IEP Michigan Pre-Labor Day Rally in Lansing

Today, disability advocates, parents of children with disabilities, students with disabilities and legislators are gathering on the steps and lawn of the Capitol to express concerns about the conditions under which special education programs are operating.  The organizer, Marcie Lipsitt, is a frequent letter-writer to the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, and an advocate in Southeastern Michigan.  Marcie invited LDA of Michigan to participate.

Source:  Michigan Alliance for Special Education

Often, disability organizations are founded to represent the needs of a particular segment of the disability community, or coalesce around a particular issue that affects a subset of the disability population.  Class size, service availability, teacher qualifications, and supports are issues where we seem to hold common ground.  The devil is mostly in the details.

LDA of Michigan's contribution to the Rally is this statement, to be read by Regina Carey, our current conference chair and president-elect (her term starts in 2014):

Statement of LDA of Michigan for the IEP Michigan Rally

August 29, 2012

The Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan is a 501 3c Non-Profit organization. Most of our work is done by a dedicated group of volunteers. LDA of Michigan is the statewide affiliate of the Learning Disabilities Associationof America.

The mission of LDA of Michigan is to enhance the quality of life for all individuals with learning disabilities and their families through advocacy, education, training and support of research.

If you think that it's harder to be identified with a Specific Learning Disability under IDEA in Michigan, you're right.  Today, one out of three children with IEPs have Specific Learning Disabilities in Michigan.  In 2001, there were over 95 thousand students identified with Specific Learning Disabilities. Ten years later, in 2011, there were only 73 thousand. Since 2001, there has been a decrease of 22 thousand in the number of students with Learning Disabilities. This isn’t because of an educational “miracle” or a massive drop in population-- it’s because the rules changed. The 2004 reauthorization of the IDEA expressly prohibited all states from requiring the “discrepancy model” to identify students with learning disabilities. So, in 2006, the Michigan Rules were made much more stringent. The official numbers are down but we know that a large number of children are simply falling through the cracks.

Source: Annual Special Education Child Count, 2010--MDE

Most students with learning disabilities are in general education classes of 30 or more students, being taught by one general education teacher. With 21^st Century technology, all children with learning disabilities should be able to use accessible instructional materials—with or without IEPs.  A reading barrier should not determine a child’s achievement in social studies, science, math, or the arts. But new innovations in technology will not solve the problem of large class sizes, or completely accommodate children with disabilities. Teachers in the general education classroom can’t do this alone—their districts need the resources to support smaller class sizes, co-teaching, team-teaching and paraprofessional assistants so that all children can be successful in the classroom. 

The "Michigan Merit Curriculum" requirements place a new burden on teens with disabilities. Although the legislature provides for a Personal Curriculum for students with disabilities, implementation has been challenging. Some districts delay Personal Curriculum accommodations until students have failed many courses, and are nearly 18 years old; some use the Personal Curriculum to reduce requirements to unacceptably low levels; and some refuse to implement a Personal Curriculum altogether. The Personal Curriculum is intended to provide some customization of the requirements for graduation. Withholding or delaying the implementation of a Personal Curriculum is yet another barrier to students with disabilities, many of whom have great potential for success.

We believe that children with learning disabilities are capable and competent. Success starts in the classroom, and continues in the workplace and the community. We cannot give up on our children. Education can make a difference. We want our children to achieve maximum independence—through self-determination, with high expectations, and by working on the skills that lead to self-sufficiency. 

What we know is that the number of people requesting help and direction has increased. What we do is provide a helping hand, a listening ear, and a starting point for families navigating the maze of special education. What we want is for individuals with learning disabilities to be recognized for their gifts, talents, and contributions.

Please join us for our conference on November 11^th and 12^th at the Kellogg Conference Center on the campus of Michigan State University.

Source:  LDA of Michigan, 2012

Finally, if you are able, please consider a membership or a donation of your time, talents or treasures to our organization.

We probably have many more concerns than will fit into a 5-10 minute sound-byte, but these concerns--SLD identification, conditions in the classroom, and preparation for life beyond high school--are the essentials.  Unless education addresses the needs of struggling learners, through individualization and personalization, our children will face less access to bright futures as adults.

Raising the Bar While Improving Opportunity?

I had the privilege of sharing the floor with Derrick Fries, Ph.D. a professor at EMU whose research follows students identified "at risk" of dropping out based on their MEAP math scores and Math course grades in 8th grade.  He cites an astonishingly high correlation between 8th grade MEAP math scores of 4 and below, final grades in math of D or below and an almost certainty that the same students will not be on target for completing a semester of Algebra 2 by their senior years of high school. Without personal curriculum plans, students who fail to complete .5 credit in Algebra 2 are ineligible for a high school diploma in the state of Michigan, under the requirements of the Michigan Merit Curriculum.

Fries' presentation, which is well worth seeing, includes some startling statistics.  During a school year, 20,000 students in Michigan high schools will drop out, or be pushed out.  To get a sense of scale, these same dropouts would almost fill the Palace of Auburn Hills. 

Fries also compares the annual costs of housing an inmate in prison, with the average annual per pupil costs for public education.  According the the 2011 Children's Defense Fund Report, these costs are $28,570 (prison) and $9575 (school), respectively.  Dropping out is associated with higher rates of incarceration, so these costs are important to keep in mind. It's not that we can claim that all dropouts end up in jail, but Dr. Fries' argument is still interesting--extending the time students stay in school, and increasing the graduation rate may reduce the numbers of future prison residents, and save the state a considerable amount of money. Even if it means an extra couple of years for some students, we should be making serious efforts to encourage students to stay. Yet, that can be a pretty hard sell for the students involved. 

There are a number of barriers to extending time for students to graduate--the biggest may be the belief that completing high school should take four years, no exceptions. We accommodate students with learning disabilities by giving extended time on tests; why shouldn't we give extended time for high school completion? High-schoolers taking more than four years to complete their diplomas may feel ashamed because of inflexible ideas about how long it should take. We need to work on de-stigmatizing extended time for achieving high school diplomas. Extended time in high school with appropriately adapted instruction in academic courses may also lead to fewer students needing remedial coursework at the college level.  Finally, many adults take more than four years to complete their undergraduate degrees (see here and here), for a variety of reasons.  Nobody thinks less of those whose journey through college took longer.

Economic pressures can also cause students to drop out. Until recently, children in foster care "aged out" on their 18th birthdays, often without finishing high school.  Lacking basic economic necessities makes it nearly impossible to envision post-secondary education for students in foster care. Recent changes in Michigan law may offer extended health, housing and caring support until the age of 21.

Even with these new diploma requirements, we're not yet at a place where we can brag about improved college graduation rates. Completion may be especially difficult for first-generation college students, many of whom may be poor. Pell grants help fund tuition and other college expenses for students with low incomes.  Many colleges, and not-for-profit organizations receive TRIO funding to help disadvantaged students prepare for and successfully make it through college.  Upward Bound, and GEAR UP funds help support middle and high schoolers on their journeys to college. For students with learning disabilities, IDEA transition planning services can also be of help.  Early preparation in organization and time management, strategic study skills, and self-determination can contribute to successful college completion.

It's also clear that "career and college ready" means different things to different people. Not all students "at risk" or with learning disabilities are interested in careers that require undergraduate college educations.  For those students, we need to do a much better job of integrating the Michigan Merit Curriculum (the curriculum that leads to an earned diploma), into career and technical education courses. Then we need to identify post-high school programs that enable these students to train for skilled trades.

Michigan Youth Leadership Forum

The Michigan Youth Leadership Forum is a unique leadership training program for high school juniors and seniors with disabilities. Young people with disabilities cultivate leadership, citizenship, and social skills. Students with leadership potential are selected through a competitive application process and attend at no cost to them or their families. Applications require some preparation, so applicants need to start right away to be able to meet the deadline of December 15, 2008. Contact Bill Milzarski at the Michigan Commission on Disability Concerns, Department of Labor and Economic Growth, at 517-335-6004 (voice or TTY) or 1-877-499-6232 (toll free)(voice or TTY); e-mail at MCDC@michigan.gov; or fax 517-335-7773.

See what they do at this site .