Sound Methods and Teacher Training Do Matter

IDEA 2004 mandates using research based teaching methods and that teachers should be highly qualified. To put it more simply it calls for good teaching in the hands of good teachers. Implicit in this equation is that the law also require good educational leadership.  I know well funded mandates are a critical component.  Nevertheless, District 60, an economically poor district,  in Pueblo Colorado has demonstrated over time that well trained teachers using research based materials (e.g. Lindamood Bell) at the direction of an innovative school administration can overcome shortages of cash.

This district applied several basic strategies:

• It used Title I funds to train 1200 teachers to use Lindamood Bell;
• It used and applied Lindamood Bell materials to correct deficiencies in learning and to move forward;
• The trainers and teachers indoctrinated an attitude of high expectations.

The superintendent for the district summarized the rationale for the success:

"It does not take more money to do what we are doing! We quit doing things that didn't work. We used resources that were already in the district. We used our Title I funds to focus on professional development for our teachers.”

The lesson here is that instead of waiting for that "magic time" when IDEA will be fully funded which unfortunately has not happened in 30 years, we need to get to work and stop applying old models that do not work. Attitude, training, sound practices and leadership are as important as anything in achieving student success. The reality is that it does not take more money to be proactive, to use visuals with students who need them, to use school-/district- wide means of positive behavioral reinforcement, to vigorously enforce rules against harassment and bullying, and to recognize when students are not learning the desired curriculum and to make appropriate changes based on research not habit.

These solutions do not require an Act of Congress, they are available now if schools chose to avail themselves.  When there is finally a fundamental sea change in politics in this country and education gets its proper due, the structures will be in place to make the most of it. 

Comments

[phuong]

Xin chao, Minh den tu HL, minh mong muon duoc lam quen voi tat ca cac ban. Thanks in advance

[Liz]

District 60 is doing well, but parents in Durango say their kids are being hung out to dry.

Durango Herald article from March 4 2006.

Dyslexia learning disability under bill
School districts' responsibilities would increase

By Joe Hanel

DENVER - School districts would have to treat dyslexia as a learning disability under legislation backed by Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez.

Larson won adoption of an amendment to the Exceptional Children's Educational Act in a House committee Thursday. The amendment includes dyslexia in its detailed definition of learning disabilities, which would increase the responsibilities school districts have for dyslexic students.

Durango parents have complained about tutoring for their dyslexic children.

Mark Larsen wrote in the Cortez Journal Online (in the summer of 2005)

One issue that I have been working on for over four years now is bringing Colorado into the future and realizing that dyslexia is a learning disability that needs to be treated differently than we currently are. Federal definitions include dyslexia as a learning disorder that requires specific scientifically proven teaching methods. Unfortunately Colorado has chosen to treat children with this disability as "slow learners"(when indeed the vast majority are bright and capable students) and classify them in the "perceptual communicative disorders" (PCD) group instead of specifically referencing dyslexia as a separate disability and requiring instruction known to effectively help these kids. I have performed every level of "due diligence" I know to perform over the past four years and have attempted to work through every level of the education bureaucracy. I am hopeful that the bill I am already drafting to require, once and for all, scientifically based and nationally recognized teaching methods for dyslexic children won't be necessary and that the Colorado State Board of Education finally adopts the appropriate rule making. But if they don't, I will have a bill ready to introduce. It is estimated that 15 to 20 percent of Colorado students suffer from dyslexia or other related reading and writing disorders.

It is no wonder that parents get so frustrated, when treatment of students varies so widely by district.