TASH Connections, Volume 41, Issue 2

Furthering TASH’s Bold Mission: Town Hall Recommendations for the Future

Letter from Our President, Ralph Edwards

This issue of TASH Connections should provide an incentive to attend the next TASH conference. Summaries of Town Hall meetings at the 2014 conference are provided. These events demonstrate the special contribution of TASH to disability advocacy. Under the coordination of TASH National Agenda Committes, family members and advocates, researchers, and other professionals discussed employment, education and community living matters with federal officials who exercise oversight on these areas. The format enabled TASH members and other conference participants to describe how programs differ in various locations due to different interpretations of regulations. They stressed the value of regulators, providers, and recipients sharing a common terminology and vision for understanding goals and outcomes. The meetings provided an opportunity to make recommendations on program design and evaluation as well as increasing the inclusion of advocates in the federal partnership.

The partnership between TASH and federal officials is solidified through this type of discussion, feedback and clarifications. It is a building block for understanding the impact of federal commitment, funding, and promulgation of regulations on the lives of families and individuals with significant disabilities. Although reading and sharing the articles in this issue of TASH Connections with colleagues and families is valuable, YOUR presence and participation in future Town Hall meetings is invaluable. Each member of the TASH family has much to contribute to the knowledge base via research findings and their experience.

We make a difference through TASH research, education and advocacy. Your contributions, both intellectual and financial, are essential to the pursuit and safeguard of inclusion, opportunity and equity of individuals and families with significant disabilities.

THANK YOU for all you do. This Connection’s edition further increases our preparation for future challenges and critical issues.

Articles from Our Contributors

Introduction

By Barbara Trader

Peer supports… what moves into your thoughts when you hear those words? Do you see a delightful scene, where one student is engaging with another, offering supportive and encouraging ideas, and perhaps in the dividing line of beginning and ending that time, sharing some fun and creative laughs?

Or, do you see a student sitting at a desk being “spoken to” but not really “speaking with” the student who is to be a “peer?” It may be seen as one being an enormous helper, and filling the time they were asked to do, and too uncomfortable to say “no thanks” to the request made, probably by a teacher or high staff member. These are very different scenes and I have experienced both. To me, why ask, and then assume, a student wants to be helpful? Good educators need to figure this out; it surely isn’t rocket science. I’m assuming as an educator, one must be somewhat skilled in understanding body language. They seem to be able to determine if the answer to “is your homework completed?” with ease. Why is it then that the selection of a peer to work with would not be an easy on-site accomplishment? It’s important to select someone who seems unafraid and who is willing to navigate the waters of personal discovery that people like me are, in truth, pretty cool guys.

Of course, there is some time in learning that there is strength in showing who you are, but if connected to a peer with the right stuff, it’s confidence- filling, in the soul.

If you are someone who uses supported typing and a young man, as I am, and if the peer support is a lovely young woman, there fundamentally develops the connecting sense of how it feels to have someone in that personal space that people are always talking to me about (“Remember personal space, Jamie!”). That surely can divert attention and focus in the beginning, but it’s a wonderful feeling in the balance of some of the harder things about autism. I only wish that someone had understood how cool this was and the wonderful sense of being opened to many school possibilities with a student in my own class.

The focus when inclusive education is discussed is the levelling of class instruction and expectation; however it’s not all about discourse that makes one feel a true part of the whole. Of course, that is important, but a whole is made from parts and doing peer support with careful and thoughtful planning can sure make a student develop self-confidence and the strength to move forward when those days of struggle step in at times.

TASH Inclusive Education Town Hall: Access to Communication and High Quality Instruction in the Least Restrictive Environment

Julia M. White[1], Syracuse University, Jennifer Kurth, University of Kansas, Jessica, McCord, Keystone Assessment, Jenny Stonemeier, TASH

Abstract

This paper has grown out of concerns raised during the 2014 TASH conference Town Hall session on Inclusive Education. This paper highlights and discusses the key concerns raised during the Town Hall session and offers recommendations for consideration in relation to these concerns.

Introduction

The TASH conference of December 2-4, 2014 included a series of Town Hall meetings on various themes, one of which was broadly focused on inclusive education. Representatives from the US Department of Education were invited to serve on the panel, and members of the TASH Inclusive Education National Agenda Committee constructed questions for the panel; in addition, Inclusive Education Town Hall attendees had the opportunity to submit questions during the event. The questions posed to the Inclusive Education Town Hall panel were specifically issues around access to communication, learning in the least restrictive environment (LRE), and access to high-quality instruction. These issues are inextricably intertwined, since students with the most significant disabilities largely lack access to communication, are taught in the most restrictive environments, and are routinely denied quality academic instruction. The Inclusive Education Town Hall was convened to continue dialogue around the barriers to inclusive practices and to seek recommendations from federal partners so that members of TASH and others who are interested in the lives of people with significant support needs can continue to work and advocate at the local, state, and federal levels for reform in schools around the inseparably linked rings of communication, environment, and quality instruction to improve school and post-school outcomes for all students, and particularly for students with significant support needs.

The following questions guided the discussion around three areas of concern.

Guiding Questions
  • Question 1: How do we ensure that every child has achieved communication competence by age 5?
  • Question 2: How can schools use descriptive measures so that their LRE (Least Restrictive Environment) reflects an equitable education that assures participation and progress in the general education curriculum in the age-appropriate, general education classroom?
  • Question 3: What would it take to get quality instruction in every classroom for every student?

The preceding questions were each accompanied by more specific target questions that were posed by both the moderator and the presenters to a panel of federal representatives during the session. The federal representatives—including Melody Musgrove, Director of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), Catherine Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and Deb Delisle, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education—then responded to these questions.

Question 1: How do we ensure that every child has achieved communication competence by age 5?
The Issue

Communication is an essential life skill, but we know that a large percentage of students who do not use reliable speech or symbolic language do not have access to communication. Both research and extensive practitioner experience have demonstrated that access to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) does matter. Students with significant disabilities should have early intervention services that address communication (between birth and age 5) in addition to having these services provided throughout their schooling. However, at least 10% of students who do not have a communication system by the third grade leave high school with NO communication system. To improve school outcomes and increase inclusive experiences, it is essential that students have access to communication systems by age 5 and that schools adopt the overarching goal of communicative competence for all students. Communicative competence has been described as “being able to meet the changing demands and to fulfill one’s communication goals across the lifespan” (Light, 1997, p. 63; Kleinert, Holman, McSheehan, & Kearns, 2010). Though supporting students to develop a communication system must be a priority, communicative competence should NOT be a prerequisite for learning in more inclusive educational environments. Additionally, Kearns et al. (2011) found that teachers often have little expectation that students who participate in alternate assessments (federally defined as “the students with the most significant cognitive disabilities”) will have communication competence, or that students’ basic communication will improve. Further, they found that the “highest expectations” for this group of students is that they read sight words and engage in calculator math. Thus, students with significant support needs who have a low level of use of AAC may not be able to fully demonstrate what they know.

Recommendations
Federal-Level
  • Congress should fully fund Part C of IDEA to strengthen the priorities for early childhood education and provide all students the foundations for engagement in high-quality, grade-appropriate, standard-based curriculum.
  • It is essential that priorities for early childhood education include an emphasis on access to communication and communication competence by age 5.
  • OSEP should add a results-oriented IDEA monitoring indicator related to access to communication and communication competence by age 5.
  • TASH should develop a “Myths and Facts about AAC” document about AAC and AAC devices to dispel myths (e.g., that AAC impedes verbal communication). This document should be disseminated not only to federal agencies, but also at the state and local levels.
State-Level
  • State departments of education should prioritize access to communication and communication competence by age 5 as an integral part of their early childhood education agendas.
  • TASH should collaborate with Parent Training and Information Centers (PTIs) to distribute a “Myths and Facts about AAC” to state legislatures, states departments of education, and teacher preparation programs. In particular, TASH should work with Statewide Parent Advocacy Networks to ensure that this document is disseminated throughout the states.
  • States should develop a monitoring process related to access to AAC training and devices for families, including those students and families residing in rural and economically disadvantaged placements.
Local-Level
  • Regional and local advocacy organizations should disseminate “Myths and Facts about AAC” to teacher preparation programs in both general and special education, service agencies, and local school districts.
  • Teacher and leader preparation programs and school districts and should highlight Assistive Technology and AAC in coursework, clinical internships, and professional development for general education and special education pre-service and in-service teachers.
Question 2. How can descriptive measures be used by schools so that their LRE reflects an
  • equitable education that assures participation and progress in the general
  • education curriculum in the age-appropriate, general education classroom?
The Issue

Students with significant disabilities experience the most segregated school environments (Kurth, Morningstar, & Kozleski, 2014). Nationally, of the students served under the IDEA categories of multiple disabilities, intellectual disability, and autism, only 13%, 17% and 39% of these groups of students, respectively, spend 80% or more of their day in general education environments. In contrast, 71%, 56%, and 42% of these students, respectively, spend 40% or less of their day in general education environments or attend separate schools, far more than any other IDEA disability category (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). How students are segregated is impacted not only by disability category, but also racial status. Black students with disabilities are more likely to be taught in more restrictive, self-contained, segregated classrooms than white peers with the same label (Ferri & Connor, 2005; Orfield, Kucsera, & Siegel-Hawley, 2012). Additionally, OCR data illustrate clearly how students with disabilities, and in particular students of color with disabilities, are subjected to much more severe discipline practices than other students. Issues of segregation and overrepresentation in harsh discipline for students of color who have disability labels—can be disrupted if teachers and administrators are able to acknowledge their implicit biases and assumptions around disability and race and become empowered to build relationships rooted in cultural competence, which in large part presumes the capability and skill of all students, including students with more significant disabilities and students of color.

It is not enough to train teachers and leaders to develop requisite awareness, knowledge, skills, and the competence to work more effectively with students from marginalized groups—it is essential that there is an impact on students as well. Children in general education classrooms must be taught—inoculated—to have a greater appreciation for children who are different, including children with differences in learning styles. This requires that students have teachers who are culturally competent. Cultural competence is considered to be a congruent set of policies, practices, and structures present in a school or school system that honors and respects value orientations of students from distinct cultural groups and works within these value orientations to provide equitable schooling for all students. This means that district leaders and principals must have and provide professional development to develop cultural competence, which means that a district must value cultural competence and provide opportunities and resources for principals.

Recommendations
Federal-Level
  • The USDOE needs to leverage state plans for schools to enforce LRE and ensure that all students have access to highly-qualified teachers.
  • USDOE should enforce the requirement for meaningful stakeholder engagement in all phases of the IDEA monitoring process.
  • USDOE should merge the siloed funding streams so that states can facilitate the implementation MTSS in school districts.
  • Congress and the USDOE should recognize the limits of categorical labels (e.g., they are not absolute and force an emphasis on deficits). They should consider that instead of a reliance on categories for determining eligibility, it would be more useful to identify the supports needed for students to learn and progress in general curriculum.
  • Congress and the USDOE should confront the limits of the current concept of the continuum of alternative placements, including issues such as disproportionality and disparate outcomes as a result of separate placements, and include clear and direct language for supporting all students as full time members of age-appropriate, general education settings.
  • Congress should increase IDEA funding for Parts B and C, specifically to: (1) increase the Part B allocations of grants to SEAs with a particular emphasis on fiscal supports for educating high need students with disabilities in general education settings; and (2) increase Part C grant allocations to strengthen inclusive early intervention programs and inclusive preschool programs for children with disabilities.
State-Level
  • TASH should work with SEAs as they develop plans around the equitable distribution of highly qualified teachers, particularly concerning access to the general education curriculum and teachers of students with severe disabilities.
  • States need to coordinate “funding silos” to better ensure that MTSS are available to all students (i.e., mental health funds, VR funds, Title I, IDEA, Title IV, etc.).
  • States should ensure that all stakeholders are aware of opportunities to participate in the creation and monitoring of state implementation of IDEA.
  • States should more widely disseminate information about resources that are in place to oversee, enforce, and ensure the rights of all students; in particular, states should highlight the process of making queries and reporting complaints to the Office of Civil Rights.
Local-Level
  • School districts should use their Title II dollars to invest in high-quality professional development that both supports inclusive practices and align to district vision and goals.
  • School districts should provide PD for district and school leaders to ensure that the district’s vision and goals support inclusive education practices and cultural competence.
  • School districts and teacher preparation programs should use Implicit Attitude Tests from Harvard’s Project Implicit ( including tools on race and disability) as a baseline for training and development in cultural competence.
  • Schools of education and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) should have targeted coursework, clinical internships, and professional development aimed at sustaining capacity for cultural competence for all preservice and in-service teachers and other school staff.
  • Impartial Hearing Officers (IHO) need to be trained to recognize that IEP teams don’t have the ultimate authority to make decisions that aren’t in the best interests of children; additionally, IHOs need professional development around best practices for access to grade level general education curriculum in general education contexts to inform their decisions in cases involving LRE and FAPE.
  • School districts and local advocacy and parent organizations should make available the procedures through which stakeholders can make queries and file complaints with the appropriate Office of Civil Rights regional office when they have questions about or feel that rights have been violated.
Question 3. What would it take to get quality instruction in every classroom for every student?
The Issue

All students deserve high-quality instruction in their neighborhood schools, but for students with significant disabilities, this is often an elusive endeavor. Although students with disabilities benefit both academically and socially from learning in general education contexts, students without disabilities also benefit academically and socially from learning in classrooms with students with disabilities (Cole, Waldron, & Majd, 2004). When students are segregated, academic, social, and communicative expectations for them are lowered. Students who are segregated in self-contained classrooms typically do not benefit more than those who find themselves in integrated placements (Fisher & Meyer, 2002), and in segregated settings students often do not receive high-quality instruction. Their instruction is too often left to Para educators who are the least prepared members of an instructional team (Giangreco, 2010; 2013). They are not afforded the modeling by, and experiences with peers their age who do not have identified disabilities (Causton-Theoharis, Theoharis, Orsati, & Cosier, 2011). Access to high-quality instruction is a multi-faceted issue that is impacted by teacher preparation, school commitment, the interpretation and implementation of state and local policy, and federal support.