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Standard 1.7 of the  Educators Code of Ethics states

1. The educator shall comply with state regulations, written local school board policies, and other state and federal laws (19 TAC §247.2).

This is abdicable to teachers who serve special education populations. There are several federal and state policies and laws regarding the equality of special education students.

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#13 Bulleted list of Recommendations / Best Practices for Compliance

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#13 Bulleted list of Recommendations / Best Practices for Compliance

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1. ALWAYS start with identifying your special population students.
2. Have a system where all accommodations are in an easily accessible location.
3. Have a system in place to notify the appropriate personal of all requests for special education evaluations.
4. Although students may have an IEP or 504 accommodations they should not be held to lesser standards  for educational success. This could be seen as discrimination.
5. Keep an open line of communication with parents. This will help to ensure that you know how they are feeling about their child's services and success.
6. Consider all parties feelings during an IEP meeting. If parents are not feeling that they are being heard they may be more likely to file a law suit.

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With the recent move of a mostly online education, special education students are getting the short end of the stick. Trying to ensure that they have the appropriate resources through a computer screen can be difficult. Educators are becoming even more innovative with the ways that they are reaching their special population students.
Nadworny, E. (2020, April 15). Educators Get Creative To Serve Students With Disabilities. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/826798583/educators-get-creative-to-serve-students-with-disabilities.

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subscribe to Coronavirus Daily podcast

Despite cranky computers, conflicting schedules, shaky Internet connections and stubborn software glitches, Danielle Kovach got her whole class together a few Fridays ago for a video chat.

Kovach teaches special education in Hopatcong, N.J., and this Friday class session was a celebration: They'd made it through the first few weeks of distance learning.

Throughout those weeks, she'd maintained her 8:30 a.m. morning meeting over the computer, she was adhering to each student's IEP, or Individualized Education Plan, and juggling new lessons with old routines, as she adapted to the coronavirus crisis. She was exhausted.

And so the celebration was a big moment (and a big hit with her students). She instructed everyone to bring your pet to class. "They were all holding up their dogs, their cats," says Kovach. "We had fish, stuffed animals. They were so excited, it was just a fun time together."

She needed that victory.

"In my over 20 years of teaching, this by far has been my most challenging moment," says Kovach. The Internet has been a blessing and a curse - it took time to get all her families connected, but even now, the connection speed is flaky, and she really misses the personal contact she enjoys with her second- and third-graders.

On top of that, she's got three kids of her own at home. "I think that all of our teachers have risen to the challenge to make this work," Kovach says. "But there's also a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of worry."

As schools and learning have moved online, one of the biggest challenges has been providing special education. An estimated 14% of public school students receive such services in the U.S., and federal law requires schools to provide them. The U.S. Education Department has offered schools some flexibility, but with no road map or template for how to teach special needs students in this new world, teachers have been forced to innovate, adapting as they go along.

"We're seeing kids have services because people are being creative," says Kelly Grillo, a special education coordinator at Cooperative School Services who oversees special education at two rural school districts in Indiana. She's inspired by the ways teachers have embraced familiar tools, like Youtube, or apps like Remind.

One occupational therapist, Grillo says, sent packets home detailing ways to grip a pencil. Included in the delivery: extra pencils, so students could follow along with the videos the therapist posts online.

To help a second-grader who is immobile and non-verbal, Grillo and her team have been brainstorming ways he can use his family's smart speaker while he's at home. She says her team has not delayed or omitted services from any of their students' IEPs. In some cases, to help juggle the schedules of students and parents, teachers are even connecting with them in the evenings.

"It's really actually quite exciting," Grillo says. "This is actually changing a field to create access for kids with disabilities far beyond what anybody could imagine."

And it's not all high technology. For students who don't have access to the Internet, Grillo and her team - like many teachers across the country - are resorting to phone calls and text messages as well.

"Before this," she explains, "we didn't have an urgency to have tools in front of kids that they know how to use independently to access learning."

Andrea Leonardi feels that urgency, too. She's the assistant superintendent for student services in Wilton, Conn., and when schools closed, her first thought was: "How are we going to meet the needs of students with disabilities? What's that going to look like?"

In just a few days, she convinced her district to purchase software from PresenceLearning, a company that works with hundreds of school districts offering live speech therapy, occupational therapy, and behavior and mental health services. At first, Leonardi was thinking the district would use the company's therapists for services, but the idea shifted instead to train Wilton educators and therapists to use the platform.

That way, their students would see familiar faces. "Before this, I was pretty skeptical," Leonardi says. "I'm a face-to-face educator, and so the idea of teletherapy ... I wasn't sure." But when she knew her own team would be on the other end of the video calls to students, "that was just too good to pass up."

About 40 district staff - including speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, behavioral mental health staff, school psychologists, school social workers and special-ed teachers - got trained on the platform. It's essentially like a digital office, with a video chat component, built-in ways to "gamify" activities (like dice and spinners and lots of emojis).

But there are also familiar tools to use in a therapy session or lesson.

"We are very lucky to live in the digital age that we live in right now because I don't think we would be able to do any of what I'm doing right now without it," says Katie Miller, a speech and language pathologist at Cider Mill School in Wilton. Miller has been using the platform and says her virtual office "functions pretty similarly to how I would do it in my classroom."

Miller, who's been with the district for five years, is working with her students on language skills and articulation. Using PresenceLearning, she's created a dice game: when students roll a number, there's a corresponding board with numbers that dictates the sound or word they're practicing. When the student gets the sound right, they can click the digital die again, to try another word or sound.

"Articulation can be a little bit dry at this level, because it's motor memory," Miller explains. If it has to be done over a screen, at least the game livens it up. "Anything to make it a little more interactive."

Leonardi says that's typical of how teachers are finding new ways to make the tools fit their students' needs. "This situation has forced us to drop everything we've known and try to think about how we do our work differently."

Joy Lawrence, a speech and language pathologist at the high school in Wilton, says she is grateful for the new digital tools, but she knows they can't replace actual face-to-face contact.

Some of her students have autism or attention deficit disorders, she says, and so eye contact and physical proximity are essential to her work. Lawrence offered one quick example: When she's sitting right next to a student, she can use her voice as a teaching tool. "The softer your voice is," she says, "the more they pay attention, the more they listen," she says. On the computer, "you're like yelling into this speaker and your voice is echoing through the house. It's really difficult."

Online, it's much harder to gauge that level of attention. "It's really challenging when you're sitting on a computer screen and you don't know what they're looking at."

Lawrence says, given those challenges, she's working with her students to reinforce what they learned before, and trying to maintain that personal relationship with them.

Many educators say that's essential right now: Staying in contact with students and letting families know that the special education supports are still there.

Though sometimes, even when you're doing the best you can, it doesn't feel like enough, says Danielle Kovach, the special education teacher in New Jersey.

"The students know that their classroom and their school is a place where they are loved, where they are safe, where they're cared for, where they're fed. And I'm the one that provides that for them," she says. "And now I'm in a situation where I can't."

On Easter Sunday, she says, her phone rang. She was tied up with her family, and let it go to voicemail. It was one of her students. In the message, he told her she was the best teacher ever and that he missed her and wished this coronavirus would go away because he wants to be back in school.

It was a nice moment. "It felt like he knew that I was still here, that his teacher wasn't going anywhere." And in that way, she says, "we're still teaching a lesson."

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Educators Get Creative To Serve Students With Disabilities

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subscribe to Coronavirus Daily podcast Despite cranky computers, conflicting schedules, shaky Internet connections and stubborn software glitches, Danielle Kovach got her whole class together a few Fridays ago for a video chat. Kovach teaches special education in Hopatcong, N.J., and this Friday class session was a celebration: They'd made it through the first few weeks of distance learning.

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Parents of students enrolled at a BISD school may request an evaluation for special education or 504 services at any time. If the request is made in writing the school district will respond within 15 days time. If the request is made verbally it will still be honored, however the school district is not held to the same 15day response window.
(BISD Student Handbook, 2020)

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#9 Original Sources of Law (Administrative) 

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#9 Original Sources of Law (Administrative) 

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Chapter 19 of the Texas Administrative code is focused on adaptations for special populations.If a parent submits a written request to a school district's director of special education services or to a district administrative employee for a full individual and initial evaluation of a student, the school district must, not later than the 15th school day after the date the district receives the request provide the parent with prior written notice of its proposal to conduct an evaluation consistent with 34 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), §300.503.( TAC, Title 19, Part II, Chapter 89)

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Texas Education Agency - 19 TAC Chapter 89

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Link to Subchapters from Subchapter Titles - Link to Sections from Icons Links to PDF Versions of the files are available at the end of the page

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(Constitutional)

The 14th amendment in the United States Constitution protects the right to a public education.
(U.S. Const. amend. XIV)

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Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

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All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

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Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act in 2004 schools must identify and evaluate students suspected to have a disability (IDEA 2004, 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3)

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Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

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Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

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The U.S. Department of Education’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act website brings together department and grantee IDEA information and resources. The IDEA makes available a free appropriate public education to and ensures special education and related services to eligible children with disabilities.

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(Judicial)
In this court case a student filed a law suit against his old school district. The students family alleged that the district did not provide an adequate IEP for their child. The court ultimately ruled in favor of the student and they were to receive the private school tuition costs from the district.
Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (2016)

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The author of this article is trying to show the importance of IEP's. The IEP is a crucial part of IDEA, and everyone involved ultimately wants the same thing, student success. Ensuring that all parties are heard is the best way to meet student success goals.
Jacobson, L. (2019, October 15). 'Free and appropriate': Special ed stakeholders work to make IEP meetings less one-sided. Education Dive. https://www.educationdive.com/news/free-and-appropriate-special-ed-stakeholders-work-to-make-iep-meetings-l/564423/.

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There have been moments for Marini Hamilton Smith when negotiating aspects of her son's Individual Education Program felt a lot like haggling with a car salesman.

The Los Angeles mom would tell the teachers, specialists and administrators in the room what her medically fragile son Colson needs in terms of therapy and special educational services. A representative of the district would offer something less - $80 per hour for a specialist instead of $95, for example - but Smith would hold firm. The district official would leave the room to speak with someone who could presumably approve the costs and then come back with a new offer.

"I don't feel like they see my son as a person," Smith says. "It is not a partnership as it's supposed to be. We're only working as a team if you agree to what they're offering."

Smith, however, sees the IEP process from multiple angles. A former elementary school teacher in the Inglewood Unified School District, near Los Angeles, she says she didn't have much preparation regarding her role in supporting students with special needs.

"I would attend an IEP meeting and maybe didn't even know what [the student's] goals were."

Now a child development instructor at West Los Angeles College, she teaches future educators, who she thinks need more training on IEPs - the centerpiece of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's requirement that children with disabilities receive a "free appropriate public education."

"The likelihood that you're going to have an exceptional child in your class is so much higher," she says.

Even with Smith's experience as an educator - and the time she and her husband take to interpret and annotate the technical language in the IEP agreement - meetings can still leave her an "emotional mess."

Such perceptions among parents of children with IEPs are among the reasons experts say school leaders can set the tone for how the IEP process is handled in their school.

"The IEP is at the heart of special education," three past presidents of the Council for Exceptional Children wrote in the organization's recent " State of the Special Education Profession " - a survey conducted for the first time in 20 years. "It is the roadmap for meeting the learning needs of students with exceptionalities. The extent to which school staff and administrators understand and use this map is important to the success of both students with exceptionalities and special educators."

In the report, about a quarter of the 1,467 special education teachers who responded said their building principals were "well-prepared to support IEP goals." Fewer - 18% - said the same thing about other general education administrators.

"Administrators who support the IEP process" was ranked as the third most important factor in special educators' success. They also highly value having local school and district-level administrators who are "responsive, supportive and informed."

"One thing administrators don't understand - for them it's just a meeting," says Mitchell Yell, a special education professor at the University of South Carolina. "For the parent, it's the meeting."

A former special education teacher in Minnesota, Yell also has a child with special needs and, like Smith, has more than one perspective.

"It always seemed to me that it works best when you have a principal or a school district invested in making sure that everyone is present and the parents have a meaningful role," he says.

Fewer than half of respondents in the CEC survey rated their district highly (on a scale from one to five) on valuing "meaningful partnerships with families." A little more than a quarter - 27% - gave their districts a four or five on the question of "how much their district supported including families in the IEP development."

A substantial proportion of the respondents - 900 - also provided additional comments, with many saying they needed more time to contact families and schedule IEP meetings, and they needed "ready access" to interpreters for families who don't speak English or having documents translated.

"Given the increasing diversity of students and their continued disproportional representation, these findings are alarming," the authors write.

The findings also back up Smith's perception of her role in the IEP process when she was a teacher. Only 8% of the respondents rated general educators as "well-prepared to help students meet IEP goals."

Working to prevent litigation

As Smith expressed, the IEP meeting can be overwhelming, especially for those unfamiliar with the jargon used or unclear on what questions to ask.

"Our IEP meetings are pretty full because [Colson] has so many specialists," she said, adding there can be as many as 12 to 14 people in a session, with the majority working for the district. "That adds to the intimidation."

That's due to the IDEA law, which requires any teacher, specialist or other professional who is part of a child's IEP team to participate, notes Julie Weatherly, an Alabama special education lawyer.

She adds disagreements over IEPs are part of the reason a lot of cases end up in litigation. Those in the field, she says, often share a cartoon of an IEP meeting in which one side of a table is crowded with educators and specialists, each representing a different aspect of the IEP. On the other side is a father and an advocate.

Through her organization, Resolutions in Special Education, Weatherly provides consulting services to districts on "exploring preventive avenues before formal litigation ensues." When she does workshops for school leaders, she says they often ask her to come back and train teachers, as well.

Giving families plenty of advance notice before an IEP meeting and offering them the chance to adjust the day and time to fit their schedule gives parents more opportunity to prepare, suggests Harry Gregg, the director of special education for the Spring Cove School District in Pennsylvania.

Recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor, which clarifies families can use the Family and Medical Leave Act intermittently to attend IEP meetings, can also alleviate some of the stress involved in scheduling meetings that can take a few hours and sometimes must continue another day.

Special education teachers in Spring Cove also meet with families prior to the meetings to gather input to include in the IEP, Gregg said.

"I feel that our district has established a culture of open communication with parents on a frequent basis," Gregg says, adding some IEP teams meet with parents as often as every six weeks. "We have frequent team meetings if a student is struggling and not making progress."

Even making sure someone welcomes parents when they come to the office for the meeting or offers them a cup of coffee can improve the overall experience, says Jolly Piersall, director of Indiana's state-funded IEP Resource Center. Giving them a prominent seat at the table can also communicate their role in the meeting.

"Sometimes those things that you would think are common sense, are not," says Piersall.

'Goals drive services'

Kelley Coleman's 6-year-old son Aaron is only in kindergarten, but she's already participated in eight IEP meetings, including those conducted while he was in preschool in the Los Angeles Unified School District. With that level of experience, she's developed some opinions regarding what can make the IEP process more productive for families and educators.

First, she advises parents to take advantage of where the IEP team members have the most expertise - "developing the best goals for your child." Instead of debating specific services, which can often lead to mediation because of the costs involved, she recommends focusing the discussion on what the student should be able to accomplish during the year.

"Goals drive services," she says. "Before I fully understood this, I was doing it backwards."

Helping districts develop IEP goals is also the focus of a new initiative in the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. The agency recently finished accepting proposals for a new "technical assistance and dissemination center" that will focus, in part, on helping districts and charter school networks "develop and implement high-quality IEPs reasonably calculated to enable children to make progress."

The new center is being created in response to requests from districts for guidance in complying with a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Colorado case, which involved a student with autism.

The justices ruled an IEP should be designed with the purpose of a student making progress "in light of the child's circumstances," that it ensures the child has "the chance to meet challenging objectives," and that the plan describes how the child will meet both "academic and functional goals." Experts say the ruling sets a higher bar for IEPs than in the past.

Being 'an equal member'

Coleman also meets with members of her son's IEP team in a type of "work session" before the official meeting. These gatherings, she says, have been an effective way to prepare, ask questions and review evaluations of her son's progress.

"I think you're not an equal member of the team if the first time you're hearing these things is in the IEP meeting," says Coleman, who also serves as a member of LAUSD's Community Advisory Committee, which is required by state law and advises the school board and district leaders on special education issues.

She adds it's important for families to know in advance who has authority to approve specific services, and for districts to make sure parents know "where to go if they are not able to resolve things at their school level."

LAUSD's special education services have been under close examination for more than 20 years, stemming from the settlement of a lawsuit and a consent decree requiring improvements, including making sure parents understand their rights and options. While some argue there's still a lot of work to do, the consent decree - modified in 2003 - will be lifted at the end of this year.

"The District has built a strong foundation and infrastructure for operating its special education program in a manner that ensures and promotes program accessibility, equity, student success, parent engagement and support for its teachers and staff," Superintendent Austin Beutner said in an August statement when the announcement was made.

Districtwide, "there is a lot of movement" around making information about IEPs available online instead of parents having to call, says Alesha Haase, the special education administrator for LAUSD's Local District Northeast. But that local area district is also making additional efforts to be more responsive to parents of students with IEPs. Last school year, it began offering "drop-in clinics" for families to meet with special education staff members if they have questions or need help preparing for an IEP meeting.

Those staff members will also occasionally attend meetings "to serve as neutral parties to make sure policy is followed and implemented" and "make sure all the elements are discussed," Haase says.

Making sure 'everyone is heard'

Having neutral parties at the table is a service Indiana's IEP Resource Center - a fairly unique model - provides to districts. Facilitators participate in IEP meetings to make sure "everyone is heard" and that schools and families "end up with an IEP than can be implemented," says Piersall.

Sometimes, she says, districts will "dig in their heels" and say they won't provide particular services unless forced to, and parents will ask for "Cadillac" programs or specific curricula not currently offered.

But Piersall stresses getting to know parents and children outside of the official IEP process can lead to greater agreement when it's time to discuss specific aspects of the plan.

"To be honest," she says, "if the school had a good relationship with the parent, they could have those conversations and they wouldn't have to call us."

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'Free and appropriate': Special ed stakeholders work to make IEP meetings less one-sided

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There have been moments for Marini Hamilton Smith when negotiating aspects of her son's Individual Education Program felt a lot like haggling with a car salesman. The Los Angeles mom would tell the teachers, specialists and administrators in the room what her medically fragile son Colson needs in terms of therapy and special educational services.

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The author of this post recently published a book about "getting the most bang for your buck" with education. Choosing to use higher cost programs usually means rationing services to students. When going with a equally effective alternative can save money and lead to more students receive those resources.
Blogger, G. (2020, September 24). Improving Special Education While Managing Its Cost. Education Week - Rick Hess Straight Up. https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2020/09/improving_special_education_while_managing_its_cost.html.

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Nathan Levenson, the managing director of District Management Group, is a contributor to my new book (with Brandon Wright) Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck. Out from Teachers College Press, the book features an array of sharp analysts and scholars' thoughts on how schools can make each dollar go further. Today, Nate tackles one of the more sensitive issues on the K-12 landscape-how school leaders can improve the quality of special education even as they manage its cost.
As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the day to day of educating students and puts stress on school budgets, it's easy to think that now is certainly NOT the time to rethink special education. Who has the bandwidth for such an undertaking?

In the new book Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck, I lay out the case for how embracing cost-effective special education would be great for kids, staff, and taxpayers. While not anticipating a pandemic at the time of writing, I'm certain this is needed now more than ever. After all, more students have suffered learning loss, students with disabilities are hard to serve well during remote and hybrid instruction, and future budgets are likely to shrink, despite greater needs and costs.
1. Know what works for raising achievement
Talking about special education costs can feel bad, especially during a pandemic. Doing so might make it feel like we're saying money matters more than helping kids in need, but that's not the case. Two things are true: Kids with disabilities deserve better, and more spending hasn't helped them in the past. Therefore, there is little reason to assume that even more dollars in the future will turn the tide. Less spending won't help, either. What will? Spending differently.

Fortunately for kids and taxpayers alike, my colleagues at District Management Group and I, working with pioneering districts across the country, have found a way to raise achievement, make up for learning loss, and moderate costs. To do this, districts must do four things.

Thanks to meticulous research by individuals like John Hattie and groups such as the What Works Clearinghouse and the National Reading Panel, a clear set of best practices for raising achievement have emerged. These include:
2. Know the actual cost of specific services and strategies

Ensure students receive 100 percent of core instruction in reading and math. If they don't receive all of the material or get a watered-down, below-grade-level curriculum, how can we expect them to master state standards or the skills needed for success after graduation?

Focus on reading as the gateway to all other learning. If kids struggle to read and comprehend, science, social studies, even math become difficult to master.

Provide extra instructional time to master grade-level content. Even with quality core instruction, students who struggle need even more instructional time than their nonstruggling peers. This need for extra time doesn't go away when teaching shifts to remote or hybrid; it increases!

Guarantee that core and intervention teachers have deep content knowledge.

Historically, too many districts have not embraced these best practices. Spending lots on things that don't work won't help. For more details on where and how to shift services, see my book Six Shifts to Improve Special Education and Other Interventions from Harvard Education Press

Kids with disabilities deserve more and better services, but providing those in a cost-effective manner is an act of kindness, not cruelty.
3. Shift resources to services and strategies that improve outcomes at reasonable cost.
One district, for example, discovered that its schools were using different approaches to support students with disabilities who struggled to read. Each school had one full-time reading teacher. School A followed the National Reading Panel's recommendations while school B embraced Reading Recovery. Both are best practices according to the What Works Clearinghouse and both delivered 1.5 years growth for the typical struggling student. Nice!

What was not so nice is that Reading Recovery cost $5,000 per student, while the equally effective alternative cost $1,875. Fiscally, it seems wasteful to spend two-and-a-half times as much to get the same result, and morally it's not good, either. When schools embrace high-cost strategies, they unconsciously ration these services. In school A, 40 kids got high-quality reading help, while in school B, just 15 did.

Ultimately, the only way to ensure that all students are prepared for success after graduation in a world of high standards and tight budgets is to shift spending away from practices not proven to be effective or not implemented in a cost-effective manner. The key word here is "shift" not "add."

Things that can make a big difference for students include:

More instructional coaches.

More teachers with expertise in teaching elementary reading.

More teachers with expertise in teaching secondary reading.

More general education math and English teachers.

More behavior specialists and mental-health counselors.

4. Rethink how special education is managed.
Such a long list of added staff might surprise readers expecting a call for less spending in special education. Fortunately, taxpayers and students can both benefit from cost-effective strategies. While some areas need more spending and staff, these additions can be offset by slightly larger groups of students (with like needs), fewer paraprofessionals for academic support, fewer meetings, and less paperwork.

On net, best practices cost no more and in some cases less than traditional practices. But they help kids a whole lot more. And happily, no one needs to lose their job to fund these shifts. Given how difficult the job is, many leave their district or the profession every year. All the shifts can be paced to match attrition.

Finally, to bring these first three cost-effective strategies to life, districts much rethink how special education is managed. It will take greater collaboration between general education and special education leadership and require actively supporting teachers and principals on academic best practices, not just monitoring compliance with regulations.

The pandemic has increased student needs and crushed many budgets. A focus on improving the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of special education and other interventions is the only path forward that doesn't lead to worse outcomes, less services, and more teacher turnover.

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getting the most bang for the education buck

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Improving Special Education While Managing Its Cost

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Nathan Levenson, the managing director of District Management Group, is a contributor to my new book (with Brandon Wright) Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck . Out from Teachers College Press, the book features an array of sharp analysts and scholars' thoughts on how schools can make each dollar go further.

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Dr. Gaab's research about Dyslexia screening is crucial to educators abiding by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. If a student is suspected of having a disability they should be tested immediately regardless of their age. Instead of waiting for children to "fall" they should be tested when signs of dyslexia begin to emerge.
Gaab, N. (2018, July 10). It's a Myth That Young Children Cannot Be Screened for Dyslexia! International Dyslexia Association. https://dyslexiaida.org/its-a-myth-that-young-children-cannot-be-screened-for-dyslexia/.

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By Nadine Gaab, Ph.D.

A diagnosis of developmental dyslexia in elementary school is primarily based upon a "wait-to-fail-approach." This approach requires a child to demonstrate a significant struggle to learn to read over a prolonged period of time before more intensive (quality and quantity) interventional strategies are discussed and eventually put into place. Paradoxically, although a diagnosis of dyslexia usually is not given before the end of second grade or the beginning of third grade (after the requisite period of failing), intensive interventions are most effective in kindergarten or first grade

intensive interventions are most effective in kindergarten or first grade

(Wanzek & Vaughn, 2007).

Not only has this added to the difficulty of remediation, this practice of delayed identification of dyslexia can have tremendous psychological and clinical implications. Children with dyslexia show an increased incidence of internalizing anxious and depressive symptomatology (Mugnaini, Lassi, La Malfa, & Albertini, 2007) and are less likely to complete high school (Jimerson, Egeland, Sroufe, & Carlson, 2000) or to enroll in programs of higher education (Dougherty, 2003).

So, why are we not identifying children at risk earlier and providing them with the resources and tools they need to learn to read as early as possible? Here, I will review three common myths associated with early screening for children at risk for dyslexia.
MYTH 1: Signs of dyslexia can be seen only after two to three years of reading instruction.
While a diagnosis of dyslexia currently requires repeated failure learning to read, this does not mean that early signs of dyslexia cannot be observed in preschool (or possibly earlier). Deficits in phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, verbal working memory, and letter knowledge have been shown to be robust precursors of dyslexia in children as young as age three (Puolakanaho et al., 2007).

A recent study of more than 1,200 kindergartners in New England not only identified six independent reading profiles, including three dyslexia risk profiles, but also showed that these reading profiles are remarkably stable over a two-year window (Ozernov-Palchik, in press).

Furthermore, studies involving brain measures, such as electroencephalography or magnetic resonance imaging, have shown that the brain characteristics of individuals with dyslexia can be observed as early as infancy and preschool, especially in children with a genetic risk for dyslexia.

A longitudinal dyslexia study in Finland, which followed children from birth until age 8, showed that early differential brain measures could distinguish at-risk children who later developed reading problems from those who did not (Leppanen et al., 2010). Additionally, several studies have shown alterations in white matter (the highways that connect two brain areas and enable fast information flow) in young prereading children who subsequently developed a reading disability (Wang et al., in press; Kraft et al., 2016).

These studies suggest that these children are stepping into their first day of kindergarten with a brain less optimized to learn to read. Why wait three or more years before we give them access to additional resources essential for improving their reading performance?

Why wait three or more years before we give them access to additional resources essential for improving their reading performance?
MYTH 2: Even with early screening, early intervention is not effective.
It is certainly true that most reading interventions are designed for older children who have been struggling for some time. However, converging evidence points to the importance of high-quality classroom reading instruction in early grades and early interventions for at-risk students (e.g., in a small-group setting) to improve the effectiveness of remediation (Blachman et al., 2004).

A meta-analysis comparing intervention studies of at least 100 sessions reported larger effect sizes in kindergarten and first grade than in the later grades. Furthermore, a meta-analysis across six studies revealed that when at-risk beginning readers received explicit and intensive instruction, 50 to 90% of these children reached average reading performance levels (Torgesen, 2004).

Without high-quality instruction and intervention, early reading problems can manifest as serious reading disabilities later on (Stanovich, 1986). Moreover, several studies have shown that the brain's ability to change and adapt in response to experience (brain plasticity) decreases throughout the childhood years (Johnson, 2001; Johnston, 2009) and that certain skills are harder to acquire after a 'sensitive period' (Johnson, 2005). For instance, for most people, learning to speak a second language, especially without an accent, comes with relative ease in early childhood but becomes more difficult later in life (Birdsong, 2001).
MYTH 3: Early screening costs too much for school districts, and there is no time for additional testing.
There is some truth to this statement. Each school and district must determine the costs of early universal screening. However, many districts already have valid tools for screening the key indicators of dyslexia on hand-the same tools used in second or third grade to assess children who repeatedly fail to learn to read. Reading specialists or special education teachers already may be trained to administer these assessments.

Early assessment could be conducted prior to the start of kindergarten (e.g., in combination with some pre-kindergarten events that already occur), at daycare centers, preschools, or even in collaboration with pediatricians' offices at the four- or five-year-old well-visits. This may add some personnel costs, but would reduce screening hours and associated costs later in the school year and beyond.

Additional resources are needed for the interpretation and dissemination of the screenings and their results. Various companies now offer the scoring of standardized tests with turnarounds as fast as two weeks, and several online screening tools currently under development aim to reduce both labor and early screening costs.

Yes, early screenings entail significant costs, but given the costs associated with remediation and the treatment of accompanying psychological and medical problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic conditions related to academic stress), the benefits of early screening outweigh the costs.

It is important to note that the re-allocation of resources for early identification/intervention should not negatively impact intervention efforts in older grades. More specifically, there will be students in older grades who need intervention, and funds used for early intervention should not be taken from the funds currently allocated for older students. If early screening and early intervention achieve expected goals, eventually there should be fewer older students who need that intense intervention. In the interim, those who missed the early screening and intervention still exist. Also, once early screening and early intervention become routine and effective (even with a 50 to 90% success rate), there will be some older students who continue to need support.
What should early screening look like?
I recommend incorporating eight key characteristics when determining an optimal screening battery for an individual classroom, school, or district. The first letters of these characteristics spell the acronym SCREENED.

It is important to note that teacher training is an essential piece in the screening equation. Teachers need to know how to address specific deficits once a child has been identified in order to implement early evidence-based instruction for all at-risk students.

vidence-based response to screening: The best early screening battery will not make a difference if classroom instruction/intervention does not target the specific deficits with evidence-based instruction/intervention. The goal is not to refer the at-risk children to special education but to address their specific deficits within the classroom environment.

It is important to note that teacher training is an essential piece in the screening equation. Teachers need to know how to address specific deficits once a child has been identified in order to implement early evidence-based instruction for all at-risk students. Furthermore, additional teacher training, professional development, classroom resources, and increased districtwide dyslexia awareness benefit all students.

Educators and researchers must work together to ensure that all young students are SCREENED, to ensure their access to evidence-based instruction/intervention, and most importantly, to maximize their joy in learning to read.
References
Wanzek, J. & Vaughn, S. Research-based implications from extensive early reading interventions. School Psychology Review, 36, 541 (2007).

Mugnaini, D., Lassi, S., La Malfa, G. & Albertini, G. Internalizing correlates of dyslexia. World Journal of Pediatrics, 5, 255-264 (2009).

Jimerson, S., Egeland, B., Sroufe, L. A. & Carlson, B. A prospective longitudinal study of high school dropouts examining multiple predictors across development. Journal of school psychology, 38, 525-549 (2000).

Dougherty, C. Numeracy, literacy and earnings: evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Economics of education review, 22, 511-521 (2003).

Puolakanaho, A. et al. Very early phonological and language skills: estimating individual risk of reading disability. J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 48, 923-931 (2007).

Ozernov-Palchik, O. et al. Longitudinal stability of pre-reading skill profiles of kindergarten children. Developmental Science (In press).

Leppanen, P. H., Hamalainen, J. A., Salminen, H. K., Eklund, K. M., Guttorm, T. K., Lohvansuu, K., Puolakanaho, A., & Lyytinen, H. Newborn brain event-related potentials revealing atypical processing of sound frequency and the subsequent association with later literacy skills in children with familial dyslexia. Cortex, 46, 1362-1376 (2010).

Wang, Y. et al. Development of tract-specific white matter pathways during early reading development in at-risk children and typical controls. Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhw095 (In press).

Kraft, I. et al. Predicting early signs of dyslexia at a preliterate age by combining behavioral assessment with structural MRI. Neuroimage, 143, 378-386 (2016).

Blachman, B. A. et al. Effects of intensive reading remediation for second and third graders and a 1-year follow-up. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 444-461 (2004).

Torgesen, J. K. Avoiding the devastating downward spiral: The evidence that early intervention prevents reading failure. American Educator, 28, 6-19 (2004).

Stanovich, K. E. Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the aquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-407 (1986).

Johnson, M. H. Functional brain development in humans. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 475-483 (2001).

Johnston, M. V. Plasticity in the developing brain: implications for rehabilitation. Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 15, 94-101 (2009).

Johnson, M. H. Sensitive periods in functional brain development: problems and prospects. Developmental Psychobiology, 46, 287-292 (2005).

Birdsong, D. & Mollis, M. On the evidence for maturational constraints in second language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 235-249 (2001).

Washington, J. A. Early literacy skills in African-American children: Research considerations. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 16, 213-221 (2001).

Mancilla-Martinez, J. & Lesaux, N. K. The gap between Spanish speakers' word reading and word knowledge: a longitudinal study. Child Development, 82, 1544-1560 (2011).

Pennington, B. F. Reading Disabilities: Genetic and Neurological Influences. (Kluwer, 1991).

Wolff, P. H. & Melngailis, I. Family patterns of developmental dyslexia: clinical findings. Am J Med Genet, 54, 122-131, doi:10.1002/ajmg.1320540207 (1994).

Dr. Gaab, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard Medical School and a member of the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She received a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Zurich in Switzerland. She did postdoctoral training with John Gabrieli, Gary Glover, and Paula Tallal at Stanford University and MIT. Her current research within the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital focuses on auditory and language processing in the human brain and its applications for the development of typical and atypical language and literacy skills.
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It's a Myth That Young Children Cannot Be Screened for Dyslexia! - International Dyslexia Association

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