Testimony of Carmen Alvarez before City Council Committee on Education
Oct 7, 2005 12:37 PM
Good morning. My name is Carmen Alvarez. I am Vice President for Special Education of the United Federation of Teachers. Thank you for the opportunity to offer my union’s perspective on the Chancellor’s reorganization of special education.
As you know by now, the Comprehensive Management Review and Evaluation of Special Education commissioned by the New York City Department of Education (also known as the “Hehir” report) was released to the public by the Mayor on September 23, 2004. The overall purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which the NYC Department of Education has a management structure in place that is capable of implementing the fundamental requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The current management structure was put in place by the Chancellor’s reorganization, and thus the report discusses the roles and responsibilities of the various offices and individuals involved in special education support and oversight within the context of the Chancellor’s reorganization.
While the Chancellor seized upon the authors’ statement that the reorganization “is moving NYC in the right direction” in his press release, the details in the 116 page report suggest otherwise ---that in fact a radically different and fundamentally wrong direction is being taken. Viewed as a whole, the report is no validation of the Chancellor’s work. It is instead a scathing indictment of the Department’s botched implementation of the so-called “reforms” initiated two and one half years ago.
I am very pleased that the report was released prior to this hearing because it echoes many of the things we, as well as parents and advocates, have been saying to the Chancellor and his managers about the reorganization from the very beginning. Indeed, without this report it is likely that many of the comments we make today would be ridiculed and dismissed by the Department -- as they have been for the past two and one half years - as isolated incidents, not representative of the overall success of the reforms. In preparation for today’s hearing I asked the same questions you are asking today: did the chancellor have the right vision and did he provide the leadership needed to get the job done?
While I will refer to the Hehir report extensively in my comments, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the absence of the voice of parents in the report. At first I was disappointed that the report did not acknowledge the impact of the reorganization on parents. However, as I read the report more closely I understood that the parent voice was absent from the report because parents had no voice in the reorganization. This is serious, perhaps even fatal, flaw that deserves considerable attention in your examination of the status of this Chancellor’s special education “reforms.”
The “reforms” announced in April 2003 focused on four major areas: improving instruction for special needs children; holding schools and principals accountable for improvements in special education; providing services and incentives for better school performance; and streamlining the special education evaluation process. Let’s look at what the Chancellor said, and what he actually did, in each of these areas.
Improving Instruction for Special Needs Children
In the April 3, 2003 press release, the administration’s criticism of the instruction provided to children with special needs was pointed and harsh. It said the special education system “has failed shamefully to help our children learn and raise their levels of expectation and achievement both in the classroom and in life.” The Mayor and Chancellor pledged they would “no longer tolerate a largely segregated system that unmercifully ravages the lives and future of our children.” They made a commitment to provide “first-rate instruction and high quality services for those children with special learning needs in the classroom.”
The administration’s strategy for improving instruction was two-fold: appointing instructional specialists and providing professional development in nationally recognized instructional strategies. The details included:
§ Appointment of 200 Instructional Support Specialists to implement and train both general and special education teachers on research based, nationally acclaimed instructional methodologies. According to the plan, the “ISS’s” (as they have come to be known) would be assigned to approximately six schools each.
§ Implementation of two research-based instructional strategies were through professional development: the Wilson Reading Program and Urban Schools Attuned.
Did the reorganization improve instruction for students with disabilities? I would have to say no, and this is why:
§ In a running competition, it really doesn’t matter how fast you are “off the block” if you never reach the finish line. Similarly, in education, the measure of success is the number of students who remain in school and graduate with “real” diplomas, not incremental gains in elementary level assessments. According to the Hehir report, forty-five percent of students with disabilities drop out and of those who remain, only 28% receive a Regents or local diploma. This means that only 15% of students with disabilities in NYC remain in school and graduate with a credential that provides them with a meaningful opportunity to participate in the workforce. Who are these students? Like the residents of New Orleans who were left to fend for themselves in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they are overwhelmingly the children of politically disenfranchised, economically disadvantaged, and minority families. The facts suggest that the Department has simply “written off” these students. Just as FEMA had no vision and no program for saving the poor, the aged, the disabled and the minority residents of New Orleans, it is clear that the Department has no vision and no program for how to close the learning gap and increase the graduation rate for these young people.
§ The research is clear that students who do not read fluently by the time they reach middle school are likely to experience significant difficulty with reading for the rest of their lives. According to Dr. Hehir, for these students, access to the general curriculum “cannot be dependent on their ability to read print or write at grade level.” Materials such as taped texts and books with controlled vocabulary can help struggling readers access the curriculum, but these materials are simply not available in the New York City Public Schools.
§ Until general and special educators can actively collaborate to modify the curriculum for students with special learning needs, there is little chance that graduation rates will improve. The Department has provided little to no support for our members in this critical area. Instead, the Department’s response has been to “dump” students with disabilities in general education classes with limited special education support or in collaborative team teaching classes with teachers who have no preparation or experience with this model. This is not a sound instructional strategy and it doesn’t work.
§ The Department’s stubborn refusal to implement collaborative team teaching in the manner in which it has proven to be effective is compelling evidence that the Department’s road to supporting students with disabilities is at a dead end. When the Department refused to provide coverage for teachers in collaborative team teaching classes during their prep periods, we used our contract to force the Department to provide appropriate IEP mandated services for students. An arbitrator ruled that when a student’s IEP says that the student needs full-time collaborative team teaching, schools must provide coverage during prep periods. Rather than accede to the arbitrator’s ruling and properly implement the service, the Department went to court to try to get the ruling overturned. The Department lost at State Supreme Court last year, and, again, rather than give students the service they need and deserve, they postponed implementation by filing an appeal. It has now been over 3 years that students have been without services. I ask, does this reflect a commitment to provide first rate instruction and services to students at high risk of dropping out and failing to meet state standards? We have done our part. I ask you, madam Chairwoman and members of this committee, what are you prepared to do to put an end to the Department’s disgraceful foot-dragging?
There is more. This is what the Hehir report says about the Chancellor’s ability to follow through on his own commitments:
§ The Instructional Support Specialists were hired, but few are actually going into the classroom to model effective instruction or to assist teachers in accommodating a broader range of learning needs. Instead, they are “putting out fires” and addressing compliance issues. Rather than having a caseload of up to six schools, some have caseloads as large as fourteen schools, making it nearly impossible to provide consistent support.
§ Teachers have been (and continue to be) trained in the Wilson reading Program. While limited in scope, it is good, sound professional development. Unfortunately, the Hehir report documents exactly what we have been telling the Department since the beginning of the Wilson training: teachers are not allowed to deliver Wilson Reading instruction during the time allocated for Balanced Literacy and there is not enough time to deliver Wilson Reading effectively in the remainder of the school day.
§ The segregation of special education persists through:
o the failure of many neighborhood schools to offer programs and services to address the needs of students with learning and emotional disabilities;
o the failure to allocate resources to support students with disabilities in new “small” high schools;
o a bureaucratically driven placement process that treats placement as the availability of “seats” in special education programs rather than as the services and environment that are appropriate to meeting the individualized needs of the student;
o a continuum of services that offers few options between resource room/consultant teacher services and self-contained special education classes;
o delivery of related services in a manner that does not support classroom instruction;
o provision of separate professional development for special and general educators; and
o lack of communication and collaboration between District 75 and regional program staff.
Holding Schools Accountable for Improvements in Special Education
The second major commitment of the reorganization was holding schools and principals accountable for educating as many students as possible in general education classrooms and improved performance of students with disabilities. According to the Mayor and Chancellor’s press release, improved accountability would be achieved by “prioritizing the needs and interests of children and eliminating unnecessary bureaucracies.”
Was the vision on target? It is hard to disagree with the importance of prioritizing the needs of children and holding schools and principals accountable for improved student performance. Nor can I disagree with the elimination of bureaucracies that are truly unnecessary. I am uneasy with the imperative to educate as many students as possible in general education classrooms both because I do not believe that education in the general education classroom should be an end in and of itself and because statements like this have been widely misinterpreted as requiring that children with special learning needs be educated in general education classrooms even when they are unable to receive instructional benefit in that setting. In general, however, my problem with the Chancellor’s accountability reforms lies more with the disastrous execution than the intent.
Did the Chancellor do what he said that he was going to do? The answer here is unequivocally no. Again, the Hehir report confirms what we, parents and advocates have been saying since special education was “reorganized” in the Fall of 2003:
§ The elimination of special education supervisors, lack of a standard operating procedures manual, failure to effectively prepare and support school principals in assuming responsibility for special education resulted in the 2003-04 school year being a “lost year” for students with disabilities and principals taking less ownership of the education of students with disabilities, particularly at the high school level;
§ While the Department has a long history of “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” prior reorganizations, unlike the current one, have usually resulted in a coherent bureaucratic structure. This reorganization is remarkable for the disorganization that ensued. The situation is nothing less than chaotic: from top to bottom roles and responsibilities are confused and poorly defined; regional and school staff do not communicate with each other; and nobody returns phone calls. The new structure is top heavy at the regional level, with a ratio of administrators to students outstripping the national average by some 2.5 to one. There is a lack of focus and leadership from Central on systemic issues, and the system is insufficiently data driven.
§ Some of the bureaucratic structures that were eliminated actually undermined the goals of the reorganization. For example, special education supervisors actually knew most of the complex and sometimes convoluted special education procedures. While our members didn’t always see eye to eye with their supervisors, supervisors did provide guidance to principals, staff and parents regarding their responsibilities. The elimination of the position produced a void at the school level. Principals were both unwilling and unprepared to step in. Thousands of IEPs were “lost” and tens of thousands of students did not receive services. Eliminating the position without putting an effective alternative in place thus “prioritized” the administration’s interest in dismantling the special education infrastructure over the needs and interests of children.
Providing Services and Incentives for Improved School Performance
The Chancellor’s third major commitment was to provide services and incentives for better school performance. The mechanism for accomplishing this goal was an “enhanced school improvement system consisting of benchmarks, improvement plans, and technical assistance for schools.” It is impossible for me to comment on this aspect of the reorganization because the only information that the Department will share is the resolution of complaints brought to the Department’s attention by my office. I can say that with few limited exceptions the Department refuses to acknowledge, no let address systemic issues. The Department will not share data or the results of school performance evaluations. It is difficult to believe that a system so lacking in transparency can be effective. But then if you look at what has transpired as a result of this organization, it is no mystery why the Department is so intent on controlling information.
I ask you Madam Chairwoman and members of this committee, what are you going to do to compel the Chancellor to publicly disclose special education benchmarks and performance data so that we can determine for ourselves whether his leadership has been effective?
Streamlining the Evaluation Process
The Chancellor’s last goal was to “streamline the evaluation process.” The method by which this was to be accomplished involved eliminating district level reviews; conducting and finalizing all evaluations at the school level; eliminating the position of Education Evaluator; and consolidating 37 district level Committees on Special Education into 10 regional CSEs with more limited responsibilities. The “streamlined” school based process dramatically expanded the role of the school psychologist. In addition to conducting psychological assessments, the psychologist became responsible for conducting academic assessments and case management. The latter responsibility included scheduling meetings, coordinating assessments, serving as the main contact for parents, teachers and service providers, coordinating the writing of IEPs and timely entry of data in the Department’s database. The stated objective of the shift to a school based process, according to the Chancellor, was to ensure that “critical decisions concerning students [are made] where instructors and administrators interact with the children on a daily basis.”
Was the Chancellor’s vision regarding a streamlined school-based assessment process on target? In my view, the Chancellor was way off the mark.
§ IDEA contemplates a multi-disciplinary process in which children are assessed in all areas of suspected disability. Under the Chancellor’s model, the assessment process became a “one-man show.”
§ IDEA also requires that the child’s IEP team include someone knowledgeable about the instructional implications of the evaluation results. Education evaluators, licensed and experienced special education teachers who had passed a rigorous course in educational assessment, made the connection between assessments and instruction in the New York City Public Schools for decades. Theoretically, special education teachers could fill this role. But the Department knew or should have known that without any notice, preparation or professional development for this new role, it would be unlikely that special education teachers would assume this responsibility.
§ The dismantling of the district CSEs, elimination of the education evaluator position and consolidation of responsibility in the school psychologist were efficiency moves, pure and simple. They were not designed to improve the assessment process or the quality of student IEPs. Nor, on balance did they provide much benefit to parents: while the school based process relieved parents of the need to attend two meetings to finalize initial IEPs and substantial changes in their child’s IEP, it also deprived them of the opportunity to fix their child’s IEP without initiating a due process hearing.
Did the Chancellor do what he said he was going to do? It depends on how you define the overall goal of the changes in the evaluation process. If the goal was to dismantle the existing structure just to prove – to the union, to the plaintiffs and to his boss – that he could do it, one would have to say that the Chancellor accomplished his goal. However, if we take the Chancellor at his word and accept that the intent of the changes in the evaluation process was to facilitate the involvement of teachers and school personnel who best know the child in the evaluation process, and to prioritize the needs and interests of children, the inescapable conclusion is that the reorganization was a colossal failure. The Hehir report confirms that:
§ The changes in the evaluation process produced less, rather than more, involvement by the child’s parents, teachers and service providers in the referral and evaluation process. The teachers interviewed by Dr. Hehir reported that they played no role in the assessment process. This is not surprising given that the Department never asked them to undertake this responsibility or defined their role in the evaluation process.
§ The reorganization failed to address the organizational culture in which assessment professionals are viewed as separate from the school community.
§ Students with speech and language disabilities continue to be doubly deprived in the evaluation process: they are assessed by contract agency personnel who neither work in their schools nor participate in meetings to develop their IEPs and they are served by speech therapists who may know them and interact with their teachers but who have little say about their service recommendations.
§ As a result of the new demands on their time, school psychologists are no longer available to provide intervention services for students with emotional and behavioral needs.
Does this sound to you like the New York City Department of Education is “moving in the right direction?” I call on you today to join with me, with parents and with advocates in establishing an agenda for real special education reform: one that will rescue the children and families that have been left to struggle on their own to secure adequate and appropriate services, one that will recognize that our schools will be judged on how they address the needs of their most vulnerable families and students, one that will promote trust and a true partnership between schools and parents. Together we will demand that the Department: 1) implement collaborative team teaching as mandated by the arbitrator and New York State Supreme Court; 2) release benchmarks and data so that we can judge for ourselves the effectiveness of the Department’s special education programs and initiatives; and 3) establish a committee of stakeholders including parents, unions, the State Education Department and the Department to examine data, develop effective strategies and drive resources to narrow the performance gap and increase the graduation rate for students with disabilities.
Thank you.
