ness in spite of the advances in technology that force me to learn new things.

This time is no different.  Sigh.

I've Been Conned!!

…

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

—The Who

            I suppose that I had it coming.  In the virtual world of Gmail, Facebook and Twitter, there is no shrieking siren or a flashing red light to alert folks that they’re about to fall into a pit of vipers.  Lulled into a false sense of security, I’ve settled into a daily routine of skimming quickly through my e-mail for worthy petitions, calls to action, and clicks to support worthy and benignly apolitical causes (think “kittens and puppies”).  I’m a regular at Change.org, and at the GreaterGood Network.  Looking over these two sites, I think you’ll agree that they do “kittens and puppies” feel-good work that makes life more worthwhile. Every day, I go to The Hunger Site, and click to donate a cup of rice to hungry children all over the world, and then click on the other buttons to donate books, mammograms, trees, pet food, and so on to the other causes on the websites in the GreaterGood Network.  I like participating in these sites; they offer us a chance to “click” and by doing so, participate in acts of “micro-charity”.  Most of their partners are non-profit NGOs, so it’s hard to believe that those innocent clicks might benefit causes that I don’t support.

Picture from DesktopNexus

            It was all over in an instant: a couple of clicks of the mouse, and I had the “too late—oops” reaction when I realized I’d made a truly regrettable error. The innocent subject line was something in the vein of “kittens and puppies”, and so I clicked… and confirmed that I supported “kittens and puppies”. Another window opened asking if I’d support some other worthy “kittens and puppies” cause (click), and another (click)…and another (click).  And suddenly, there it was…the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the Trojan horse of all Trojan horses: Join the Fight to Save Great Teachers,  a petition initiated by Students First, the education policy lobby run by faux education expert, Michele Rhee.  Remember her?  The mythologized Bee Eater who got results in the Washington, D.C. schools, and then quickly ducked out when her mayoral patron was evicted from office?  The role model for superintendents of urban schools everywhere, featured in “Waiting for Superman”, as she brags about firing bad teachers with her Machiavellian teacher evaluation system?  

            Here’s what Students First says they’re for which sounds a lot like “kittens and puppies” at first blush:

• Elevating the teaching profession by valuing teachers' impact on students;
• Empowering parents with real choices and real information; and
• Spending taxpayers' money wisely to get better results for students.

But Students First (SF) perpetuates a fraud on families through smoke and mirrors:

• SF narrowly defines the value of teachers’ impact on students, equating impact with large scale test scores.  It devalues the impact of teachers’ relationships with students and their families by minimizing the effects of teacher experience and the trust that families build with teachers over time. It fails to recognize the strength and local knowledge that comes from commitment of and by the school community.
• SF says that choice is good but is blind to the information on the demographic consequences of school choice. A National Education Policy Center study suggests that charters actually increase segregation of students. For many children excluded by charters through “cherry-picking” and “counseling out” there is no choice if they are to get the supports they need. And the children who are disproportionately affected by these tactics? The poor, those with disabilities, English language learners, the very children SF claims to be helping.
• SF promotes responsible use of taxpayers’ money, but ignores the shell games played by commercial charter operators to profit at public expense.  Hedge fund investors capitalizing on the “crisis in education” have joined the fray.  Public school districts lose in this tug-of-war for resources.

            Using social media like Change.org and The Petition Site.com, Students First is selling their agenda by stealth.  Their taglines are all “kittens and puppies”: “Every student deserves to attend a great school”, “Pay effective teachers what they deserve”, “Join the fight to save great teachers”, “Pass the DREAM Act to give every student a chance at the American Dream”.  They are using progressive-sounding phrases and twisting their meanings to serve their very un-progressive ends.  As we get closer to re-authorizations of ESEA (aka NCLB), and IDEA, don’t be surprised if Students First begins to claim a wellspring of support from these misleading petitions.  

Image copied from Facebook by K. Kosobud

            So, I’ve been conned.  Bamboozled.  Seduced by “kittens and puppies”. Snookered.  Fallen into the pit of vipers.  Learn from me.

            And remember, a snake may shed its old skin...but underneath it's still a snake.  (Thanks to S.F. for this bon mot).

 

Kathleen Kosobud is temporarily retired from her teaching career as a special educator while completing her Ph.D. at Michigan State University.  She blogs for the Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan at http://ldamiexchange.blogspot.com, and for her own amusement at http://backburner-nkk.blogspot.com. She has the distinction of being one of the first National Board Certified Teachers (EA/Generalist) in the U.S.

The Michigan Rehabilitation Services Shell Game. Priorities Misplaced.

Once upon a time, Michigan had a Department of Labor and Economic Growth (DLEG).  Its purpose was to oversee programs that would put people to work, and develop new jobs.  Included among the programs within DLEG was Michigan Rehabilitation Services (MRS), an agency that offers evaluation, training and placement of persons with disabilities in jobs.  This agency, woefully underfunded and an essential part of successful work placement for many people with both visible and invisible disabilities, has enabled many people with disabilities to find work, and live more fulfilling lives... 

According to their home page "MRS partners with individuals and employers to achieve quality employment outcomes and independence for persons with disabilities."

Enter Governor Rick Snyder and his executive orders to streamline the management of government offices: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/2011-4_346311_7.pdf
One day, I had a need for information about a Michigan Rehabilitation matter. I went to look for it under the Department of Labor and Economic Growth (DLEG)...and it was gone!!  Suddenly Michigan Rehabilitation has become the purvue of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA).  

Now, this was confusing to me because Michigan Rehabilitation is not a regulatory agency--it is a human service agency, and it is not a licensing agency--it verifies a person's disability, and helps with training and placement for those with disabilities.  So I posted an inquiry on LARA's facebook page:

Kathleen Kosobud  What is the logic for including Michigan Rehabilitation Services under "Licensing and Regulatory Affairs"? Inquiring people would like to know.. (6/2/11)

Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) Hi Kathleen - I've asked a representative from MRS to help me with getting you the best response possible. As soon as I have one I will get it to you :) (6/3/11)

Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA)

Kathleen - The organizational placement of Michigan Rehabilitation Services (MRS) was part of Governor Snyder’s EXECUTIVE ORDER 2011 – 4. MRS is a Bureau within the Employment Security and Workplace Safety Division of the DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS and is joined there by Michigan Commission for the Blind, Wage and Hour, MIOSHA, Unemployment Agency and the Worker’s Compensation Agency. You can find a copy of the EO here: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/2011-4_346311_7.pdf If you have any other questions please let me know. Thanks! (6/6/11)

Kathleen Kosobud Thank you for the thorough response. I'll read the executive order. (6/6/11)

Kathleen Kosobud Having read through the EO, the placement of MRS within LARA still defies any reason I can see. It would better serve the public, especially those with disabilities, if it were placed in the Workforce Development Agency, within the Michigan Strategic Fund, along with Michigan Commission for the Blind, and other disability related services. MRS is a service that is primarily focused on skill development and placement of persons with disabilities in jobs, and its regulatory functions appear secondary. The disability community is generally underemployed even during good economic times and dispersion of disability related services does little good toward helping to improve the situation. (6/11/11)

Now this is only a little annoying to me, but if I were a person working on behalf of a family member with a disability, I might think that the governor's executive order had been informed by people whose chief objectives were to hide as many of the human benefits of government as technologically possible.

Meanwhile, the governor has decided that it makes sense to coordinate all 84 separate early childhood funding streams currently managed throughout various state government agencies. I guess that he has better advisors on early childhood than he does for persons with disabilities in need of work.

Post-script to Comments to the Michigan Board of Education

This is a post-script to a previous entry.

I just heard from the mother of the young woman who was not offered a personal curriculum until her senior year of high school.  She called to tell me that her daughter was graduating...with her class...and had passed all of her courses! Today was her open house.

This could only have happened through the combined efforts of a team of people who believed that this young woman had value:  her family, her teachers, her friends, her school administrators--and most importantly--the young woman, herself!

This is a story of triumph over adversity; but it is also a cautionary tale.  Even while holding high expectations for achievement, we need to remember to be considerate of circumstances that may make such achievements very challenging.  We need to be proactive in planning to allow the playing field to be truly leveled for students with disabilities. It is unfair to withhold a fair accommodation from a person who needs it until they have reached the point of despair. It is a form of taunting that amounts to bullying.

It is my hope that Michigan districts will be more proactive and consider requests for accommodation through creative course selection, differentiation of instruction, alternative formats for course completion, and through the option for developing a plan for a personal curriculum.  Our common objective is to see to it that many more students successfully complete high school with diplomas, and are able to continue their educations or training for successful entry into the workforce.

Choices

I've been a special educator for what seems like all of my life. I retired from the classroom to go back to school for a PhD, because I believed that I could make a difference in the field. I feel less like this now, than when I originally started writing this entry in 2008.  

In the present world of policy, I'm afraid "choice"--for schools, for birth, for social security investment, for health plans, for privatization, for vouchers, for the kind of research that "guides" the purchase of textbooks, for curriculum aligned to "what is on the test"--that kind of "choice" is no choice at all.

I am often relieved to be out of the classroom, but at the same time I feel as if I should warn future teachers about these unnatural "choices" that will guide their practices for years to come.

What I have concluded

NOTE: This was written before the 2008 elections and never published.  I re-read my thoughts and decided that they're still worth publishing.

I am trying to stay very upbeat about this election.

I have come to the conclusion that Sen. McCain doesn't know the difference between autism and Down Syndrome based on his remarks about Gov. Palin's role in his (imagined) future presidency, where he appears to have decided that it doesn't matter. I assume that he is past educating, based on his age, but I remain open-minded and would encourage Madeline and George Will to call on him, and set him straight about this misapprehension.

I also can see how there could be a plank in Sen. Obama's platform that addresses the funding of research for autism, but neglects to pay any attention to other disabilities, although I'd encourage him to extend his friendships to include families of children with a broader range of (dis)abilities.

Comments to the Michigan State Board of Education Forum, Ann Arbor, 5/26/2011

To: Members,  Michigan State Board of Education
Date:  May 26, 2011                                   

My name is Kathleen Kosobud.  I am a “temporarily retired” special educator working on my dissertation. My research focus is on family-school collaboration in special education. I am one of the first 87 teachers in the country to have achieved the status of National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT-EA/Generalist, 1993).  I am also the immediate past president of the Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan (LDA), an all-volunteer organization; and I am finishing my service as LDA’s representative on MDE’s Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC).  I am here to speak from my experiences as a teacher, parent, and advocate about righting the course for students with disabilities as they are challenged to meet the High School Content Expectations or “huskies” (HSCEs) of the Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC).

I read the SBE’s recommendations to Governor Snyder: “Education Improvement and Reform Priorities” and heartily endorse your performance focus regarding graduation, and the ability of graduates to “obtain post-secondary credentials that ensure they are well-equipped with skills for work, self-support, starting a business, and contributing to the common good”. This year marks the first graduating class affected by the changes in curriculum requirements through the Michigan Merit Curriculum.  Although the initial legislation was passed in 2006, with additional legislation supporting the development of “Personal Curricula” (PCs) for students with disabilities passed in 2007, it seems that districts across the state are still unprepared or unwilling to implement PCs for students whose identified disabilities interfere with successful completion of the MMC, without such modification.  During the past year I have fielded calls from parents who have encountered varying forms of resistance to their requests for PC plans for their high schoolers.

One parent called me after school personnel at her son’s 9th grade special education planning meeting (IEP), told him that he would not be getting a diploma.  Stunned by this pronouncement, his comment was, “Then why am I bothering to go to school?”

Another parent called me when her daughter, a senior with mathematics learning disabilities, flunked her first semester of Algebra II.  Although this parent had requested a Personal Curriculum for her daughter since her freshman year, the district said that she had to fail courses in order to warrant consideration for a Personal Curriculum. So, until her senior year, she was left to struggle through all of the curriculum requirements at her high school, without PC modifications and lagging in credit. Since she also was having difficulty with the mathematics HSCEs of chemistry, the district suggested that she drop Band (the one course in which she was experiencing success), in order to take a team-taught class in chemistry, and repeat the Algebra II course that she failed.  Finally, because she was going to be short of credits for graduation at the end of the year, the district would not allow her to walk with her graduating class--students with whom she had attended school for all 12 years of her time in this rural district.

A third parent called after a district told her that they “didn’t do” PCs. Period. This troubles me on a number of levels.

First, students with high-incidence disabilities have always had the potential for gainful employment and full participation in the adult world, with appropriate accommodation for their disabilities.  The reluctance of districts to respond affirmatively to requests for Personal Curricula is punitive, and mean-spirited.  Loss of access to a diploma represents, for students with disabilities, lifelong diminishment of opportunity. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics[1] in April of this year, people with less than a high school education experienced a seasonally adjusted 14.6% unemployment rate nationally.  High school graduates for the same time period experienced a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 9.7%.  This is nearly a 5% difference.  Further, for men with disabilities, ages 16 to 64 years old, the unemployment rate was 16.1%, compared to a 9.2% unemployment rate for those without disabilities[2]  Women in the same age range were unemployed at 15.2% with disabilities and 7.8% without.  We don’t need to “help” our students with disabilities add to these sorry statistical outcomes.

Second, denial of the opportunity to complete high school with the support of a PC reinforces the abundantly-felt lack of self-worth that students with disabilities often acquire as part of their school experiences.  From the time that they begin to show achievement differences, students with disabilities are more likely to be bullied, excluded and devalued.  Denial of opportunity to complete high school with a diploma is, in effect, an institutional validation of everything that students with disabilities have internalized since the early years of their schooling.  Without hope, we see a rise in risky behavior, alienation, and ultimately the justification needed for dropping out.

Third, the failure of districts to appreciate that people ultimately contribute to society in a variety of ways has led to a decrease in the wealth of options for students to be successful in completing “as much as is practicable” of the Michigan Merit Curriculum, in alignment with their talents, interests and career goals.  Many Michigan districts are experiencing, for example, a decrease in enrollment in Career and Technical Education courses, even though there could be many opportunities for the embedding of practical mathematics and sciences in these courses, in fulfillment of the MMC.  Like many of you, I depend on skilled technicians when I need home improvements or repairs. It is a short-sighted form of budget-consciousness that comes out of districts interpreting the MMC as a series of “one size fits all” classes.

I don’t think that the Michigan Board of Education had any intention of increasing the stratification of students by recommending the MMC.  In fact, two years ago, while I was still president of LDA of Michigan, we printed and distributed buttons like the one I’m wearing that reads:  “Rigor, Relevance, Relationships…and ACCESS!”   I adhere to the notion of “assuming competence” in all individuals and so I see the MMC as an opportunity for districts to collaboratively create classes and programs that allow for maximum learning diversity.

Button Design, LDA MI Conference 2009

We have many resources in place to offer technical assistance and support through Michigan's Integrated Improvement Initiatives (MI3)[3] for this work. We can make school a much better environment for students with disabilities, from the time they are identified through the time that they successfully complete high school with the appropriate supports, services, accommodations, and modifications. Districts across the state are using the MMC to develop courses that have the capacity to engage a variety of learners through multiple representations of content, differentiation in the ways that students interact with the content, and opportunities for students to demonstrate their mastery of content in a variety of ways.  These need to be widely shared, and easily accessed by those districts that have fewer resources to devote to the task of curriculum development. Finally, we need to remember that the workforce that will bring Michigan out of its economic slump depends on having diverse enough skills that the collapse of a single industry will not bring us to our knees.

Michigan’s Board of Education has laid the groundwork through the policies that it has crafted to make a more equitable and attainable future. In the words of the late Ronald Edmonds, my former Pioneer High School history teacher (1978 speech):

“We can whenever, and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need, in order to do this. Whether we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”

Thank you.

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About N Kathleen Kosobud:  Kathleen is a member of the Network of Michigan Educators, a group of 500 or so recognized educators in Michigan who are available to state policy-makers for their expert opinions on policies affecting education and children, through the “Ask the Network” program started by Jean Shane at the MDE.  Kathleen blogs for LDA of Michigan at http://ldamiexchange.blogspot.com/, and for her own amusement at http://backburner-nkk.blogspot.com/.  She was one of the contributors to the revamping of the teacher education program at Michigan State University’s School of Education through a project to infuse inclusive content into all teacher education courses for the preparation of new teachers, under the guidance of Susan J. Peters, Ph.D. After achieving National Board Certification as an Early Adolescence/Generalist as a teacher of middle school mathematics in a special education resource classroom, she served as a teacher-in-residence for Assessment Development at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.  She is the parent of two adult children with learning disabilities, and identifies as a person with learning disabilities, herself.  You can reach her by e-mail.

[1] US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table A4: Employment Status of the civilian population 25 years and over by educational attainment http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm, accessed 5/25/11

[2] US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Table A-6. Employment status of the civilian population by sex, age, and disability status, not seasonally adjusted, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t06.htm, accessed 5/25/11

[3] http://cenmi.org/About.aspx

"Journey into Dyslexia", Standardized Education, and the Need for "Shop Class"

I'm watching this scene on HBO right now -- Steven J. Walker who manufactures wood pellets (to fuel a special type of woodstove) is telling the story of his painful experience as a kid with dyslexia, except for high school shop class and a great shop teacher. He breaks into sobbing tears as he tells how the school district discontinued shop classes and sold off all the equipment, which ultimately leads to his starting the pellet business. Well, tech ed has come a long way, but the emotional attachment that this man conveys is the one constant.
 

The documentary is "Journey into Dyslexia", now showing on HBO. It's a collage of authoritative, narrative and personal perspectives on learning disabilities involving reading. One of the talking heads is Guinevere Eden, a neuro-scientist whose studies of brain imaging confirm differences in how people with dyslexia process the written word.  Another is David Connor, a disability studies scholar, who discusses inclusive education as a civil right, and suggests that although others may conceive of dyslexia as "disability" he prefers to consider it a natural part of human variance. Still another is Jonathan Mooney, who engages the rebel in me as he rails at the dismissive attitudes of the many unsympathetic adults with whom he dealt while in school. The overall theme of the documentary is that this kind of human variance (dyslexia) leads to such positive phenomena as entrepreneurial risk-taking, creativity, toughness and perseverance and other great things. But, I notice that the people with dyslexia featured in this documentary also talk about how painful it was to grow up with dyslexia. I know from my own experiences (as a teacher and a mother) that many kids with dyslexia and other learning disabilities are not nearly so resilient. I think I should probably re-watch this film and seriously consider its narrative, and counter-narratives.
 

When my son entered high school (he has language-based learning disabilities), he and his one best friend, a boy with autism, ended up at two different schools. He was crushed. The deal I made with him was that if he could successfully make it through a year at the big high school (a huge adjustment in itself), I'd entertain the idea of his "dual-enrollment" the following year at the big high school he had to go to and the small alternative high school where his friend attended. Dual enrollment meant that he would use his lunch hour to take a bus from one school to the other.  It meant that he had to take care of responsibilities at each school while he was there.  And, it meant that he would have to manage his obligations at each school with limited support from teachers. As an incentive for toughing the year out, we went through the course catalog for the big high school and picked some CTE classes that were in areas of his interests. So he happily took Computer Assisted Design (CAD), TV production, Know Your Auto, and Intro to Electronics.  For his freshman year, he only took three of the four core academics to make room for the CTE courses.  That year, he passed all his classes, and discovered that he had become a leader and self-directed learner in CAD. (The last time I recalled having teachers make favorable remarks about his school accomplishments was when his third grade teacher told me that he was the "go-to" artist for drawing sharks and jellyfish during their unit on oceans. Kids with all manners of learning disabilities often experience a huge praise deficit. Rick Lavoie's video-talks give a great deal of insight about this.)

The following year, even though his 9th grade science teacher recommended he take Intro to Biology (scornfully called "Science for Dummies" by my special education colleagues), we suggested that he be allowed to take "Foundations of Science" at the alternative school, instead. This interdisciplinary, experiential science course had kids "doing science" and reporting out on their findings, using a variety of technologies, and much more tantalizing than "Science for Dummies". He also took courses in Film Studies at the alternative school and, the following year, transferred out of the district and into a technical middle college at our local community college. He achieved a high school diploma, an Associate's degree, and tech certification in digital media production at the middle college, and finished a B.A. in the field at a neighboring university. He now works part-time as a camera-person for a community television station, and is building a solid resume of his experience.

Career and Technical Education saves lives. There is no doubt in my mind that this is true.

Unfortunately, in this age of standardization, core curriculum, and a push to make all children "college ready", CTE has taken real hits.  Here in Michigan, the enrollment reports for CTE courses have been on a downward trend since 2003 (the data only goes through 2007, currently). People in the field report that each year, there are fewer enrollments, and fewer programs in the high schools.  And they attribute the decline to a devaluation of skilled labor--the kinds of skills that are taught in CTE programs.  The other day, on the companion blog to the public radio program "on Being" was a post "The Work We Value, The Intelligence We Ignore: Is the Work that Made America Great Valued Any Longer? It features the comments of Mike Rowe, the creator and host of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel.  In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Rowe said: "I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor. A big one. Something that addresses the widening skills gap head on, and reconnects the country with the most important part of our workforce." It's not that we don't need the skilled trades, it's that we have so devalued them in the rush to make all children "college-ready", that kids who would benefit from learning their academic content through hands-on, authentic work experiences are no longer able to carve out time in their schedules to take these courses.

On the MAISA website, there are samples of what districts have done to make math courses more accessible, and there are samples of courses and curriculum crosswalks that show how academic content can be embedded in CTE with resulting student success. I've focused on the math, since this field has been dominated by a very rigid and didactic structure--the sequence of Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 seems to be unshakable--not so much because they are "naturally" sequential and dependent on each other, but because of some sort of religious adherence to this being the "one right way" to teach mathematics.

Derrick Fries, Ph.D., a professor at Eastern Michigan University, has collected data that shows a strong association between poor student performance in 8th grade math and those likely to fail to complete Algebra 2.  Since a Michigan diploma is contingent on completion of a semester of Algebra 2, this means that we can predict which students are at high risk of dropping out, or failing to attain a diploma.  If we can alter these outcomes by offering more tangible, work-related courses with the core academic content embedded, we can improve graduation rates.  If Mike Rowe is correct, we also are filling a gap in the labor pool by creating a new generation of skilled laborers.

We know that young people who fail to complete high school are more than likely to face lives of poverty.  We also know that the dropout rates for students with disabilities are disproportionately higher than for the general population. And, we also know that many students with a variety of disabilities flourish in classes where they are able to learn by doing.  CTE classes are prime examples of learning by doing.

I repeat, Career and Technical Education saves lives.

I am "on the back burner"

To my public educator friends and their allies:

For many years, I have been an active and passionate supporter of a variety of social justice causes.  I support public education, and believe that every child should have an opportunity to learn from a skilled and caring faculty.  I believe that the public funding of health care should be one of the social obligations of an advanced society such as ours. I think that every child should be a valued child, and should have access to nutritious food, a safe environment, and universal preschool.  My e-mail is filled with requests for money, support of causes, and calls to action of all kinds.  Usually, I am happy to receive these requests.  In my more idle moments, I'm even happy to read through all the responses to calls for action.  But, for now, I am putting myself "on the back burner".  I am overwhelmed. I can't respond, don't want to tweet (yet), and I just don't have enough psychological space for all of this. I know, I could just delete. These days I feel a little like "I have no mouth and I must scream".  Bear with me.

Right now, my days are spent with my daughter who is recovering from a c-section and a sudden failure of her immune system--a chronic and permanently cycling condition.  My beautiful little grandson, and his older brother and sister will be leaving Michigan as soon as he is old enough to travel. His mother and father are going through the process (an antiseptic term, if ever there was one) of foreclosure and bankruptcy, the result of a cascade of events:  the devaluation of career and tech ed in high schools and continued undermining of full time teaching at community colleges (my son-in-law, a dedicated auto mechanics instructor, has become part of the "working poor"--working two jobs, but not making enough to support his family), unexpected and catastrophic health expenses (and health insurance that failed to cover them), and the economic collapse in Michigan.

Public education has been a huge part of my adult life.  I attended a public high school, and three public universities.  My children also attended public schools.  I hope that my grandchildren will also attend public schools, where they will be part of a rich and diverse group of children, learning to appreciate each other for the valuable contributions that they make to each others' lives.  I hope that my grandchildren will make friends based on the "content of their character", not the color of their skins, or the languages that their families speak at home.  I hope that my grandchildren will have teachers like all of you, who know that children are placed in your charge to help make the world a kinder and more compassionate place in which to live, where people pitch in to help and share with each other, even when resources may be limited.  I hope that my grandchildren learn that voting, and active participation in a representative democracy is a serious, but rewarding responsibility because it ensures that our elected officials will keep all of us in their heads and hearts.

These days I read my e-mail to get basic news or to take care of business.  I scroll through Facebook and comment on the best and the worst.  I occasionally look at the RSS feeds I used to have time to read.  I write from the depths of my heart, on issues about which I can be passionate when I have time, or when I just can't stay silent. And, I edge forward on writing my dissertation, which seems increasingly irrelevant in a world where teacher education holds so little value.

So, keep sending the calls, but leave me out of the responses.  I'll respond when I can, and trust that the rest of you will carry the burden when I can't.  That's what sharing and cooperation is all about...and I know you know how to share and cooperate.

Kathleen Kosobud
On the Back Burner--http://backburner-nkk.blogspot.com/

I Want Elizabeth Warren!!

An open letter to my representatives in Congress:

I want Elizabeth Warren appointed as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the bureau fully funded and functioning as an independent agency.

As the mother of an adult child who became another statistic in the mortgage meltdown after she suffered a medical crisis that gutted any financial reserves she and her husband had, I am tired of being polite about the devastation that young middle class families are facing here in Michigan and elsewhere.

I don't ever want to see this happen again, and I trust Elizabeth Warren to lead an agency that will protect the public, and hold financial institutions accountable for their dealings.

In the past I wrote to you, asking that you reach out to young people in Michigan with help and guidance, as they struggled with job losses compounded by mortgage problems. Your staff responded with sympathy and rhetoric, but very little in the way of help. I voted for you, so my last hope is that you'll stand up now by empowering Elizabeth Warren to head an agency that can prevent this from happening in the future.

I have come to terms with the inevitability of my daughter and her husband facing foreclosure and bankruptcy, with three children under the age of five.

Now I ask you, my elected representatives, to take action and acknowledge the pain that families have had to face, although they did little to cause the financial crisis.

Please do the right thing by supporting the funding of the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Elizabeth Warren's appointment as its head.

A New Hidden Curriculum and New Ways of Being Left Out

I'm done with educating for the economy--it has made many of us cynical and complacent.  We need to inspire hope, and remind the world that we have a voice, and together, Yes We Can. In my own professional life, I have become quite focused on issues of concern to children at risk (of being pushed out), and children with disabilities.  

Most of what I have to say focuses on the problems of Michigan's education reform that (under our current governor) is increasingly asked to be "efficient" and to produce "high quality products" without regard to the infinite variety of circumstances from which children come, and the infinite variety of talents with which they come.  But, my concerns have become very focused on how Michigan's standardized curriculum and accompanying exams have triggered (perhaps unintentionally, but I don't think so) a resurgence in scapegoating special education costs in a time of scarce resources, threats of Emergency Financial Manager takeovers, and a rising love affair with the idea of privatization. 

I hear, among the community of parents (who seem to be my biggest audience) an overwhelming mistrust of the annual requirement for testing for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under No Child Left Behind as a measure of their children's worth, and outrage at the continued marginalization of children with disabilities in schools.  

The tail is, I believe, increasingly wagging the dog, when the very accountability system that is supposed to help all children achieve has turned to pre-sorting those who are deemed capable of achieving and those deemed incapable of achieving into diploma and non-diploma categories (through loose application of the Michigan Merit Curriculum requirements), while failing to mention that students with disabilities may modify their course plans through a number of options including an individually determined Personal Curriculum plan. This, while at the same time requiring those deemed "incapable" to participate in the same assessments (required under IDEA) that their "diploma track peers" are taking.  It seems as if the imposition of the Michigan Merit Curriculum, one state's version of a core curriculum has led to another "hidden curriculum" of re-segregating the "ins" and the "outs", while still claiming to embrace achievement for all. 

I have only intermittently been following the development of the Save Our Schools movement, supporting public education, which I recommend to anyone reading this post.  I love all of the blog-posts I've been reading from those active in organizing the event and march, and wish that I had more to say that appealed to a broader, general audience. But I believe that parents, teachers, and members of the community need to come together to support public education or we will see more and more chipping away at its foundation--a democratic education.

Here's where the spirit of families come in: I was reading an article on human nature and the economy today by David Korten, who has become one of my favorite writers on all things global and sustainable.  And here's what I've concluded: If we are, by nature, caring and cooperative, we should be moving toward a more truly democratic education system: funding schools on the basis of equity of opportunity, designing instruction to speak to diverse learners in one classroom, and placing our focus on learning processes. When tests are all we use to measure the quality of education, we miss the bigger picture--working together for each other.  And that means families, teachers, educational leaders, community members working together to advocate for caring, cooperative schooling.

One Nation Working Together rally

From a friend of mine in Norfolk, VA who attended the One Nation Working Together Rally:

Yesterday, after some finagling, a van with six, interesting, diverse and progressive people left Norfolk for Dunkin' Donuts and then on the D.C. for a rally for jobs, peace, and education. Last week end we had promised a ride to a friend who wanted to go. Then someone called Wednesday evening, a call my husband took. He told him where we lived but took no other information. In the meantime, some other friends, a couple wanted to come too, we could not fit four people in our small car, so after some soul searching, we decided to rent a van and drive the six of us up. The Thrifty and Dollar car rentals made going for all much cheaper than going on the bus and more intimate too. After a week of rain, in our neighborhood, 10 inches over the course of 3-4 days, having a bright, sunny, 72 degree day in D.C. was heaven. We parked in Pentagon City in a parking garage and took the metro in.

The rally was called One Nation. It had thousands and thousands of people from all over the East of the Mississippi area, many wearing bright tee-shirts with either their union affiliation or the "One Nation" logo. The speaker line up was equally impressive. Just to point out, this rally was sort of a counter to Glen Beck's (a reactionary TV talk show host's rally on Martin Luther King's Birthday in January, I believe) rally and according to helicopter view estimations, the crowd was much, much larger and more rainbow colored too. The major M.C. for this rally was a progressive TV talk show host, Ed Schultz. He's been pushing it for a while. But the speaker line up was moving and inspirational. The ones whose speeches I most remember and enjoyed, though certainly not the only ones who spoke, were, Harry Belafonte, a singer now maybe in his 80s whose beautiful creamy voice is now cracked and high pitched but his delivery was very much of conviction and determination. Martin Luther King's memory was brought up and so was his march of 1963, the march for hope and reform were brought up. The venue paired youth unknowns with celebrities as when Jesse Jackson introduced a student whose parent had been deported but his brother, who was born in the states and was a citizen and he, who had been granted a stay because of his student status could stay, then the student introduced Jesse Jackson who too, spoke of King and of hope and of not letting the vocal, but sparse "tea party" people lead to apathy amongst us and a defeat of the reforms Obama has managed to bring about. There was a young man from Los Angeles who was twenty three and had been spared from youth gangs from some program that the Obama administration put into play. He spoke very, very well and tried to inspire the youth to have faith in themselves and not let drugs and crime tempt them into temporary riches. The former secretary of education in the Clinton administration and now some administrator for children in the UN spoke. She spoke of learning all we needed to know as activists from Noah's Arc story. #1. Get on Board,...other lessons included grouping together, working together to get things done, to plan ahead and don't think that solving problems for now is the only thing but to plan ahead, though there is more, I can't remember all, though the last point everyone laughed and agreed with..."remember, Noah's Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic was built by professionals!:" People of all ages, colors, ethnic backgrounds spoke, they all spoke of hope and for the need for action. I was very moved and have hope again. Hopefully this rally along with Jon Stewart 's(yet another comedic talk show host) at the end of this month will bring out the vote in November to prevent too many congressional seats from being lost.

I, unfortunately suffered from some sort of knee/hip ailment which made walking difficult, the others in our group, however, walked around and mentioned that they had met at least 20 activists from our area and we already knew that a bus had been hired. Progressives are popping out in this military area and it is encouraging.

After the rally, we had dinner in Pentagon City near where our car was parked. We were sitting and chatting and eating. Near the end of our meal, our waiter was taking away some root beer bottles when I stopped him. I asked him if his restaurant recycled. He said no. Then we commented on that. He then shyly but courageously told us a story about how he and his partner lived in an apartment complex and they sent around a petition and got the complex to have recycling in their complex. We asked him where he was from, he told us, from the mountains of Virginia and then he told us that his partner had just bought a new sports car and they went the back ways through the mountains to visit his home and how much fun it was. At least in the states, it is a sign of progress when your waiter can admit he is gay. Aside from problems with the parking meter, we made it home without incidents. An exhausting but very rejuvenating and bonding time with some fine people. New hope, new energy and cooler weather!!