New Jersey's Insider Special Education Ombudsman

Yesterday, the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) announced the appointment of an acting Special Education Ombudsman. You can read the press release here. It's taken an impressive ten months to fill this position which was officially announced in August 2016 with an Amended Notice of Vacancy (I wrote about that here), having been signed into law by Governor Christie in January 2016. 

When the bill was first introduced in November 2015 by Senator Ruiz to the NJ Senate Education Committee, she did so knowing the Governor would not support a Public Advocate. In other words, there was no support for a truly independent advocate for students with disabilities in the state of New Jersey. Understanding that many families face significant obstacles to identification, evaluation, classification, and placement/services, the Special Education Ombudsman position was created. 

At the time, I plead with the Committee to not create this position if it would only be another roadblock or hurdle for parents and students to navigate. We don't need another office tasked with providing "information" about services. We need someone to enforce the law.

Once the Ombudsman bill was signed into law, I asked to have the position report to somewhere else other than NJDOE. The NJ Department of Justice was floated and ultimately rejected. The position would be in and report to NJDOE. 

Sen. Ruiz said she expected the person chosen to be objective. Great. Glad to hear it. However, anyone who has spent time as a special ed parent or advocate can attest to the difficulty of securing proper services in this state. It doesn't matter what the demographics of the district are, grossly negligent underfunding has impacted everyone. 

In the spirit of Senator Ruiz's intention, an independent and objective person, whom did Kimberley Harrington, Commissioner of Education for the State of New Jersey, choose? Dr. Dolores Walther, an investigator with NJDOE's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). While Dr. Walther may be the most competent person on the planet, she is certainly not an independent and objective agent. 

I'm sure to catch a lot of heat for that opinion, but when districts don't fulfill their responsibilities, and OSEP behaves as an agent for the districts, an ombudsman that is and has been a part of OSEP is not going to be helpful to the people who need a truly independent ombudsman. 

Parents and students deserved so much better than this. I certainly hope the next governor will consider a true Public Advocate. 

Parents and Teachers, It's Time to Organize

Last month, at the NJEA Convention, Mark Weber delivered the plenary speech. You can read the whole speech here. He called for teachers to organize. Keep in mind this was before Betsy DeVos' nomination for US Secretary of Education (SecEd) and before Jeff Sessions' nomination for US Attorney General (USAG). 

"It is not an exaggeration to say that right now, public education hangs in the balance. Teacher workplace rights are in serious jeopardy. The ability of NJEA to protect the future of New Jersey’s outstanding public education system – by any measure, one of the finest in the world, in spite of this state’s recent abdication of its role to fully fund its schools – is under dire threat.

There is only one course to take: we must organize. We must stand strong, we must stand together, and we must refuse to give into desperation. Our families, our colleagues, and our students have always counted on us when they needed us the most – we must not now, nor ever, stop fighting for them or yes, that’s right, for ourselves."

Yes. Please. Teachers, especially those of you teach in sparkly districts, who have the best resources (comparatively), please start speaking up. If you feel like you can't do it in the district in which you teach, then do it in the one in which you live. 

If you don't already, come to just one State Board of Education meeting on open public testimony days (like the one coming up on January 4th). Or come to just one Assembly or Senate Education Committee meeting when there is a bill that directly affects you or your students. Yes, your state union is there, already speaking up, but I promise, just like with parents, our legislators need to hear directly from you. They do not get that kind of firsthand information from anyone.

Participate when your union asks. Make those phone calls. Write those letters. Numbers do matter. 

To those of you who don't like your union leadership, I urge you to have conversations with them. Tell them what you need from them. Offer to help. Get involved. Hold them accountable. No, you really don't have to agree on everything. If you don't fight back, there won't be a teaching profession. This is not a time to leave it to others. Yes, I know, this paragraph is terribly simplified. This is work. 

I know. It's difficult. It's also necessary. 

Parents, it's not just teachers who need to organize. I know how difficult it is to find the time to participate. I know how difficult it is to put yourself out there and sometimes have to say things that others do not want to hear or acknowledge. I know how easy it is to complain and not actually do anything. I know how easy it is to keep your head down. 

Fight that urge to only complain. Fight that urge to say, "Well, it's not directly affecting my children." Fight that urge to leave it to others. Fight that urge to look away when those who are standing up make you uncomfortable or aren't doing what you only imagine you would do. 

I know. It's difficult. It's also necessary.

Where to start? 

Look in the right-hand column of this blog. There is a list of education bloggers; some are parents, some are teachers, some are education scholars. All are advocates, dedicated to public education for all children. 

Attend your local and state board of education meetings. Go visit your state and federal representatives. Remember, they work for YOU. It doesn't matter if you belong to a different political party. They weren't elected to serve only constituents from their party. It's not that difficult to get appointments. If you can't do that, write a letter. Make a phone call. All of them have staff who work on the issues that are important to you, including education policy. Ask them what they are doing to protect public education for all students. 

It's ok if doing these things makes you uncomfortable. There are many of us who do these things all the time. And, the longer we do it, the more connections we make, and the better we get at it. It's ok if your voice shakes. What's most important is that you find your voice and use it. 



Edited to add: Jessica Smock wrote a piece for Scary Mommy What Outraged Parents Can Do To Defend Public Education After the Confirmation of Betsy Devos, referencing this blog post. Many thanks to Jessica. 

The ESSA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee - update

This afternoon, the US Department of Education announced the participants (voting and non-voting) for the ESSA Title 1 negotiated rulemaking committee. I, and presumably everyone who had provided testimony to USDOE on January 11th, was invited to apply/be nominated. I wrote about the January 11th experience here and here. 

The parameters for the committee participants can be found on the Federal Register here. I found it odd that they asked for parents and students, but they also required you demonstrate your representation of others. Presumably, that meant USDOE would not be interested in a parent who was not connected to any large group in some way. 

Of course, I put my name in. I approached Save Our Schools New Jersey, for whom I am a volunteer organizer and Montclair Cares About Schools, an organization for whom I have a lot of respect. Both organizations came through with tremendous support. I also sought and received support from Dr. Chris Tienken, Assistant Professor of Education Administration at Seton Hall University and Dr. Mark Naison, Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University.

I was not selected for the "Parents and students, including historically underserved students" slots.  Nor for the "Civil rights community, including representatives of students with disabilities, English learners, and other historically underserved students" slots. 

Who was? Well, let's just simply say that The Gates Foundation certainly spends its money well. The two parent slots went to the Immediate Past President of PTA Ohio and to the Director of Education Policy at the South East Asian Resource Action Center (SEARAC) - she also used to work for the Campaign for High School Equity Coalition project, another Gates-funded initiative. 

It's disappointing to see that the parents selected are affiliated with groups that are deeply involved with The Gates Foundation to the tune of several million dollars. That money, according to The Gates Foundation website went specifically for Common Core State Standards (CCSS) implementation, education and training of their constituents on CCSS and the aligned testing, and for developing plans for increasing awareness of CCSS. 

In the second category, the two voting members are the Migration Policy Institute and National Disability Rights Network (NDRN). Thankfully, NDRN does not take funding from The Gates Foundation. However, one of the non-voting participants in that category does, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. They are actually the reason why I started this blog. You can read what I had to say about them here. As of the end of 2014, they had about $2.9 million in Gates grants (I wrote about that here). Unfortunately, NDRN is a member of The Leadership Conference, and they have signed press releases and letters to Congress in support of mandatory testing. 

Is it too much to ask? To have representation that actually reflects what is happening right now, on the ground, to our kids? Between SEARAC, PTA, and The Leadership Conference we are looking at a $10 million Gates investment for a seat at the table. They have the "historically underserved and disabled students" buttoned up. 

Parents, I hope you are all in for one heck of fight. 


ETA: ExxonMobil has a seat at this table too. Just a friendly reminder of what CEO Rex Tillerson thinks of your children. 

ETA2: Oh goodie, one of the teachers is a Teach Plus fellow and currently, an inclusion teacher. That's another $17 million in Gates grants. 

So, how do you all feel about $27 million or so of Bill's bucks at the table? Think our kids get a fair shake out of this? You know what I think. 

New Jersey's Former Standards Are Better Than Common Core State Standards

Drs. Chris Tienken and Eunyoung Kim from Seton Hall University and Dr. Dario Sforza, a high school principal in East Rutherford, NJ, recently published, “A Comparison of Higher-Order Thinking Between the Common Core State Standards and the 2009 New Jersey Content Standards in High School”. You can read their article in AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice here. There has been "no qualitative analytical research…done to test the assumption that the CCSS are superior to previous state standards in the development of higher order thinking and creativity at the high school level.” 

For those of you unfamiliar with the history of the development of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and why we and many other states bothered to adopt them has been written about by many people. Among the most in-depth research has been from Louisiana teacher and education researcher, Mercedes Schneider. Read here, here, here, here, and here.   

The basics of the Why are simple. Under NCLB, all students (yes, really, ALL) were required to be proficient in grade level reading and math by 2014. Of course, that’s not possible. It never should have been put into law. Congress should have fixed that long before the looming deadline for compliance. Epic failures all around. 

Essentially circumventing federal requirements, USDOE introduced waivers to NCLB. In exchange for adopting the Common Core State Standards, having testing aligned to those standards, and development of teacher evaluations based on those standardized test scores, states could avoid NCLB penalties. New Jersey signed on, sight unseen. Feeling sick yet?  

Let's be really clear about this. The development of the standards was NOT driven by educational need. It was driven by political need. 

If you take a look at the composition of the work groups who developed the standards, you’ll find only five K-12 teachers out of 101 participants. You will find NOT ONE early childhood development or special education specialist either. You will find lots of people who worked for testing and publishing companies. The final insult was when Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram, both, served on the Validation Committee and are content experts in ELA and math respectively, refused to sign off on the final product. Read about them and their objections here, and listen here.

NJDOE has invested a lot of time and money into pushing CCSS. They have made incredible claims about their value and how much it would propel the children of New Jersey to “college and career readiness,” a term that is still without definition. PARCC, the CCSS-aligned test, was allegedly so good, that when Dr. Tienken asked Bari Erlichson from NJDOE, "Is the test worth teaching to?" Ms. Erlichson replied, "Yes...How many days does it take to get ready for the PARCC exam? 180. That is the length of the school year." This exchange happened at an event in Ridgewood, NJ, in November 2014, hosted by The League of Women Voters. See the entire panel discussion here, their exchange begins at 1:18:34.  

That was incredibly high praise for the assumption of good curricula based on standards that still hadn't been vetted and for a test that NO ONE had seen. 

Last year, Governor Christie announced the creation of a task force to study the Common Core State Standards. They were given a very short period of time to take public input, review each standard, and return recommendations for change. The end result was, as expected, a sham. It’s not a reflection of the time parents and teachers on the task force spent reviewing and revising the standards. It certainly was not a reflection of the testimony provided to the task force, but rather the insufficient time frame for producing standards, a report, and the Commissioner's insistence that it would likely be a just a "tweak." The task force came back with a 15% change in the standards, which, magically, coincides with the requirements of PARCC…anything more than a 15% change in standards would require dropping PARCC assessments. 

I wrote about the composition of the task force here. I still have not gotten an answer to my question regarding PTO participation, in spite of help from State Board of Education President, Mark Biedron. So much for transparency from NJDOE.

So, how did Tienken, Kim, and Sforza evaluate and compare the standards? They used Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) and you can find an in-depth description of their methodology beginning on page 14, and a description of the four levels of DOK on page 10. Link to their article, again, is here.

DOK levels are described in the article as:

Level 1 Recall: requires “recall a simple definition, term, or fact, or replicate procedure, or algorithm. 

Level 2 Skill/Concepts: students develop some mental connections and make decisions about how to set up to approach a problem or activity to produce a response, apply a recalled skill, or engage in literal comprehension. 

Level 3 Strategic Thinking: engage in planning, reasoning, constructing arguments,making conjectures, and/or providing evidence when producing a response and require students to do some original concepts or draw conclusions. 

Level 4 Extended Thinking: engage in complex planning, reasoning, and conjecturing, and to develop lines of argumentation. Items at this level require students to make multiple connections between several different key and complex concepts, inferencing, or connecting the dots to create a big picture generalization. 

What did the study show? Hope the reformy cheerleaders are sitting down. Keep in mind, they only compared the high school level standards: CCSSe vs. NJCCCS. Are you ready? From page 18:

"Overall, the high school Common Core State Standards in ELA and M contained fewer standards rated at DOK Levels 3 and 4 than the 2009 New Jersey high school standards in ELA and math. That is, the standards that NJ had in place prior to adopting the Common Core provided more of the Level 3 and 4 higher order skills cited in mainstream business and education publication as necessary capabilities for competing in a global economy."

To summarize their findings, pages 18-23:

	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
CCSS ELA	37%	35%	26%	2%
NJCCCS ELA	22%	40%	33%	5%
CCSS Math	19%	71%	10%	Zero
NJCCCS Math	8%	54%	38%	10%

Hmmm...those numbers hardly suggest the far superior product we've been sold. Perhaps most damning in the article is this paragraph on page 26. 

"The results suggest that the previous versions of the NJ high school ELA and math standards included more complex, higher-order thinking and provided more opportunities to practice the types of thinking valued in the mainstream education reform literature as necessary to compete in the global economy. Although some have noted the CCSS as being more difficult than some previous states’ standards, difficulty is not a proxy for creativity and strategic thinking (e.g. Porter, McMaken, & Hwang, 2011). Convoluted prompts and questions and unclear portions of some standards do nothing to foster creative or strategic thinking (Wiggins, 2014)." 

Hard to say where I feel most disappointed. At the local level, I'm really tired of the Kool-Aid laden pep talks from supposed "experts" and "coaches". At the state level, NJDOE and State Board of Education, I'm tired of the gerbil wheel of spin that constantly comes out of their building. I'm tired of them having no accountability. I'm tired of parents and students having no voice. At the federal level, I'm tired of pretty much the same thing as the local and state levels. At state and federal levels I'm appalled at the amount of "philanthropic" money being tossed around and its influence on public policy, none of which addresses the most basic needs of many students.

In March 2014, Kevin Welner from the National Education Policy Center, had this to say about the adoption of CCSS in an article, The Lost Opportunity of the Common Core State Standards: 

"But the unfortunate reality is that whatever its potential benefits, the actual Common Core package will almost certainly exacerbate the policy failures of the past decade. Further, the linking of the Common Core to accountability regimes is a feature, not a bug. It is what was intended from the outset.

Importantly, the status quo approach involves a choice of one set of policies to the exclusion of another. When politicians opt for accountability and market-based privatization policies, they supersede policies that are grounded in best practices — evidence-based reforms that have succeeded in enhancing opportunities to learn.

In doing so, politicians seem willfully ignorant of the direct connection between opportunity and achievement. Our national opportunity gaps lead inexorably to our achievement gaps. Yet the test-based accountability policies still advocated by politicians disregard the opportunity side of the equation. Capacity building and supports are relegated to a small footnote within a long diatribe about mandated performance. The Marie Antoinettes of today proclaim, “Let them take tests,” callously brushing aside the needs of our children for intellectual nourishment."

The machine that churns out the This Is The Best Thing Ever! has to be stopped. Some really basic questions have to be answered. Maybe most important for parents is, at what point did you cede your voice and reason to the snake oil salesmen of college and career readiness? And then, what are you going to do about it? 

Those will be difficult questions for some. I can help with the second question. That one is easy. Opt Out of standardized testing. Stop feeding the machine. Force our legislators and departments of education, and our local districts, to truly create environments where our children can thrive. Please. Our children deserve so much better than this.

Our Dirty Little Secret

I want to share with all of you an example of what parents of children with disabilities go through in New Jersey. Sadly, this is not new, nor is it likely to change anytime in the near future. There needs to be a fundamental shift in how NJDOE/OSEP view these students, how individual districts view them, and how communities value them (or don’t).

This happened in my home K-8 district in Bergen County. This is a beautiful, close knit community. We take care of each other, we have very active civic organizations, and we even have two small, well-embraced, adult disability housing facilities. What we don’t have is that kind of support for the families who happen to have children with disabilities. It’s our dirty little secret.

Parents struggle to get evaluations. Scratch that, they struggle to get anyone to take their concerns seriously. Their teachers generally do, but are afraid to speak up. Parents struggle to get classifications and appropriate services. The district is adept at dragging the process out as long as possible (sometimes years), many times by simply not explaining the process to parents who have no idea how any of this works.

As you read this statement, made by a father, please remember that as parents, part of our job is to raise children who can make their way in the world as independently as possible and to become functioning members of society. I am absolutely sick of districts getting in the way.

It’s difficult to stand here and speak about the state of and the attitude towards Special Services in this district knowing it falls on deaf ears and has no apparent effect on the continuance of the treatment of the families in this town. The fact is that [Sparkly District] has an awful reputation with regard to their treatment and programming for special needs children and their families and it is evident that this works just fine for you all -- if it didn’t, things would be changing.

Maybe you are blinded by your personal feelings towards specific members of the community who fight for this population’s rights. Maybe you have grown too familiar with one another and cannot separate or comfortably voice your own personal opinions, experience, or agendas if they differ. You are professionals and our children are counting on you. To continuously ignore, deliberately avoid, and create a divide within the educational community you serve is a disgrace to your positions. You may start by seeking professional guidance and perhaps attempt to gain some understanding of the population causing you all so much aggravation. Maybe then you could begin to understand that this goes far beyond the here and now for our young children.

This is about our children who are suffering and in my case a child in crisis due to educational neglect and incompetence. Those words may seem harsh but in the two years we have been fighting for my daughter’s rights and needs, we’ve had horrifying experiences. We’ve had a district sub nurse assure me she is familiar with insulin shot protocol and then inform me she isn’t sure if she gave my child 4 or 8 units -- the 8 units would have killed my daughter. Following this incident I was then accused of abusing my daughter’s 504’s attendance policy because I rushed from work to pick her up. When we brought this up we were told, “It was a one off and to move forward” by an administrator who was unaware that this nurse had been hired for the remainder of the year. Remember that this is a child’s life we are talking about!

This year my daughter continued her struggle and began acting out and running away…again, we had been fighting to address her needs to avoid it affecting her schoolwork and functioning. Prevention costs far less.  An evaluation was finally agreed upon…a one-on-one aide was assigned to her due to her running away or “elopements”. In February, the school lost my daughter for a period of time that changed each time it was questioned. The story changed as well from initial contact to a scripted formal response that took nearly 24 hours to put together, and then further adjustments to the story were made in the letter that followed…Our lawyer doesn’t buy it, and neither would you if it were your child -- after all, how do you lose a child with a one-on-one aide that is placed with her because she runs away?  The only story that never changed was my daughter's and that of her classmates. Parents talk.

My daughter is just coming out of crisis mode and will thankfully be in an out of district placement. Two years of fighting for services and support -- being told I am “handicapping my daughter” by requesting such support.  I sat through meeting after meeting where her medical doctor and counselor’s insights and orders were completely ignored. This is unacceptable…either start to collaborate reasonably or own your ignorance, apathy, and discriminatory reputation. Enough is enough of excuses and well-crafted responses.

Neglect and incompetence…that is the new growing reputation of the [Sparkly] School District and not just among the Special Needs community. Our children impact their classmates-parents talk -- and the tide is turning from apathy to empathy and disbelief. That is a fact…a fact you continuously ignore despite what you have heard from so many and more to come. Just because you are [Sparkly District] does not make you exempt from the reality facing all districts today. The sign of a truly great district doesn’t come from carefully crafted test scores and superficial awards. It comes from fulfilling the legal obligation to provide an appropriate education to all children…you fail over and over again at this. You have the teachers who are more than capable -- you need the administration to lead them and the backbone and ethics as a professional Board of Education to do what is not only your legal obligation but what is right for all of our children.

I understand that it was difficult to educate my daughter with the special needs that she has.  However, you failed to identify and find the appropriate resources over the course of a two-year period subsequently resulting in the fact that you had crushed her spirits and represented school as a frightening and lonely place to be. What young child with disabilities could flourish in such an adverse environment? It is my hope that my daughter and other children with challenges and disabilities never experience such an unwelcoming and unsupportive environment again in their formative years!

With that being said and on behalf of our family’s devastating experience here, we are furnishing you with the required copy of the complaint we are filing with the New Jersey Department of Special Education Programs.