Michigan Merit Curriculum Update (with added editorial comments)

by N. Kathleen Kosobud, for LDA of Michigan

The purple prose you see here is an addition to this blog post, to show the convoluted process that learning can take.  Sometimes when you think you have learned something new you are merely questioning the rightness of something you previously believed.  I admit to being fallible, gullible, and vulnerable to having my beliefs shaken.  I didn't go in search of a rebuttal or, in an act of revenge, attempt to prove that I was right and "they" were wrong but somewhere, we seem to have meandered into the territory of what Stephen Colbert used to refer to as "truthiness".  "Truthiness" is having an outward appearance of being correct, with an underlying shaky foundation.  I believe that I was taken in by the "truthiness" of the following:

This month's meeting of the Michigan Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) included a presentation on the Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC). I learned some new things about how things really work in the world of education.

1. The Michigan Department of Education can only flesh out policy.  It cannot force districts to do anything that is not a matter of law. Because Personal Curriculum options are written into policy as an option (in other words, a school district may offer...) there is nothing to make a district offer a Personal Curriculum as an option.

Now, I believed that I had been corrected; I had been misinformed that districts must offer a Personal Curriculum, and this presentation corrected that bit of misinformation.  And so, to soften the blow to readers, I wrote the following to show that there were many ways to achieve the end of making the Michigan Merit Curriculum more "user-friendly" for students with learning disabilities:

2.  The Personal Curriculum option was envisioned as one of a number of ways to help students with IEPs achieve the needed credits for a diploma.  Other options include: academic content embedded in career and tech education classes, academic courses offered in alternative formats (online courses, self-paced courses offered with online and face-to-face components, courses featuring multiple representations of the content, etc.).

3.  The Personal Curriculum was seen as one component of a range of options.  For students with IEPs, it was seen as a way of documenting modifications to the requirements for attaining a diploma, in recognition of the impact of an individual student's disability on learning in a particular area of academic content.

...and in recognition that not everyone's Educational Development Plan (EDP) would list "theoretical physicist" as their career goal--requiring a high level of achievement in math, science and technology.  The EDP might list "house painter" as a career goal, which might not require as rigorous a curriculum in math or science, even though it might be a good idea to have some solid knowledge of business management, financial planning, cost bidding, materials estimation, and small business tax laws.

4.  Once a diploma is granted or a planned program is achieved, a student still is exited from high school.  Therefore, it may be to a student's advantage to take a longer time in high school to achieve the un-personalized curriculum, in order to take advantage of career-readiness opportunities.

... and here I was thinking of the "late bloomer" who might not have the foggiest idea of what she wanted to be in life, but by taking her time to complete all the requirements of the MMC, would have more options as she entered college.

So, if you ask for a Personal Curriculum for your child, and the school district says they don't offer a Personal Curriculum for students with IEPs, that may be true.  (At least in the opinion of some MDE consultants...but read on).  However, it might be worth your while to encourage the district to consider a Personal Curriculum for your child, if there is data on the impact of your child's disability on academic learning. This data could support needed modifications to an area of the curriculum in order for your child to succeed. ...especially, if your child's career goals may make other areas of learning more important than the standard MMC.

However, if your district says "No", you may also ask the district to explain what they are doing to support the graduation of all students.  If there are alternative courses to help students master content, these should be available to your child, as well.  School districts are still expected to show that they are improving graduation rates, and face a variety of consequences for failing to maintain or increase those rates.  In addition, the State uses the test scores that virtually all high school students in Michigan take to evaluate school effectiveness.  Schools with a record of low scores are likely to be changing what they teach and how they teach it to increase those test scores. Finally, if other district students have been offered the Personal Curriculum as an option, you may be able to appeal ...or legally question... the refusal of a district to consider a Personal Curriculum on the basis of equal opportunity.

This is not a static conversation.  As the state gains experience with a highly prescriptive, outcomes-based curriculum, there may be more and more unintended consequences to be seen.  And, there may be improvements in the preparation of all students to meet the challenges of a rigorous high school curriculum.

Again, this is not a static conversation.  I re-read the box on page 2 of the Parents Guide to the Personal Curriculum: Focus on Students with an IEP:  "Districts MUST offer the PC option and respond to all PC requests but are NOT required to approve all PC requests." I'm pretty sure that MUST still means "is required to".  So, I learned something from "learning something new"--and that is to make sure that you have your information straight when you make a presentation.  I'll be sending a note to all people listed below, to make sure that "MUST" means what I think it means...and not "may".  It's not that I have anything invested in proving someone wrong, but in making sure that I don't misinform families when I make statements about the Personal Curriculum as an option.

In the meantime, if you are interested in becoming better informed about the Michigan Merit Curriculum, the Personal Curriculum option for students with IEPs, and the implications of achieving or not achieving a diploma, here are some additional resources for you to use:

• Personal Curriculum Network (where personal curriculum liaisons share information). To gain access to the Personal Curriculum Network, use this link
• ACTpoint Michigan (a site most districts use to identify key curriculum objectives for a Personal Curriculum)

• General Personal Curriculum questions:

Gregg Dionne
Alternative Education Consultant,
MDE Curriculum and Instruction
Phone 517.241.6895

Mary Head
Department Analyst
MDE Curriculum and Instruction
Phone 517.241.6895

• Students with IEP Questions
  

  Sheryl Diamond
  Policy Consultant
  MDE Special Education
  Phone: 517.335.0442

• Algebra II Questions
  

Dan LaDue
Secondary Mathematics Consultant
MDE, Curriculum and Instruction
Phone: 517.241.6895

For further information, please refer to earlier posts on this same blog.  And I hope to keep learning something new that will help families to make good decisions in concert with their children's needs.

MORE ABOUT THE PERSONAL CURRICULUM

by K. Kosobud, for LDA of Michigan, 1/16/2011

Some of the curriculum requirements of the Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC) can be very challenging for students with disabilities. We knew that from the start. The MMC raises the threshold for achievement across the board; along with raising the anxiety of many parents whose children have struggled with various aspects of the curriculum all through school. The MMC, enacted in 2006, is the standard for the graduating class of 2o11. Districts have had several years to prepare for the first class to graduate under the new requirements, and to learn how to make adjustments for students who are struggling through credit recovery options like the Michigan Virtual High School, and through limited Personal Curriculum options. This video (approximately 1 hour long) captures a discussion of the Personal Curriculum, from a State Board of Education meeting held November 2008, two years after the MMC was approved.

IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004) makes it clear that students with disabilities should have access to the general curriculum as much as possible. There is no "special education" curriculum in Michigan, only the general education curriculum: the MMC. This is the curriculum that must be followed in order to receive a diploma.

For four years, I've been LDA of Michigan's representative to the Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC), an IDEA-mandated state advisory panel to the State Board of Education and the Michigan Department of Education. We were briefed about the Personal Curriculum, and made public comment on it (including some of the possible unforeseen consequences of not starting early to provide access to a rigorous curriculum; see pages 19 to 24 of the aforementioned link). Even so, for the general public, it seems that information is still hard to come by. The information that we find at the MDE website tells a very limited version of the ins and outs of planning for students with disabilities.

Line of telephone booths toppling like dominoes; Source: soundplusdesign.com

I'm not sure what bothers me the most: that a great deal of information about the Personal Curriculum is available on the web but not at the MDE website; or that there are so many professional players in the system who know limited amounts of information about the Personal Curriculum planning process for students with disabilities. The reality for parents (and occasional advocates, like me) trying to navigate this process is that it is a lot like playing the Telephone Game, only not nearly so fun.

Here, in a nutshell, are some of the things parents need to know and understand as they negotiate the Personal Curriculum:

• Special education is not a place; it is a plan for services and supports;
• There is no "special education" curriculum; instruction of students with disabilities is guided by the general curriculum (in Michigan, these are the Grade-level Content Expectations, and the High School Content Expectations--the GLCEs or "glicks", and the HSCEs or "huskies");
• In middle school, it is a general education requirement that all students complete an Educational Development Plan (EDP) in seventh grade, which school counselors use for high school course selection. The EDP comes partly from inventories of student career interests. The EDP is also useful and important for IEP transition planning.
• When students with disabilities transition from middle school to high school, it is the school counselor who develops the 4-year high school course plan, with advice from parents and special educators, and based on student career goals in the EDP;
• Because the MMC is a general education plan, modification of the requirements through the Personal Curriculum starts with the school counselor. For students with disabilities, any part of the MMC is open for modification based on a student's disability;
• The special education Individualized Education Program (IEP) describes a student's levels of attainment, needs for supports and services based on the student's disabilities, and sets goals and objectives for key areas of growth--academic, social, and/or psycho-motor. It does not develop a Personal Curriculum plan;
• Each local school board in the state sets the standard for students to receive a diploma, with, and without, a Personal Curriculum. The standard is under local control, not a state or federal standard. Many districts use the ActPoint decision-tree for developing a plan that meets the local district standard for course credit.
• Each intermediate school district (ISD) or regional educational service area (RESA) in Michigan has a staff member (search at this link) who is the "Personal Curriculum liaison". This person is usually a curriculum leader, and coordinates the flow of information from the legislature, the MDE, and other districts in the state on this topic linked with other liaisons through an invitation-only "ning"; there is open access to information at the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators (MAISA) website; and there is also open access at a wiki developed by the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education (MAASE).
• Once a Personal Curriculum meeting is held, the local superintendent or designee either approves or denies the request. If the plan is approved, then a diploma is granted as long as the student meets the requirements outlined in the Personal Curriculum;
• The EDP, IEP, and Personal Curriculum can all be modified, if there is justification: changes in career goals, identified needs for added support, or additional modifications to course requirements;

Extended time for course completion is one variable that seems to be up for grabs. Right now, budgetary constraints and Adequate Yearly Progress requirements under No Child Left Behind seem to be the factors limiting school districts' eagerness to support five-year plans for high school completion. Ironically, time is often the adjustment most needed for students with "high incidence" disabilities (specific learning disabilities, cognitive impairments, emotional impairments, other health impairments (AD/HD), and speech and language impairments).

Parents should be aware that even with special education supports and services, special education, as it is currently written, is expected to provide access to the general curriculum, as much as possible. This is not just rhetoric. In Michigan, it is becoming practice to include a high percentage of students with high incidence disabilities in the general education classroom, where the new, improved High School Curriculum is being taught. That's where the "highly qualified teachers" of academic content are teaching, and that's where students who are anticipating graduation with a diploma are expected to participate, with supports and services from special education.

LDA of Michigan receives calls from parents whose children are in high school, or about to enter high school from all over the state. It is my hope that this blog entry helps to "de-mystify" the process of developing a workable plan that allows students with disabilities to be successful in the core academics of the MMC and, if possible, to leave high school with a diploma. I have provided links to online resources that may be helpful for understanding the process of planning, requesting a Personal Curriculum, aligning their high school course plan with their EDPs and supported through their IEPs and Individualized Transition Plans, and ensuring that these students leave high school having completed the education that will allow them to take the next step toward further training, education, or entry into a meaningful area of work.

Group of graduates throwing caps in the air,

Picture source: adamblueproductions.com

Michigan Merit Curriculum and the Personalized Curriculum (PC)

adapted by K. Kosobud for LDA of Michigan, January 14, 2011

The Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC) includes these requirements:

• 4 English Credits
• 3 Science Credits
• .5 Civics Credit
• 1 P.E./Health Credit
• 2 World Languages Credits (Class of 2016)
• 4 Mathematics Credits
• 3 social Studies Credits
• .5 Economics Credits
• 1 Visual, Performing or Applied Arts Credit
• An online learning experience [1]

A Personalized Curriculum (PC) can be written for students with IEPs, when there is:

• A documented need to make modifications because the student’s disability affects access to and/or demonstration of proficiency in the curriculum.
• Lack of progress on the MMC despite documented interventions, supports, and accommodations.

In addition to identifying content or credit modifications, the PC should:

• Align with the Education Development Plan, postsecondary goals, and the IEP.
• Establish measurable goals.
• Provide a method to evaluate whether the student meets the goals.
• Include quarterly communication of progress with parent(s).

Picture of mortarboard cap, books and rolled diploma, Source: k12alerts.com

High School Completion Without a Diploma—Students who require significant modifications may not be eligible for a diploma or a PC. Students who need these modifications are still able to progress to good careers, college educations, and more. The significance of completing high school without earning a diploma depends on career choice, future employment requirements, and plans for education beyond high school. According to the Michigan Department of Education, a student who completes high school without earning a diploma can enter a trade or vocational school, attend most community colleges, enter certain branches of the armed forces, and apply for scholarships and financial aid. [2]

Advocacy suggestion: As parents, you may have additional concerns. You may want to be sure that your children will have access to a diploma, while still having a full high school experience: extra-curricular activities such as sports, a balanced schedule of challenging academics offset by electives in students’ areas of interest, and participation in traditional grade-level events along with their age-mates: dances, field trips, and other rituals including graduation. Although schools may not see these accommodations as their obligation, parents may ask for these arrangements, as part of an equitable and inclusive educational experience.

From: A Parents Guide to Personal Curriculum: Focus on Students with an IEP http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/PC_IEP_Parent_Guide_5-18-09_281053_7.pdf.

See also: Personal Curriculum: Parent and Educator Guide http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/PC_Guide_Final_5_12_09_277958_7.pdf

Michigan Department of Education resources on Personal Curriculum are at: http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-140-6530_30334_49879---,00.html

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[1] A Parents Guide to Personal Curriculum: Focus on Students with an IEP, May 2009

[2] Michigan Dept. of Education, Personal Curriculum Guidelines, August 2009