|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
AUTISM FIRST STEPS
AUTISM DAILY NEWSLETTER
Thursday December 20, 2001
INDEX:
* Consortium for Citizens
with Disabilities Education Task Force Releases
IDEA Principles
* Critics worry tutoring provisions in education bill may fall short
* S&P Report Shows
Disconnect Between Spending Results"
* "School Inspection Bill Narrowly Wins Senate OK"
* U.S. Commentary: Sen. Jim Jeffords on Why He Opposes The New
Education Package
* THE MICHIGAN FAMILY SUBSIDY ACT
* Greening the Next Generation Of Principals
******************************
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities
Education Task Force
Releases IDEA Principles
These Principles Will Guide Reauthorization Efforts Click
Here.
FAMILY OPPORTUNITY ACT AS "ECONOMIC STIMULUS"
Decisions Being Made Right Now!!!! Click
Here.
Increase Medicaid Federal Matching (FMAP) Rates as Part of Economic Stimulus
This Can Help Children & Adults with Disabilities Click
Here.
Support National Housing Trust Fund to Provide more Affordable Housing for
People with Disabilities
Thanks to Those Chapters of The Arc that have Signed-on! Click
Here.
Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability (HIFA) Waiver Threat Medicaid
New Bush Administration Demonstration Could Lead to Loss of Services Click
Here
******************************
Critics worry tutoring provisions in education
bill may fall short
December 13, 2001 Posted: 3:12 PM EST (2012 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Officials at Grange Elementary School in Dundalk, Maryland,
decided on a bold experiment to improve students' reading scores: They hired
tutoring service Sylvan Learning Systems to give regular reading lessons to
every third-grader in the building.
Though they're expensive, the lessons begun six years ago have paid off -- test
scores are up and the school is pursuing grants to keep Sylvan around. This
fall, another group of third-graders, 68 in all, began receiving twice-weekly
tutoring sessions.
EXTRA INFORMATION
Bush
education bill one step closer to law
Education
bill at a glance
Programs like this one could soon be considered more commonplace under a
provision of President Bush's education plan, with the federal government
picking up some of the costs of tutoring for struggling students. But critics fret
that the proposed subsidy falls far short of what is needed. Under a bill being
considered in Congress, school districts in which test scores don't improve
would be required to provide tutoring with a small portion of the money they
receive under the federal Title I program, meant to serve poor children.
Spending varies widely, but school districts generally receive an estimated
$750 to $875 per pupil. "It is kind of difficult to see how we're really
going to provide adequate services to children with this kind of funding,"
said Darrell Capwell, a lobbyist with the American Federation of Teachers.
Parents of poor students in struggling schools could use federal dollars for
tutoring in reading and math as early as next fall. Lawmakers say the tutoring
program is only a small part of the overall reform package, and that it can be
done cost-effectively. It's also meant, they said, primarily to boost the test
scores of the lowest-performing students. "Under this bill, if there's not
enough money available for everyone, at least we have a requirement that the
services go to the lowest performing and poorest school kids," said Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts. There's little doubt that one-on-one and
small-group tutoring can help children struggling to keep up. Every Tuesday and
Thursday, third-graders at Grange file into a bright, comfortable classroom
renovated by Baltimore-based Sylvan. Students gather around semicircular tables
in groups of four or five, where a teacher begins a short reading lesson, then
guides each child through individualized tasks based on his or her progress.
Students love the sessions, not only for the individual attention but for the
prizes they can earn. By completing lessons they earn points, up to 18 per
week. Students save them up and cash them in for prizes -- everything from a
pencil (seven points) or paperback coloring book (22 points) to a soccer ball
(300 points). Sylvan cut an affordable deal with Grange, charging about $1,000
per pupil for a full school year. If students were to seek out private tutoring
individually, a session with Sylvan or another provider could cost $20 to $80
per hour, or $1,000 to $4,000 for the 50 one-hour sessions Sylvan recommends.
Those amounts double if the child needs tutoring in both math and reading. The
education bill, called "a signature issue" of Bush's first year in
the White House by spokesman Ari Fleischer, is expected to win approval by the
House on Thursday. It would require struggling schools to use up to 15 percent
of their total Title I allotment for tutoring or providing students with
transportation to another public school. The bill increases Title I funding,
but critics worry that it spreads the money thin by making more students
eligible for the services. They are also concerned that school districts may
have to bear some of the burden of the tutoring demands. "It's essentially
coming out of our own budgets," said Mary Conk, a legislative specialist
with the American Association of School Administrators. Conk also said school
districts in rural areas could find it difficult to find qualified tutoring
services, and that administrative costs for all school districts could be high.
"We're concerned about it," she said. "We feel there are a lot
more elements to the program that have never been thought about." The
bill's authors say the program primarily focuses on the lowest-performing
students, and that school districts can greatly reduce costs by running the
programs themselves. It requires school districts to approve a list of public
or private tutoring services. These can include programs within the schools
themselves and run by teachers, or through private and nonprofit companies and
religious providers. Maureen Harris, who runs tutoring and after-school
programs for the Boston Public Schools, said students who fail state tests
receive after-school tutoring by public school teachers, at a cost of about
$349 per student. The state-funded classes contain, on average, about seven to
10 students, she said. "We absolutely do feel like we're making a
difference," Harris said. Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.
http://fyi.cnn.com/2001/fyi/teachers.ednews/12/13/tutoring.kids.ap/index.html
******************************
S&P Report Shows Disconnect Between Spending
Results"
Gongwer News Service 12-14-01
The first <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Statewide Insights report
issued by Standard & Poor’s School Evaluation Services showed there is
little correlation in Michigan between spending in schools and student
performance. The report also showed a disparity in results among schools
at all socioeconomic levels. The goal of the new report, part of the
state’s contract with S&P to operate a Web site http://www.ses.standardandpoors.com
analyzing state education data, is to provide policy makers a basis for future
reforms, authors of the report said. One policy that may need review,
said Bill Cox with S&P, is the relationship between state curriculum
standards and the Michigan Educational Assessment Program tests. “Pass
rates are consistently lower than one would expect, especially considering the
state has set a group of standards,” he said. Mr. Cox said it should at
least raise questions that the state graduation rate averages about 80 percent,
but only about 60 percent of students on average meet or exceed state standards
on the high school test, a score the report considered “passing”. “Does
that mean the standards are too high? Does that mean the assessments are not
aligned with the standards? Does that mean the curriculum is not aligned with
the assessment?” he asked. What the study did find is the level of
personal income in a district does not necessarily have a bearing on success on
the MEAP tests. Traditional wisdom says districts with high levels of
poor students also have low scores on standardized tests and vice versa and on
average, economically disadvantaged students had a pass rate of 40 percent on
the test, while 56.2 percent of wealthier students passed the tests. But
of the 1,950 school buildings where MEAP participation was above the state
average of 84.2 percent, 836 buildings were below the state average for free and
reduced lunch participation. Another 584 buildings above the state
average for free and reduced lunch were below the state passing average.
And 292 schools with larger numbers of poor students also beat the state
passing rate average. And 238 schools with fewer numbers of poor students
were below the state average. The study also showed significant
achievement gaps between white students, at 59.9 percent passing rate, and
black (31 percent), Native American (33.2 percent) and Hispanic (36.8 percent).
The racial gap question does have one glaring hole: 35 percent of
students do not identify their race. While Mr. Cox said the
students not reporting their race could bring the average up for given racial
groups, he said those students would more likely make the achievement gap
wider. For instance, 5.3 percent of the students taking the tests report
they are black, but Department of Education data shows 17.8 percent of the
school age population is black. White students under-report by about 20 points:
54.9 percent reported versus 76.5 percent according to department data.
And Hispanic students under-report by about half, 1.6 percent compared to
3 percent in department data. The racial and socioeconomic gaps are wider
in some schools otherwise considered successful. In one district (which
Mr. Cox declined to identify) with low levels of economically disadvantaged
students, the pass rate for those students was 24.9 percent compared to 69
percent for the wealthier students. In other comparable districts, that
ratio was 67.3 percent/52.7 percent. “It suggests an issue that needs to
be addressed by their community,” he said. Wider differences yet were
found looking at school spending per student. Adjusting spending for
geographic location, the study found 183 districts spending below the statewide
average of $6,034 with above average passing rates, while 193 districts in that
category had below average passing rates. For the higher-spending
districts, 86 were above average passing rate and 62 were below. “There’s
no clear indication that higher spending means higher results,” Mr. Cox said.
“At any given rate of spending there can be a huge difference in
performance.” The next step for the S&P program will be to begin
trying to analyze why some districts are successful apparently against the odds
and others are unsuccessful despite apparent advantages, Mr. Cox said.
Part of that, he said, are plans to be able to look at spending versus
achievement for some specific student improvement programs. But he argued
that the solutions to the various districts’ problems would not be the same.
“There will not be a blanket approach,” he said. He said S&P
would not be recommending any solutions. “We raise questions for policy
makers to decide what to do,” he said. In addition to some of the
additional data the site is to make available in the coming years, Mr. Cox said
S&P is also working to make more of the data already collected more
available or at least more easily accessible. The site, for instance,
breaks down some information within districts to the building level, but he
said there are plans to make the building level information easier to find and
easier to compare. While the site administrators are working to bring
that information out, Mr. Cox said S&P will be meeting with school district
officials over the coming months to give them access to some of the information
used in developing the Statewide Insights report.
******************************
"School Inspection Bill Narrowly Wins
Senate OK"
Gongwer News Service,
One more time, at least one chamber of
the Legislature has said school buildings should be professionally inspected
for safety. On a vote of 21-14, the Senate approved SB
358 that requires new buildings built under bond issues to have plans
reviewed for safety. The bill also requires the state to develop a
no-cost, walk through safety inspection program that would look at all school
buildings built or remodeled in the state since 1978. For nearly a
decade, some lawmakers and outside interests have been fighting to make school
buildings subject to many of the same inspection requirements that most
buildings have. A bill went to Governor John Engler in 1993 requiring
school inspections, but he vetoed it on the basis that it would have overturned
another section of law that dealt with so-called “potty parity.” For
nearly 70 years, schools have been exempted from most regular inspection
requirements, even though there have been some noted examples of structurally
unsafe schools. Efforts to repeal the walk-through inspections failed, as
Sen. Chris Dingell (D-Trenton) said a repeal could endanger students. Senate
Majority Leader Dan DeGrow (R-Port Huron) said the walk-through inspection
provision was overbroad. And Sen. Leon Stille (R-Spring Lake) said the
bill takes away a lot of autonomy from school officials. Seven
Republicans joined a solid Democratic caucus to approve the bill. An
attempt to reconsider the bill failed.
******************************
U.S.
Commentary: Sen. Jim Jeffords on Why He Opposes
The New Education Package
"Back to School"
By JIM JEFFORDS, New York Times,
WASHINGTON -- A year ago, when I was
chairman of the Senate Education Committee, I joined several senators and
representatives from both parties and traveled to Austin, Tex., to meet with
George W. Bush, the president-elect, to discuss education reform. At that time,
we all pledged to work together to pass an education reform bill that would
raise school accountability and improve student achievement. With budget
surpluses projected as far as the eye could see, it seemed that this nation was
on the verge of making a significant investment in education. For me, it was a
time of optimism and hope.What a difference a year makes. Today we face a very
different economic reality. We also have an administration unwilling to support
the financing necessary to carry out its own education initiative.There is no
question that we need to improve our schools. National tests show only one in
five American high school seniors proficient in math and science, and only two
in five in reading.Now I fear we may pass legislation that will do far more
harm than good. As currently drafted, the education bill requires our schools
to make significant improvements in a short time — without providing the
necessary resources.State and local education budgets throughout the country
are already facing severe cuts. This bill will make matters worse. Various
estimates indicate we will fall several billion dollars short of covering the
new bill's mandates. History all too often repeats itself. Unless we support
the bill's requirements with adequate funds, I am afraid we will be repeating a
mistake we made 26 years ago.When I arrived in Congress, one of the first bills
I worked on created what is now known as the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act. We wrote the legislation to ensure that children with
disabilities receive the special education and related services they need and
to which they have a constitutional right.We recognized that children with
disabilities often require specialized services and that educating children
with disabilities could be twice as costly as educating children without
disabilities. Therefore, in 1975, we authorized the federal government to pay
up to 40 percent of each state's added expenditures for educating children with
disabilities. Yet now the federal government still provides only about 15
percent.Special education has been an incredibly important program for millions
of children. Graduation rates have increased, and the number of young adults
with disabilities enrolling in college has more than tripled. Special education
has helped people with disabilities become independent, wage-earning,
tax-paying contributors to our country. But special education is very costly,
and by not providing the federal funds we promised, we force states and local
school districts to increase property taxes and shift funds from other
programs.Earlier this year the Senate agreed without objection to a bipartisan
amendment introduced by Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Hagel that would require
Congress to fund the 40 percent of special education costs in full. This was a
great victory for all of our children. I am outraged, however, that a majority
of my colleagues on the conference committee voted not to include this
amendment.I am deeply concerned that this bill will further saddle our school
systems with federal requirements they cannot afford to meet. I have been in
Congress for more than 25 years and have never voted against an education bill.
But to pass this bill as it stands would be counterproductive. It is better to
approve no bill than to approve a bad one.Jim Jeffords, independent of Vermont,
is chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
******************************
THE MICHIGAN FAMILY SUBSIDY ACT
The policy of deinstitutionalization and, more important, community
integration, has achieved support on a state level in Michigan. As articulated
by the Governor and the Department of Mental Health, Michigan adopted a goal of
returning all children from state institutions and specialized nursing homes to
local communities by 1986. Towards this purpose, Michigan established an
innovative family subsidy program that provides direct cash subsidies to
families with severe disabilities. The program was piloted in a single region
prior to the passage of the Family Subsidy Act to provide subsidies on a
statewide basis. The subsidy is designed to help parents pay for the extra
expenses incurred in having a child with severe disabilities (for example,
equipment, respite, home renovation, diapers, and other services and
materials). The subsidy amounts to $255 per month, an annual subsidy of $2,700
for eligible families. The eligibility criteria for the family subsidy program
are: 1) the family's annual income must be less than $60,000; 2) the child must
be 0 to 18 years of age (after that age, they are eligible for Supplemental
Security Income); and, 3) the child must have a severe disability. Support for
the Act was gained by appealing to philosophical and economic grounds. As a
philosophical rationale, supporters pointed to the needs of children with
severe disabilities and their families. As an economic measure, they argued
that the passage of the legislation would result in cost savings to the state
by preventing out-of-home placements and encouraging families to take their
children home from institutions and other alternative placements. By
encouraging, rather than discouraging, families to maintain their children at
home, reversing the traditional pattern of developmental disabilities services,
and placing increased control over services in the hands of direct consumers,
the Michigan Family Subsidy Act is an important step in the right direction.
Michigan Family Support Subsidy: http://soeweb.syr.edu/thechp/fsbmichi.htm
******************************
Greening the Next Generation Of Principals
By Robert A.
Klempen and Cynthia T. Richetti 
The nation's reservoir of experienced principals is about to
become seriously depleted.
School reform is on the run, and for good reason. The nation's reservoir of
experienced principals is about to become seriously depleted, leaving reform to
the rookies. Forty percent of our elementary, middle, and high school
principals are about to retire, according U.S. Department of Labor statistics.Passing
the leadership baton to the next generation of principals is not necessarily
bad. After all, fresh blood can bring fresh approaches and bold new
solutions.But here is the difficulty. In a growing number of districts,
superintendents and school board members report that the number of qualified
candidates who are motivated to become school administrators is dangerously
low. Not a big surprise, considering the overwhelming demands placed on
principals, the marginal respect given to them by the broader school community,
and the skimpy resources and inadequate support available for changing
instructional practices.If nothing is done to correct the situation, we
undoubtedly will be adding "school leadership crisis" to America's
current litany of education woes.Consider three challenges facing principals
and their schools:
Districts are awash in new initiatives, giving rise to
‘initiative fatigue.’
1. Over the last several years, districts have become awash in new initiatives,
from curriculum reform to school safety. Initiative fatigue is setting in, even
among veteran principals, who spend much of their time fighting pitched battles
with faculties and communities reluctant to change current beliefs and
practices. While the number of new initiatives has skyrocketed, successful
implementation remains a rarity.2. The locus of authority is shifting radically
in districts throughout the country. School-based management has become the
latest hurrah, and with it decisionmaking responsibility has been pushed
downward. Issues that were once resolved at higher district levels now land on
the doorstep of those closest to where the issue originates.Given the trend
toward decentralization, how do principals set parameters, and how should they
involve increasingly diverse and demanding stakeholders? How can they better
anticipate and avoid potential problems that inevitably accompany change,
especially when principals are expected to act at "the speed of
thought"? And how can they move reform forward without leaving a trail of
change-weary teachers and administrators in their wake? 3. Experience is no longer
the valuable teacher it once was. Many of today's principals have followed the
same training track as their predecessors. They have come up through the ranks,
counting on experience as the ultimate skill-builder. But unrelenting, rapid
change has become the new status quo. In such an environment, experience can
take us only so far. Too often, the skills our principals are acquiring by
experience are inadequate to meet the complicated demands placed on school
leaders today.
To meet the challenge, the "greening" process for developing the
skills of our nation's rookie principals must be rethought. And incidentally,
veteran principals could also benefit enormously from retooling. Here is a case
in point: J.S. is a freshly minted principal in a Midwestern middle school with
1,000 students. When he assumed responsibility for the top leadership position,
he knew it wouldn't be a cakewalk. The school was in the throes of a budget
crisis. Enrollment was down, and the school population was shifting to a more
diverse mix of students. New union contract negotiations were looming, and
there were mounting concerns about school safety. The list goes on. The first
thing J.S. did was to do nothing—but think. Task one was to set priorities,
which he did by asking which issues were most serious, urgent, and growing.
Some of the issues he labeled "problems." Something had gone wrong,
no one knew why, and he had to find the root cause of trouble. Other issues
were "decisions": Tough choices had to be made between competing
alternatives. Still other issues he labeled "potential problems and
opportunities." These issues appeared dimly on the horizon and had to be
dealt with before trouble arrived or an opportunity evaporated. J.S.'s next
move was to involve all relevant parties. But rather than risk the usual
free-for-all, he decided to develop the problem-solving, decisionmaking, and
planning skills of those shouldering the responsibility for resolution. School
administrators and teachers attended a workshop to learn and practice a process
that would enable them to attack issues in the same, systematic way. J.S.
wanted everyone talking the same language and thinking through issues in a
similar manner.
To green tomorrow's principals, begin by giving them the
fundamentals.
He knew that one of four different kinds of thinking strategies needed to be
applied to each situation. A discrete analytical process—"situation
appraisal"—was required to set priorities. "Problem analysis"
was needed to find the cause or causes of trouble. "Decision
analysis" was the process needed to make choices. To protect a plan from
going awry, he knew a leader should use "potential problem analysis."
And finally, to take advantage of opportunities in a timely fashion,
"potential opportunity analysis" was the relevant thinking process.
J.S.'s approach proved successful. And his success is instructive. He realized,
first, that problem-solving and decisionmaking are too important to be left to
chance. These are thinking tasks that need to be honed in order to
handle issues effectively and master change. J.S.'s experience points to a
critically important but often overlooked tool in a principal's arsenal: the
use of a shared, systematic approach or process to cut through the tangle of
divergent elements, opinions, priorities, possibilities, and needs. A process
is a step-by-step approach to asking questions, processing information, making
judgments, and taking action. To green tomorrow's principals, begin by giving
them the fundamentals. Since everything they do requires some combination of
setting priorities, solving problems, making decisions, and planning, encourage
them to acquire the process skills needed to carry out these mental exercises.
When principals apply a systematic problem-solving and decision making process,
they maximize their ability to set priorities and address the problems,
decisions, and issues that confront them and their schools. By converting
problem-solving and decisionmaking from an act of intuition and gut feeling to
a conscious capability, a systematic process allows experienced and rookie
leaders alike to improve their own capabilities and sharpen the decisionmaking
skills of other key players. When everyone uses the same systematic process to
attack issues, involvement becomes meaningful and effective. While experience
remains important, a systematic process enables rookie principals to ask the
right questions and assess information, even in those situations where the past
is no longer instructive. A systematic problem-solving and decision making
process may not be a panacea, but it is fast becoming an ally in the effort to
green tomorrow's leaders. For both rookie principals and veterans, the surest
path to managing schools and implementing reform rests on their ability to zero
in on priorities, ask the right questions, examine all the options, assess
risk, and involve those around them in a focused search for solutions.
http://edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=15klempen.h21
******************************
Autism Awakening, Autism FIrst Steps Newsletter, or any staff do
not endorse any individuals, groups or programs. References regarding
programs, meetings, resources, research, opinions, treatment, etc., should not
be interpreted as an indication of endorsement. They are provided for
informational purposes only. This is an attempt to keep the nation advised to
all diagnostic, treatment, therapy, educational,
options available as well as legislative autism updates and more.
To View Newsletter Policies they are located at the Newsletter Website:
Direct Link:: Autism
First Steps Newsletter
http://autismawakeninginia.bizland.com/autismfirststepsnewsletter/
To have
friends, Family, or professionals join:
1. they can go to the above link
2. They can go to the Newsletter Group page located at:
Direct Link::
Yahoo!
Groups : AutismFirstStepsAutismNewsletter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AutismFirstStepsAutismNewsletter
3 Send a e-mail to AutismAwakening@aol.com and ask to be subscribed to
the free online daily newsletter
Visit one of the largest
websites Commited to bringing you the latest in news, options, and techniques,
and more on Autism located at:
Direct Link:: Autism Awakening 4 Kids
www.AutismAwakening.com
To Submit a
story, alert, readers post, or advertisement please e-mail AutismAwakening@aol.com
To be removed reply to this e-mail and requested to be removed from the list.
To
unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
AutismFirstStepsAutismNewsletter-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of
Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
Terms of Service.
ALL
INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR
GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE
KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED
AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO
VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU
ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.