UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑x

IN RE: :

PRESIDENT\'S COMMISSION ON :

EXCELLENCE IN SPECIAL EDUCATION :

ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS TASK :

FORCE :

‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑x

Embassy Suites Hotel

Des Moines ‑ On the River

101 East Locust Street

Des Moines, Iowa

Wednesday, March 13, 2002

7:45 a.m.

The above‑entitled matter commenced at the

hour of 7:45 a.m. and was presided over by Steve

Bartlett, Chairman.

I N D E X O F S P E A K E R S

P A G E

Welcome and Introductions

Steve Bartlett 4

Governor Terry Branstad 6

Overview

Steve Bartlett 10

Introduction of Panel

Cherie Takemoto 16

Process versus Outcomes: Smarter Ways

of Accountability

Brian McNulty 18

Dr. Gerald Tindal 28

Introduction of Panel

Alan Coulter 69

Parents, Students and Families

as Accountability Measures

Beth Giovennetti 74

Polly Adam‑Fullbright 86

Dr. Martha Brooks 95

I N D E X (CONT\'D)

P A G E

Patricia Maichle 106

Dave Gordon 121

Capable Accountability Systems

Martin Cavanaugh 128

Sue Gamm 128

Introduction of Panel

Bryan Hassel 166

Dr. Lizanne DeStefano 174

Introduction of Panel

Governor Branstad 212

Accountability Systems for Assuring

Proper Use of Alternative Assessments

Paul Marchand 226

Dr. Martha Thurlow 233

Daniel Wiener 242

P R O C E E D I N G S

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: The President\'s

Commission for Special Education Task Force on

Accountability Systems, and if that\'s not the longest

title you\'ve ever heard, I don\'t know what is, will

come to order. It is 7:45 a.m. If you didn\'t know

it, I\'ll mention it several times during the day.

I\'m from Texas and that\'s why we\'re going to start

bright and early today. I had hoped for a 6:15 a.m.

time myself.

We\'re here today to take testimony and to

conduct a day long session on the Accountability

Systems issues with regard to the reauthorization of

IDEA. First, I would like to introduce the

Commissioners that are with us. These Commissioners

have been appointed by Governor Branstad. Each of us

were appointed by President Bush, the Commissioners

were then appointed by Governor Branstad to serve on

this Accountability Task Force.

From New Orleans is Alan Coulter at the

Louisiana State University Health Science Center. He

has a resume that\'s about three pages, which I shall

spare you. From California, the star of surfing on

the Pacific Ocean, the superintendent of Elk Grove

California School District, Dave Gordon. Bryan

Hassel is from Charlotte, North Carolina, and he\'s

president of Public Impact. Bob Pasternak, who is an

Adjunct Commissioner I suppose we would call him or

an ex‑officio Commissioner, but his day job is the

Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special

Education and Rehabilitative Services. Cherie

Takemoto of Arlington, Virginia is our ‑‑

I believe all of us are parents, but

Cherie is what\'s known as a super parent, meaning she

is representing the parents of America ‑‑ most of us

are parents and all of us are parents‑to‑be, no

doubt. And then Todd Jones, the Executive Director

of the Commission, also known at this point, halfway

through the Commission hearings, as the long

suffering Todd Jones with the Department of

Education.

As you can tell, both the Commission

members and the Task Force members come from all

walks of life and all parts of the country, but each

has an abiding interest in both education and, in

particular, the education of young persons with

disabilities.

With that, I\'d like to turn it over to

Governor Branstad for some opening comments.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much,

Steve Bartlett. Steve didn\'t introduce himself, but

he\'s a former Congressman and Mayor of Dallas. He

says he\'s getting over that, but he\'s doing a great

job and we\'re real proud to have him as Chair of this

Task Force on Accountability. I\'m very honored to

Chair the Presidential Commission on Excellence in

Special Education and to be able to have this Task

Force meeting here in Des Moines, Iowa.

I welcome all of the Commissioners and all

of the witnesses to Des Moines. I could tell you we

always have this kind of balmy weather in March, but

that would not be true. But we also would like you

to know that for your entertainment we have a lot

going on right now in Des Moines.

The girls\' state basketball tournament

just got over last weekend. Now we have the boys\'

state tournament in town at Veteran\'s Auditorium,

just a few blocks north of here. Also exciting, to

the east we have the State Capitol and the Iowa

Legislature is in ‑‑ week and they\'ve shifted into a

higher gear so that might also be an interesting

thing to visit.

I would like to acknowledge several guests

that are here. I saw Senator Pat DeLurrie who serves

in the State Senate in the back row and has a special

interest in this issue of special education. I had

the honor many years ago of chairing ‑‑ presiding

over the Senate as Lt. Governor and worked very

closely with Senator DeLurrie. Also Aaron McKay is

here representing Senator Chuck Grassley, our senior

senator from Iowa, and Clark Scanlon who\'s a district

director for Congressman Greg Gansky, the Congressman

from this district. Lana Michaelson from the

Department of Education. I know there\'s several

other people from the Department of Ed, Iowa

Department of Education that are here as well, as

well as the staff people we have from the U.S.

Department of Education.

We are really honored to have this hearing

in Des Moines, Iowa. For the Commissioners that have

not spent a lot of time in our state, I just want to

assure you that Iowans are not bashful about giving

input. One of the things that I found that makes

Iowa really special is the degree of public interest

and involvement on the part of the citizens. The

citizens in our communities ‑‑ and maybe we\'re a

little bit spoiled because of the Presidential

caucuses. We usually want to meet every candidate

for president before we decide who we\'re going to

support, and people like to ask tough questions on

policy issues. So Iowans have a degree of public

involvement in their communities, local governments

and schools that I think is really almost

unparalleled, and we\'re very proud of that fact. And

we think that\'s one of the reasons why government in

this state has to be responsive because the people

expect it and demand it.

We have a very busy and important day

ahead of us. As Steve has pointed out, President

Bush appointed this Commission and the President is

deeply committed to seeing that no child is left

behind and that especially includes children with

disabilities. So that\'s what we\'re focused on. How

can we improve upon what has been accomplished in the

past? How can we make special education better?

It\'s difficult to travel anywhere in our

country and not hear about school reform, higher

standards, rigorous assessments and new innovations

in the classroom. We have to make sure that special

education students benefit from these changes. How

do we educate these children, our children, and help

them to move forward so that they can become

productive citizens? That is one of the most

important and pressing issues facing us and facing

education.

I\'m sure that our hearing today will shed

some important light on this issue. As Secretary

Page says, how we educate our children says a lot

about our character and the character of our nation.

Again, I thank you all for coming to Des Moines, and

I\'m pleased to turn it back to the Chairman of the

Task Force, Steve Bartlett.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Governor.

We\'re delighted to be here. This is the Commission\'s

third public hearing, both the overall and through

task forces. We\'re in the process of gathering a

wealth of information from the wealth of those in

America that have both views and informed views and

information to share on the re‑authorization of IDEA.

The process will be, we have a series of

witnesses that we\'ve called, frankly, from all walks

of life. It is my hope that we will generate some

controversy today with the witnesses\' testimony, but

only the controversy of the positive kind, Governor,

as you\'re accustomed to in Iowa. It is only from

that sharing of ideas and different ideas and in

testing those ideas, we can come to some type of

conclusion to make positive changes in IDEA.

At 2:00 p.m. we will have a public

hearing. It\'s been posted on the web site. I think

people began signing up this morning. Each witness

from the public has three minutes to state your case.

It\'s done on a first come‑first serve basis as of

morning, with one caveat which was also posted ‑‑ I\'m

sorry ‑‑ two caveats. And that is if you\'re with a

group or an organization, have multiple speakers

within the same group or an organization, we would

ask that that organization only have one speaker

during the first hour and then other speakers from

the same organization will be put back at the back of

the line. That way all groups will have an

opportunity, a better opportunity to speak.

Governor Branstad and most of the members

of the Commission have also asked both my indulgence

and yours to stay over at the conclusion of the one

hour, which was posted, to hear additional comments

for those who didn\'t get to speak during the first

hour and we\'ll continue and we have a wait list sign

up sheet at the desk right now if you want to sign up

for that second hour on a wait list, and the rules

will be applied. It will be three minutes, and that

way we can have an additional hour, a second hour of

public speakers to try to accommodate as many as

possible.

The witnesses this morning will be asked ‑

‑ excuse me. Back on the public testimony. In

addition to that, you are invited to submit your

written comments, either directly turn them in today

to the desk out front or submit them on the web site

and your written comments will be made a part of the

record and will be circulated to the Commission

members, and we would appreciate that.

The witnesses today have provided written

testimony before they came, and I\'m asking each

witness to provide a ten minute summary of your

comments so we can get a full measure of questions

and answers. I will ask each witness, if you haven\'t

prepared for ten minutes or if you believe you need

additional time beyond the ten minutes, if you\'d tell

me that as you begin your testimony then we can

accommodate some additional time at the beginning.

I\'ll be much easier to deal with at the beginning of

your testimony on the time than at the end.

Our Executive Director will hold up time

cards of three minutes, two minutes and one minute.

At the conclusion of your testimony I will ring the

bell which will probably get your attention. To ring

the bell, by the way, means sum up fairly quickly.

It doesn\'t mean you have to stop in mid‑sentence or

mid‑syllable.

For questions, it\'s my intention to call

on the Commission in order, in sequence, so each

Commissioner will have an opportunity to ask a

question and have ‑‑ more than one question ‑‑ and

have them answered in five minutes. So your answer,

I\'d say to the witnesses, your answers are coming out

of the Commissioner\'s time. So we\'d ask you to make

your answers concise so they can try to get in a

second question if possible. So each Commissioner

gets five minutes each for questions and answers. If

we have time left over after the first round, we\'ll

go back and start a second round of questions and

answers.

We\'d ask you to be direct, state your case

directly as to what you would urge us to do; to be

concise; and in fact, as a reward for concise, I\'m

not using a gavel today. I\'m using this darn bell,

as you\'ll begin to refer to it during the course of

the day, and the bell is inscribed with the

Commission, Des Moines, and today\'s date. And at the

conclusion of all witnesses, these are for the

official panel witnesses, the Commission is going to

huddle and vote and we\'re going to award this bell,

called the concise bell, not to the best testimony

but to the witness that provided the most information

in the most concise abbreviated amount of time. So

if that doesn\'t motivate you, I can\'t help you.

The theme, both today and throughout the

hearings, is the theme that was stated best, most

concisely ‑‑ he should have won the bell ‑‑ President

George W. Bush, the theme of no child left behind.

President Bush articulated it. The American people

have affirmed it. Secretary Page charged this

Commission with that as our lead‑off witness, the

beginning of the Commission. We on the Commission

believe it and our report is designed to make it a

reality with regard to students with disabilities.

This is the No Child Left Behind

Commission and with us today is the Task Force on

Accountability. In fact, our mission on this task

force is how to design a federal law so that each

participant in the federal system ‑‑ in the total

system, the educational system, a system of education

for students for disabilities will be held

accountable for his or her set of responsibilities.

We could also paraphrase this Commission or call it

in the vernacular, the No Finger Pointing Task Force.

Every participant in the system, it\'s our job to

figure out a way so every participant accepts

accountability from the Commission, to Congress, to

the federal government, to states, to school

districts, to principals, to parents, to teachers, to

students. Each participant in the system, it\'s our

mission to figure out a way to bring additional

accountability and to achieve that accountability.

Our goal is to design a model or at least an

improvement of the current model.

So with that, I\'d like to call the first

witness and the first witness ‑‑ the first panels are

‑‑ each of our Commissioners will be introducing a

different panel, and during that introduction a

Commissioner will be called upon, if they choose to

make their own opening statement. The first panel is

Brian McNulty and Dr. Gerald Tindal. If you all

would come forward to be introduced by Cherie

Takemoto.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: First, I want to

thank the Governor for bringing me back home to Iowa.

I was a Vista volunteer in 1975‑76 in Williamsburg,

lived up the hill from the Middle America truck stop,

for those of you who know.

I think someone is trying to set me up,

because the last meeting I was at the mike was turned

off, too. Is this on? It\'s on? I\'m just quiet.

But anyway, thank you so much for coming,

and thank you for your commitment to excellence in

special education. When Steve said that it was okay

for one of us to introduce our next panel, I jumped

right up and said that\'s what I want to do.

Our two speakers today are Brian McNulty ‑

‑ I\'m going to introduce you first, Brian. I\'ve been

a long admirer, distant admirer of your work, Brian,

especially in your work in advocating for families,

both in early intervention and special education,

there in Colorado and making families a big part of

education.

Brian is currently the vice president of

Field Services for Mid‑Continent Research for

Education and Learning in Aurora, Colorado. This is

a private non‑profit organization whose purpose is to

improve education through applied research and

development. He has his Ph.D. in special education

administration, public administration from the

University of Denver. Thank you for coming.

Our other speaker is Gerald Tindal who is

head of the Department of Educational Leadership,

Technology and Administration in the College of

Education, University of Oregon. He\'s interested in

performance assessment and large scale testing

programs, program evaluation, problem solving and

using a consultative approach. My colleague, Alan

Coulter says that he is the be‑all and end‑all in

alternative assessment. I\'m so glad to have you here

today as a parent and also as the director of

Virginia\'s Parent Training Information Center.

We have some wonderful educators out there

and some great models. As I was talking to Gerald at

the beginning of this, there\'s quite a few educators,

however, who have been schooled in the school of non‑

accountability and making sure that that IEP is

something that people cannot be held accountable, so

I\'m interested in hearing how you want to connect the

two.

MR. MC NULTY: Good morning.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: The clock is

ticking.

MR. MC NULTY: Okay, ten minutes. I\'m

going to do my best. I may need just a little bit

more. Hopefully, you\'ve had a chance to read my

written testimony so I\'m not going to go through the

written testimony and I\'d just ask that that be

introduced into the record. What I would like to do

is to just go through some highlights, however, for

you.

The first thing I\'d like to say is that

since the amendments of \'97 I think we\'ve made

significant progress. But I do want to reiterate

that within special education, at least for the first

ten years of special education, I think we were

working to gain access just into schools, let alone

any meaningful education. The second 15 years I

think we spent gaining access to the general ed

curriculum and really only in the ‑‑ in the general

ed classroom and only within the last year or so or

two have we really been working towards accessing the

general education curriculum.

When we want to look at accountability

measures and how students are doing, the first thing

we\'ve got to look at is, do they have access to that

general ed curriculum that allows them to make

progress towards the standards. So that\'s the first

thing that I think is most important to look at, are

those access issues of how many kids really have

access to the general education curriculum.

I want to say that I spent the last two

days meeting with chief state school officers and

special education directors from a number of states

around our region, and they implored me to at least

say two or three things to you, so I\'m going to say

those.

One is that they very much agree that we

want to move towards a unitary system of education,

meaning one educational system for all students. In

order to do that, they made some recommendations.

One is that when we look at the consolidated

applications the districts are now submitting, that

we make sure we include special education as a part

of those consolidated applications. When we look at

school‑wide plans, special ed is a part of that, but

school‑wide plans only apply to a limited number of

Title 1 schools now and we really need to have

schools, when they look at their school improvement

plans, include all students in the school improvement

plans. So that\'s a piece that they are very

concerned about. If we want to have special ed be a

part of this, then we need to make sure we are

planning, at the whole school level, for all

students.

The second thing is that we are at a point

in time in history right now where we have the

opportunity to align both the new ESEA and IDEA. I

don\'t remember ever having this opportunity before.

But we\'ve just redone ESEA and we\'re now just

beginning to do IDEA, and if we could align those two

statutes such that there is good alignment around how

we look at asking schools to do their planning and

accountability processes, that would go a long way

towards bringing these systems together.

The third point that they wanted me to

mention was data and looking at data. States do not

have the capacity, nor do schools right now, to

really do good data analysis. They need a lot more

work if we\'re going to use our data more effectively.

They wanted me to caution you, however, to not look

at single data points or one single instrument as the

be‑all and end‑all, that we need to have multiple

measures of how kids are doing, particularly kids

with disabilities, because one of the things we said

when we started the standards movement was that we

would look at how well are kids doing, we\'d be able

to demonstrate that in multiple different ways. If

we move to just one measure of that, that cuts off

their opportunity to demonstrate that in many ways.

The last thing that they wanted me to

mention to you is if there were significant increases

in IDEA we do need to look at the maintenance of

effort and supplanting issues. And they were

suggesting that they would be very willing to hold

themselves and school districts responsibility to

looking at using those state and local revenues for

prevention or for intervention such that we could

serve kids prior to their entry into special

education, and that might be a nice trade‑off in

terms of how we look at preventative services for

kids.

Now, let me back up again. I will say

that I\'ve read both the new OSEP going to goal

document as well as the January 29th document on the

new monitoring system. I will say publicly I am a

big fan of targeted monitoring or focused monitoring.

I think it is the right direction to move, and I

think that the work that you\'re doing is moving very

much in the right direction. So I want to support

those efforts. I\'ve said for a long period of time,

we need to look at our data to tell us how well we\'re

doing.

I believe that effective monitoring can,

not only insure compliance but insure better outcomes

for students. So I want to support your continued

movement in that direction.

I\'ve given you sheet that looks like this,

that is Colorado\'s data. And I\'m only going to spend

about a minute or two, because that\'s all I have.

But let me just tell you, we have the first three or

four years of Colorado data, looking at the state

assessment.

Everyone agrees that Colorado has a very

rigorous state assessment program. If you look at

what\'s happened to kids with disabilities, however,

look at third grade reading. The percentage of kids

‑‑ these are done in percentages ‑‑ the percentage of

students proficient in reading, these are students

with disabilities, has gone from 18 to 29 percent

proficient in the last four years. That is an

incredible amount of gain. That\'s almost 100 percent

increase.

When we look at the fourth grade students,

have gone from 12 to 22 percent proficient. If you go

to the second page, which is looking at fourth grade

writing, we\'ve gone from three to seven percent. Not

quite as great. But if you then go to seventh grade

reading which is on the third page, from 11 to 19

percent. I\'m only mentioning those just to give you

an idea that we have students with disabilities

participating in the state assessment. They are

making significant progress. As a matter of fact,

the increases are greater than the increases in

general education.

So as we are saying to students, we want

you to meet the same standards, we are seeing

students step up to the bar and teachers step up to

the bar in terms of providing the kind of

accommodation students need to participate, to have

the skills that they need and to participate in the

state assessment. So this is just an example of

saying, when we look at accountability systems, the

state assessment systems can provide good data on how

well students with disabilities are doing.

I\'ll just take one other piece. The

alternative assessment, in Colorado, every student

who does not take the state assessment scores a zero.

So there\'s a high motivation for every student to

participate in the state assessment.

Having said that, the alternate

assessment, we do have some kids participating in the

alternate assessment, but it\'s very few kids. And I

want to caution the Committee that we don\'t want

states or local IEP committees pushing too many kids

into the alternate assessment. We want as many kids

as possible participating in the state assessments,

with accommodations that they require in order to

participate. We also need help from the national

testing companies in terms of looking how we broaden

those ‑‑ the accommodations and in terms of how we

look at scoring particular items that don\'t

invalidate the test. So that\'s just sort of a

national issue that I think we need to look at also.

Let me make just a couple of other

comments, and then I\'ll wrap it up. I want to

caution the Committee about the use of those state

assessments for high stakes. For kids with

disabilities the idea of using the state assessment

to look at promotion or graduation requirement I

think can lead us down some paths that we necessarily

don\'t want to go to. We want to use the state

assessment to hold ourselves accountable for student

progress.

Generally, as schools and as districts,

but to hold individual students accountable in terms

of promotion or graduation, based solely on the state

assessment, I think is the wrong way to go.

Let me talk just a minute about focused

monitoring. We heard in Denver that this is a good

way to go I think; however, we want to look at what

kinds of data do we have. Some of the data we don\'t

feel is completely reliable at this point in time and

the focused monitoring is only as good as the data we

collect.

I would suggest most states look at ‑‑

have what is called count audit procedure that they

do in addition to their monitoring, goes out looks at

records and looks at ‑‑ it really is an audit. It

would be a way to maybe expand that count audit

process, to look at the kinds of data that we\'re

collecting.

Sometimes national data is not the best

comparison also. LRE is a good example. The national

LRE data, as an average, is still not that great.

Some states, like Colorado and Vermont, have great

LRE data and that should at least be not the

standard, but at least set as the goal and I wouldn\'t

try and compare it to the national averages. I think

that some data also needs to be dis‑aggregated by

disability category.

And then finally, I would supplement the

focused monitoring with some random selection and in

terms of choosing states periodically over time, just

so every state knows that they\'re in that mix, and

some cyclical monitoring, meaning over a five year

period of time or so that we would have students ‑‑

that all states would be chosen at some period of

time.

The last thing I will say, and then I\'ll

wrap it up, is that I do believe that sanctions and

rewards that you\'ve outlined in the January 29th

document from OSEP is very good. I think we also

need, however, a number of waivers, pilots and

studies that could look at sort of innovative

accountability models that could look at things like

alternative assessments and could look at things like

national studies, like we did with the national

longitudinal study on special education. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Very good. Thank you,

Brian. Gerald Tindal.

DR. TINDAL: A request to the Chair. May

I have 13 minutes?

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Okay. Thank you.

Actually we\'re doing well. I think Brian did not use

the full ten minutes. He did very well. I think

Steve Bartlett put the fear of God in everybody.

I just want to say I think it\'s great that

we\'ve got these experts with moustaches here to

present to.

DR. TINDAL: The reason I brought this

presentation is I wanted to bring some video tapes of

some kids we\'re working with and I firmly believe

that we really need to listen to the kids as we

develop our alternate assessment system, develop

accommodations.

A curious moment for me is that we spent

hundreds of millions of dollars on the development

and validation of large scale tests and spent almost

the equivalent on the development and validation of

classroom ‑‑ particularly those that focus on

disabilities. So what I want to focus on the gist of

my presentation is linking these two instead of

having two separate systems.

A couple of comments about ‑‑ I believe

Brian started out right. This is a unique time to

flank IDEA with ESEA and these are not easy

constructs. Access, participation, accommodations,

progress and dis‑aggregated outcomes are very deep

constructs that we need to pay close attention to. I

approached this testimony from the position of a

researcher at the University of Oregon, work closely

with the Oregon Department of Education, we work very

closely with many school districts across the

country. These are very serious issues.

If you look at the standards for most

states, they\'re basically universal in gist and

meaning around academic skills. Few people have

argument about the outcomes that they\'re intended to

focus on. At the same time there\'s no assumption

about measure. The methodology of our testing is not

necessarily linked to our standards. For the most

part, all of the action is in the position of the

starting gate. So when kids come to school far

behind and yet the standard is relentless at a

certain grade level, we have problems with promotion

and eventually it could become a train wreck at the

end.

This is just a quick example of the

Florida Sunshine State\'s standards. If you go

through any state\'s standards they all look quite

reasonable, and they really aren\'t different from

each other. They talk about reading in terms of

interacting with text and extracting meaning and

understanding authors and literal and inferential

comprehension, mathematics. Written expressions

likewise have their areas of focus.

At the same time we have these policies on

outcomes and accountability. We have very different

state requirements. We have different decisions. We

use different tests. Sometimes we use certification,

sometimes promotion, graduation, evaluation, very

different decisions, sometimes no reference test,

sometimes home grown state test. We have benchmarks

at specific grade levels which also forces the

decision making to be very specific to the state. And

in the end we have a critical crossroad.

This is an example of what I see as one of

our problems. We have these academic standards and

we have these sort of alternate assessments. In this

case I\'m looking at Wyoming, and we have reading,

listening, ‑‑ concepts and geometry, and I just

pulled these from the web a couple days ago. But

reading goes from reading a simple sentence to

helping plan a trip. Helping plan a trip is a very

interesting construct. What does that mean as a

measure of reading? ‑‑ concepts could go from

following a pattern to sorting laundry. You get the

drift, which is we have two assessment systems that

are sort of not linked. And what my focus is on

linking the two together.

In particular ‑‑ I\'ll skip over this

quickly. But we really need to probably distinguish

between functional living skills and academic skills.

We can\'t torture the important functional living

skills into academic standards. I think there are

unique measurement issues onto themselves with living

skills.

We probably want to use direct measures

with them. I think we should map our achievement

measures onto the current achievement scales. And

then the last two apply to all of our measurement

systems. We really need to be sensitive to change and

we really need to measure progress and performance.

I\'ll skip over this to get a my main

point. But basically the functional living skills

should have their own criteria, the dimensions that

are critical for any kind of useful outcome.

In the academic skills, I think we should

be clear on the construct being measured. We need a

robust format, so access is not tied to a method.

Measurement has to be on scales, not in boxes. We

have to be sensitive in our measurement so we can

show the change over time. I\'ve mentioned

performance and progress, and I want there to be

outcome driven reforms.

Here\'s an example I think of any state.

In fact, this does come from Colorado. We have

percentages of unsatisfactory, partial proficient and

advanced and proficient plus. That\'s very important,

that we show these kind of terminal outcomes and we

can show the growth.

Let me get to my real point in this

testimony. I brought in some video clips of some

students that we\'re working with. We\'re trying to

validate classroom based measurement systems.

(Videos

being shown.)

DR. TINDAL: Here\'s a student who is

performing in the fourth grade. I\'ll go on. This

goes on for one minute. It\'s a one minute measure of

oral reading fluency. You can\'t give this student

extended time and expect him to participate in the

large scale assessment system with any meaningful

involvement. He\'s functioning at about the first

percentile rank on the classroom based measure.

So what we really need to do is develop a

measurement system that is sensitive to the student\'s

individual progress in the classroom. Here\'s another

student. Isaac goes on to describe the story and

does a reasonable job. It was a story that we read

to Isaac. This was playing, it was about Sue and

Pedro playing. And he was exactly right.

What we\'ve been doing is lot of work on

technical characteristics of classroom assessment

systems, and we can link them into the large scale

tests. This is an item characteristic curve that is

from Oregon\'s state test that we gave to some kids

and these are the item difficulties, and I won\'t get

into the technical aspects, but trust me to say that

these were selected particularly to distribute kids

on a performance scale in reading.

We are able to bring in our curriculum

based measures on the green, and they\'d map onto the

same scale and we were able to bring in on the blue.

The critical piece here is that the scale have

behavior at all parts of the scale and that we really

need to start spending time on developing technically

adequate measuring systems that map into the large

scale tests.

Here\'s an example in writing. I\'ll just

go to the example in math. Actually I\'m going to go

back. This is too precious. The teacher of the

student didn\'t even know that he could write that

well. This last one is of a student in mathematics.

He\'s counting. This is a number concept test. Kids

really want to perform well, and the large scale

tests often don\'t let them perform well.

And the same thing in terms of mapping.

The large scale test, these are item characteristic

curves for the Oregon state test, and then here\'s

what we\'ve done. Notice that when you go here, this

is very thin in terms of representations of any

behaviors that we\'re picking up on scaling

performance, and yet we can map in some of our

curriculum based measures as predictors of the large

scale tests.

So let me make a couple of concluding

comments, and I\'ll actually maybe even get done in

ten minutes.

We really need to be thinking about links

between the classroom assessments and the large scale

assessments. We need to put some effort into the

research and validation of technically adequate

measures. We probably need to be thinking about

cohort and cross‑section reports in our large scale

test, as well as our classroom assessments.

The cross‑sectional views are important

what a year in the life of a school is. But the

progress will only be attained through cohort groups,

where we can monitor kids\' progress over time. And

we definitely need to spend more money in training.

The new APA guidelines and NCME guidelines on testing

point out the fact that validation is a decision.

It\'s not a measure. And that\'s what we\'re validating

is the decision making. We have IEP teams that are

coming together, around data, around information. We

don\'t have any very good models for helping them

through all the data.

Let me conclude with has the recent

legislation benefitted kids with disabilities? I

think yes, probably yes. Do we need more research

and training so that we can continue gain ground?

We\'ve gained incredible ground. I know personally

from working with the State Department in Oregon, as

well as other states across the country, without the

IDEA legislation, we would not be where we are,

including kids with disabilities, and the accent, as

Brian pointed out.

And finally, how are the education reforms

and outcomes in accountability best studied? My

sense is we\'ve got to work within the disability

communities and we definitely have to work at the

state level. I\'ll conclude with that.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Okay. We\'ll begin

with the questions. As Steve Bartlett pointed out,

we\'re going to give each panelist five minutes. The

five minutes includes the answers. So Cherie

Takemoto, we\'ll start with you.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Jerry, you know

that I\'m interested in implementation. How is this

going to work at the classroom level? What you\'re

showing me is that there is still a need for lots of

research. So are you saying that we\'re not ready to

implement this soon?

DR. TINDAL: No, we\'re ready to implement

this tomorrow. We\'ve trained thousands of teachers

in Oregon. There are states throughout the country

that have well articulated curriculum based

measurement systems, classroom based assessment

systems. We have a number of researchers around the

country who have been studying this for 20 years.

What\'s interesting is that the general

education system is first now coming to the attention

of curriculum based and classroom based assessment

systems. So the problem is less in the special

education community than it is in the general

education community. But we can definitely implement

this.

We need more research and validation but,

frankly, much of this work has been going on for 20

years, and we can lean on some protocols and some

formats that are quite secure in their technical

adequacy.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: For both Brian and

Jerry, tell me more about ‑‑ the accountability

measures for people with low incidence disabilities.

And you say we just need to do this. But I didn\'t

hear how we make sure and when, Brian, you show me

your state guidelines, I don\'t see people with

blindness, with deafness, with autism in there. Can

you tell me how those folks are in there, and how we

are ‑‑ you mentioned a little bit about

accountability through audit or something.

MR. MC NULTY: If you look at the sheet

that I gave you, actually, and you look at the very

last column where it talks about no scores. Those are

percentages. What you see is the number of kids, and

therefore the percentage of kids who have not

participated in the state assessment, has been

decreasing percentage‑wise. So you look at third

grade, it\'s gone from 13 percent to nine percent. If

you look at fourth grade, it\'s gone from 12 percent

to five percent.

So the percentage and numbers of kids with

disabilities, with a wide variety of disabilities,

participating in state assessment has been

increasing. Now, there are some kids still for whom

the state assessment, even with accommodations, if

it\'s done in Braille or if the test is read to them

or however we\'ve made the accommodations, there are

some kids for whom this state assessment is still not

going to be appropriate.

We have developed an alternate assessment

which is still a performance based assessment for

students. I am of the belief that we still want to

have some performance based measures for all students

so that we can actually document some progress and

have a way of aggregating that information to look at

how well all students are doing, including all

students with disabilities.

So all of the students in Colorado are

going through some formal type of assessment process.

Alternate assessment is still in the early stages and

I don\'t want to overplay how well developed it is

yet. But we are working to make sure that we have an

assessment process that includes all students with

disabilities.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Jerry, just one

second. I need a follow up question on this. In

Virginia we have standards of learning and those

tests are given at the grade level of the student.

So if a student is in pre‑reading, they\'re taking the

eighth grade level assessment. Is that the way you

do this?

DR. TINDAL: Every student who is in their

grade level is participating in the grade level at

which they are at developmentally. So when you look

at these for third grade, fourth grade and really

seventh grade, the ones we have the longest running

data for, those are kids who chronologically should

be in those grade levels, and those percentages refer

to those kids.

Now again, some kids participate in the

alternate assessment. But again, even if you look at

seventh grade, originally 14 percent of the students

with disabilities were excluded from the grade level

assessment that was going on. Now it\'s down to ten

percent of the students who are excluded from the

grade level assessment, who for whatever reasons

teachers, parents, felt that it would be

inappropriate for the student to participate in that

grade level assessment. But that\'s down to only ten

percent of students with disabilities, meaning that

90 percent of the students with disabilities are

participating in that grade level state assessment.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: I\'m going to have

to get to you, Jerry, one more second because I have

a follow up question. My son is 13. He\'d rather

throw up ‑‑ and he does ‑‑ rather than take one of

those standard learning tests. It\'s difficult for me

to say, okay, we already know you\'re going to be sick

that day. He just doesn\'t want to take those tests.

He can\'t pass the test or he doesn\'t think he can

pass the test. His teachers seem to think so. But

it\'s not something that he looks forward to.

I need just one minute for an answer from

either of these gentlemen.

DR. TINDAL: Well, if he has ‑‑ if there\'s

a focus in his IEP on academic skills I think he

should be tested on some relevant measures that would

map onto the large scale test so that he could be

successful. Teachers would know to take him from

here to there.

For students with low incidence

disabilities that have functional living skills, I

would say we need to move toward functional

assessments that have three levels. One is setting,

is an important variable; community, home, school,

work. Routines are important, eating lunch, going to

the bathroom, shopping. And finally then there are

some access skills within that, communicating in one

way or the other, whether it\'s with language or

symbol system, using communication boards.

So at very outset I\'m saying we should

probably be clear that there are kids who we want to

focus on some behavioral living skills and to the

degree that that also includes academic skills, let\'s

contexturalize them and do that. We can do that.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Next, we\'ll go to Bob

Pasternak.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Thanks. Thank

you for your presentations. I think they continue

the tradition that we\'ve begun of having the best and

the brightest come talk to the Commission. I

appreciate it very much.

There are a variety of questions that I

could ask. I\'m really not sure which ones to start

with. So let me start with a couple.

First, I\'d like to take on, do we need a

national alternate assessment?

DR. TINDAL: Do we need?

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: A national

alternate assessment. Right now, as you know ‑‑ and

I\'m trying not to preface my questions with lots of

stuff that you already know. We have 50 states doing

50 different alternate assessments. So one question

that I have for you in terms of recommendations to

the Commission, do we need a national alternate

assessment and if so, what should that look like?

DR. TINDAL: I think there should be some

guiding principles that are in common that provide

the blueprint for state assessments. And whether

that comes down to the actual protocols being

codified in the form of a test, I would probably back

off from it. But I think there should be some very

specific pinpoints that we could put into the

legislation or any legislation that would help states

leverage appropriate assessments, whether they be of

the functional living skills or the academic skills.

MR. MC NULTY: The issue of national

assessments has been a rather hot topic, at least in

the general ed side of the equation. I don\'t know

how it would fare on the special ed side of the

equation. What I would say is I know states would

welcome help in terms of resources, because the

development of alternate assessments, particularly

performance based assessments is incredibly expensive

for states and therefore, very few states are using

performance based alternate assessments. So the cost

factor is limiting the number of states who are

moving in that direction.

Otherwise, what they\'re doing is

developing portfolios, which are fine, and I would

recommend that we have portfolios that show how kids

can demonstrate a wide range of skills. It\'s very

hard to aggregate that portfolio data into something

that\'s comparable from student to student and

district to district in the state. So I think states

do need help finding it\'s wise in terms of developing

the alternate assessments.

Again, were we to work with maybe a number

of people, to look at what should be included in the

alternative assessments, again some frame works as to

what would be included in those, and how we might

look at the development of the protocols would

certainly be helpful. I\'d be a little cautious

because I think any type of a national assessment

raises red flags for people.

DR. TINDAL: I can think of three guiding

principles that could be uniformly adopted by all

states. One would be that their alternate assessment

has to be linked to their state testing and/or their

standards. It\'s just a must, because right now we

have a number of alternate assessments that are just

out on their own and they\'re not necessarily linked.

The second would be that there would have

to be alternate forms, that we have to be pushing

progress. It\'s not just performance. So we need

alternate forms of an alternate assessment system so

we can measure ‑‑ kids change over time.

And the third, if I could read my writing.

I need glasses ‑‑ is we need clear test

specifications, like we do in the general ed world.

We have blueprints that articulate how these measures

are developed and sort of the technical

characteristics behind them. No less should be

requested of those in special education.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: I guess the next

question ‑‑ I know time is short so I\'ve got two more

that I\'d like to quickly ask. One is how you think we

can get the special ed community to talk about

adequate yearly progress, since it seems like we have

never really thought of kids with disabilities making

progress. And the second is your thoughts on moving

from the current language, which encourages or

mandates that students with disabilities participate

in state and district mandated tests, to

participation in the state accountability system,

which is I believe what you both have been talking

about so eloquently this morning.

MR. MC NULTY: Well, the state

accountability system, I think, you know, at least

I\'ll speak for Colorado because it\'s the state I\'m

most familiar with. The kids with disabilities are

included in the state accountability system, because

one of the measures of the accountability system is

the state assessment and showing progress in the

state assessment, in terms of moving kids to

proficient levels. So that piece I think in most

states in terms of what factors they include in the

accountability system, students with disabilities

should be a part of that.

Remind what your first question was again.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: It was about AYP,

but let me just ask you about ‑‑ and I know time is

an issue for us here. But if you moved in Colorado ‑‑

if I read this correctly ‑‑ from 13 percent of kids

having no score to nine percent of kids having no

score, is that nine percent of kids with no score the

percentage of kids that are now participating in the

alternate assessment?

MR. MC NULTY: My assumption would be that

the nine percent are the percentage of students who

are participating in the alternate assessment. This

is just the state ‑‑ the state grade level assessment

in reading, in the content areas.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Maybe we\'ll have

a chance to get back to the AYP. I know time is an

issue. Thank you, Governor.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Brian, in your

presentation ‑‑ Dr. McNulty, in your presentation you

indicated that there\'s a real opportunity to align

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act which was

just really recently signed by the President and the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA,

which we are hoping to have some influence on, and I

would like your specific ideas about how we might be

able to encourage and assist with that alignment, how

this Commission\'s recommendations might be able to

assist with the alignment.

I have some ideas based on what we heard

down in Houston, but I\'d like to get your input and

also Dr. Tindal\'s input as well.

MR. MC NULTY: Well, right off the top of

my head I\'d mention at least two or three things.

One is the assessment processes and how we look at

student progress for students without disabilities

and students with disabilities.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Aligning those?

MR. MC NULTY: Yes, aligning those. And

looking at how we collect data, how we report data,

how we dis‑aggregate data, how we use data to look at

student progress. So the whole idea of using data to

drive the decision making in the classroom and

looking at how then we provide accommodations in the

classroom.

I know that they talked a little bit in

Denver about differentiated instruction but as we

look at the general ed population becoming more

diverse, the needs of skills for teachers in the

classroom to address diverse learning needs is

increasing, regardless of special education.

However, the need for teachers then to have a range

of instructional strategies to address the broader

learning needs of kids is paramount right now if kids

are to make progress.

So when we look at ‑‑ using assessment

data, number one, when we look at professional

development then that we provide to teachers, around

what skills they need, we know they need deeper

content knowledge. We know that they need skills in

terms of differentiated instruction. We know they

need skills in the use of data. So professional

development as to how that\'s provided at the district

level, and particularly at the building level to

address the unique learning needs of kids in the

population.

The third piece that I would look at is in

sort of the integration of resources and program

planning that goes on in the buildings. When we have

buildings planning for different groups of kids and

not looking at overall the performance of all kids,

then we continue to compartmentalize. The

responsibility for those kids rests with somebody

else and that has been true for the longest period of

time I believe, for Title 1, for English language

learners, for special education.

So as soon as we can put a label on a kid,

then we hold somebody else responsible for their

progress. When we\'ve looked at the data from the

high performing, high need schools, in other words

the highly impacted schools where kids are doing very

well, teachers tell us, you know, a number of things.

One is that they\'ve learned more about

their content and the second thing is that they\'ve

learned how to use that content to address the

different learning needs of all kids. So I think the

assessment process, the curriculum and the

instruction process and the planning process all need

closer alignment if we\'re going to end up where,

again, those higher performing, high need schools\'

teachers tell us that they feel that they are

responsible for all of the students in the whole

school. So we get shared responsibility for the

success of all of the kids.

When teachers make that shift, then all of

a sudden they\'re collaborating in very different ways

to look at how do we make the content accessible to

all of the kids in their classroom.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Does this even go to

teacher preparation? Instead of having the dichotomy

between special ed and general ed.

MR. MC NULTY: It very much does. The

dilemma we face, because we looked at this when we

redid certification. How do we give people both the

deep content knowledge they need and then the ability

to take that content knowledge and individualize it

to a range of learning needs, and that type of

preparation takes longer, frankly. So we fight this

dilemma of trying to shorten teacher preparation

programs and at the same time trying to deepen and

broaden their knowledge. Somewhere we need to look at

how can we provide the intensity of training that

they need around things like reading and mathematics

that they don\'t get, and the instructional strategies

that they need.

We\'ve done a publication at McREL on

effective instructional strategies. I haven\'t seen

that in the field of special education that says how

do you make those kinds of accommodations for kids

with unique learning needs. So part of it is

research, but it definitely goes to personnel

preparation.

DR. TINDAL: Could I request 30 seconds to

make a response?

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Sure, go ahead.

DR. TINDAL: A real key piece behind ESEA,

and we haven\'t really talked about the reading first

initiative, also part of Bush\'s agenda. It\'s a

fantastically important, critical element of all of

our thinking, because if we wait until grade three to

catch kids who are performing poorly, as I said

before, position at the starting gate is everything.

And then what I think is important is exactly what

Brian said, it\'s progress, annual testing in grades

three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And then the

last piece is just the whole notion of

accommodations. IDEA brought that construct into our

classrooms, and that\'s such a critical construct that

we always pay attention to it.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you, and we\'ll

recognize Bryan Hassel. Todd is going to ask a

question. Okay. Todd Jones.

COMMISSIONER JONES: One question for each

of you. Brian, in your case, I noticed the Colorado

data has a reduction in the number of no score. What

strategies did Colorado use to bring that number

down?

MR. MC NULTY: Some may consider it to be

a very heavy‑handed method which was, what I

mentioned before, is any students who do not take the

state assessment score a zero. So when you look at

your numerator and your denominator, if you\'ve got

more kids in the denominator, you\'re overall scores

go down. So one of the things that we\'ve tried to

push is to say we want as many students as is humanly

possible to participate in the state assessment, the

regular state assessment. And so schools have made

the decision that it\'s better to have kids

participate, and even if we have kids scoring

unsatisfactory, it\'s better to have them participate

in the assessment, and then start linking that back.

15

I have to believe then the teachers and

administrators are starting to say, we need to tie

this much closer to the general ed curriculum and the

standards than we have done before. And that

thinking did not fare as often as it needed to be

prior to the amendments in \'97 when we started

talking about accessing the general ed curriculum.

DR. TINDAL: Could I bring an alternate

view? In Oregon we have the ASK settlement,

Advocates for Special Kids, two years ago resulted in

a settlement where the state now is assuming that all

accommodations are valid unless and until proven

otherwise. What it\'s resulted in is a wonderful

cascade of opportunities for kids. First, they\'ll

take the standard assessment. If that doesn\'t seem

possible, they\'ll take the standard assessment with

accommodations. If that doesn\'t seem possible,

they\'ll take the standard assessment with

modifications, which now dis‑aggregates the score.

If that doesn\'t seem possible, they\'ll participate in

an alternate assessment, the kind I showed you, where

we\'ll map onto. And by the time they get to the top

of our scales we know where they fit on the other

scale so we can sort of become predictive in our

trajectory. And then finally, if that doesn\'t work,

they will participate in a juried assessment. So

there are no kids who are not assessed in Oregon.

MR. MC NULTY: One other point that was

interesting is we started saying that you could use

accommodations in the state assessment, if those

accommodations had been used in the general education

classroom for at least three months. The reason we

did that was to try and start getting accommodations

to be a part of the daily routine within the general

education classroom also. And we think that that\'s

had a significant effect on the use of accommodations

in the classroom. So again, we want to link that

assessment piece with the classroom piece as often as

possible.

COMMISSIONER JONES: Dr. Tindal, let me

ask one more question. In the video clips you\'ve

shown we have children being assessed, and you had

mentioned that you think this is a newer concept for

general teachers rather than special ed in doing this

kind of systematic assessment.

My question is, to what effect do you

think that is given by most teachers in the special

ed arena in altering the course of their instruction

to fit the needs of the child, that are demonstrated

as part of the assessment? Do you think it actually

has an impact?

DR. TINDAL: It\'s a good question. I have

two answers: yes and no. On the one hand, it\'s

really hard to look at a performance outcome over

time with bi‑monthly measures and not see progress

and stare at that month after month and not make a

change. So a lot of our work is simply to get the

data into the teachers\' hands and then adjust

programs accordingly.

On the other hand, using data is the most

critical and complex activity I know of, and it deals

with individuals as well as IAP teens. If you figure

that teacher preparation programs require one methods

class on assessment at best, along with a lot of

methods classes and foundations classes, but the only

teachers that leave our preparation programs very

tenuously skilled on how to collect and use classroom

information, and how just coming to the fore with the

large scale assessment.

So I think part of the problem is we need

the pre‑service and we need the in‑service to really

map the training. We\'ve trained thousands of

teachers over the past three years in Oregon. We need

to keep doing that. It\'s a good question.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Okay. We\'ll go to

Bryan.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: Dr. Tindal, the

assessments that you showed on the videos, it seems

like they could be very useful in the way that you

just described in terms of the teachers using them to

change instruction. Can they also be used, do you

think, in accountability systems in the sense of the

district being able to rate a school\'s success or

state rating a district\'s success or the federal

government rating a state\'s success?

DR. TINDAL: Yes, I think they could be

used in an accountability system. I think with clear

test specifications, some guidelines around how these

tests get developed, with standardized administration

procedures, standardized meaning a little less, not

meaning that we can\'t do all sorts of different kinds

of responses for kids with different input‑output

modes of communication. But yes, we can aggregate

the data. We have done that in Oregon. We assessed

about 2,500 students in reading, 2,000 in math and

around 2,000 in writing. I\'m the contractor for the

state of Oregon for the alternate assessment system.

We call it the extended assessment because it isn\'t

an alternate. It just extends downward and maps into

the state test. So yes, we\'ve used it at an

aggregate level that we can give reports to districts

about groups of kids, but very importantly for me,

within the special education community is that we

have to be accountable to the individual student\'s

progress over time. So I really want both, but I

think the easier piece is actually the aggregation.

The more difficult piece is at the individual level,

progress over time.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: Getting the

assessment right is one challenge. It seems like

another challenge, though, related to what you just

mentioned, is determining the appropriate level of

progress to be expected; what is the expectation for

a particular student; what is the expectation for a

school in terms of progress on these sort of

measures; what is the expectation for a district or a

state. I wondered what thoughts you have about how

feasible it is to set reasonable expectations for

yearly progress or progress over several years with

these kinds of assessments.

DR. TINDAL: For the past 25 years I\'ve

been working with this kind of measurement system,

actually at the large scale at the district level and

then it\'s simply moved larger and larger. We have

norms that we can develop around what general ed

performance is on many of these tasks. In some

places in the country ‑‑ in Iowa here, there\'s a

stronghold for curriculum based measurement. They\'ve

done more here in Iowa than probably anywhere in the

country. Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa might be the

triangle of strength in this kind of technology of

assessment.

So I think we can gain some foothold on

what general education kids are doing. We can dis‑

aggregate by economic disadvantage, by ethnicity, by

English language learners, by disability. I think we

can play the large scale game in a way that helps us

inform what progress might be. At the same time, I

would argue that the goal is to change the trajectory

of a student\'s progress, irrespective of norms. Any

change is important. By having a time series

approach we can begin to use data in a more informing

way, and simply more is better.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: I\'ll shift gears a

little bit and ask you about ‑‑ suppose we had an

assessment system across the board that we felt

confident about, and we had ideas about expectations

that we could agree on. What suggestions do you have

about actions that a state could take, say for

example, in the case of a local district that is not

meeting the expectations that had been set for it?

MR. MC NULTY: I know Colorado is very

much like OSEP, looking and using a focused or

targeted monitoring system and they\'re using the data

to guide sort of that decision making and beginning

to look at both the state assessment as well as the

alternate assessment, as well as other assessments

that are in place, to look at overall student

progress in districts, as compared to the state

averages or as compared to how some other districts

are doing. So that data is already being used then

to say, okay, we need to go in then and begin work

with this district because as we look at students

with disabilities in your district and students who

are not making the kind of progress that we would

hope, that we\'re going to intervene in that district

the same as we would on the general ed side of saying

we\'re concerned about the progress of these students.

I would hope always that the first step is

going to be let\'s look at the data, let\'s look at

what you\'ve been collecting. The second step then is

let\'s look at how you can rectify that, because I

don\'t usually feel that people are ill‑intentioned.

I feel that usually people don\'t have the skill sets

that they need to do ‑‑ to achieve the outcomes that

they want. So professional development to those

districts becomes very, very important in terms of

giving teachers and administrators the skills they

need to make the kind of progress we want.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: David Gordon.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: I want to press you

a little bit more on the notion of linking the ESEA

and IDEA. What kinds of specific suggestions ‑‑ the

ESEA is in the rule making process now and IDEA will

unfold over the next several months. What kinds of

things do you think could be done to better link,

particularly the monitoring elements of those two?

Because I see in my own state, they are very, very

separate, not in a consolidated application in any

meaningful way and certainly not in the monitoring.

MR. MC NULTY: Part of it is we don\'t the

rules so it\'s going to be hard to say. It depends a

lot on what comes out in the rules as to how we could

make the linkages that we want. But what we do know

is that when we look at ‑‑ that the kids who we

identify ‑‑ let\'s just use Title 1 to begin with ‑‑

that the students we identify in Title 1 are low

performing schools, low performing students, and

particularly in reading and math.

I\'ve always said that it seems to, at

least some degree, that special education gets the

casualties of Title 1, who gets the casualties of

general education, that we haven\'t done a very good

job at our prevention side. So how we were to use the

resources, I think under the early reading program,

under Title 1, to look at prevention first. I am a

big believer, I come from early childhood initially

and I know that when we intervene with kids earlier

we make a significant difference in terms of the

performance of kids.

So pre‑school, kindergarten, how we use

those resources of Title 1 and special education, I

think become critically important. Most states now

have some early at‑risk intervention programs also

that they use Title 1 monies for. If we could look

at beefing up our intervention at pre‑school and K‑3,

my belief is that we could reduce the numbers of kids

who end up in special education, because I do believe

that a number of kids are general ed failures of kids

just not being successful in the terms of the way the

kids were provided the instruction. So how we use

the resources again I think is that first point of

some flexibility, particularly around prevention

early on, I think would be an important point.

The early identification process of how we

identify these kids is critically important because

somehow these kids seem to float along and then in

third grade our numbers of kids going into Title 1

and special ed skyrockets. So early intervention

becomes a piece in time. And then I think better

intervention from three on in terms of the kinds of

support services that we provide to kids in the

general ed classroom or supporting the general ed

classroom become important. But right now, we fund

them differently, the staff are different, the

planning process is different, the accountability

system is different and the monitoring system is

different. So any ways to link those pieces that

says again we have some shared responsibility for all

of these kids, and we have some shared accountability

for the success of all these kids. So as the rules

start to play out and say how is it that schools are

going to apply for these funds, how is it that the

funds can be used, what\'s the planning process that

you use to identify the needs of kids and what\'s the

evaluation process that you\'re going to use to

document your progress. I think special ed and Title

1 and general ed should all be linked.

It\'s hard to get more definitive than

that. How we use the staff has always been a problem

also. We have special ed kids who can\'t access Title

1\. Title 1 kids always could access special ed, but

not vice versa.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Just as a follow up,

is it far fetched to think that you could have a

joint monitoring system since it is the same federal

government handing out the money and running the

programs?

DR. TINDAL: At some level, with the state

report cards and many states moving that way, it\'s

very critical that the public be uniformly reported

to and that we don\'t have different systems, because

it\'s very confusing. We\'re already having a

confusing time. At some point we do have to

consolidate. Let me make one comment about hopefully

the leverage that the ESEA legislation will bring

about.

The notion of testing in grades three

through eight, and the focus on progress and the dis‑

aggregation of outcomes are all interesting,

important features of any reporting system. I would

hope, though, lurking in the background is the

public\'s attention to cohort groups, that when I

looked at the test data in Oregon, watching a group

go from one benchmark to the next and how predictive

is one benchmark to the next, that is really

critical. So we could begin to get ahead of the

curve before the final bell ‑‑ no pun intended.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, gentlemen.

I do apologize. I had a timed conference call, that

this was the only time we could do it. But I\'ve

reviewed your testimony and it sounded like you had

some pretty spirited discussion.

We thank you for your testimony. Dr.

Coulter, we\'re going to let you get your questions in

on the second ‑‑ with the next panel. Sorry.

Gentlemen, thank you very much.

We\'ll now move to the Parents, Students

and Families as Accountability panel. If the

witnesses would please come forward. The famous Dr.

Alan Coulter will be introducing you.

I remind the Commissioners to speak

directly into your microphone. These are directional

mikes so if you don\'t speak directly into it, it

won\'t pick up. It looks like that\'s a non‑

directional mike over there. But speak directly into

your microphone so we can have a full transcription.

This hearing is being transcribed and will be posted

on the web once the transcriptions are available.

I remind the witnesses that you may use

the podium or stay at your chairs for your testimony.

We only have one mike so we\'ll have to pass it

around. That\'s to insure you don\'t all speak at

once.

Do any of you require more than the ten

minutes for an opening statement? If not, Dr.

Coulter, if you\'d introduce your panel.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Thank you,

Commissioner Bartlett. This panel is entitled

Parents, Students and Families as Accountability

Measures. Within the scope of the President\'s

Commission on Excellence in Special Education,

certainly accountability systems, as is the title of

today\'s presentation, is absolutely essential to

guaranteeing those promises that are made within the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Within that assurance system, certainly

parents and students and families are important

indicators and important sources of information

regarding whether or not things are working for their

particular children.

We have four panelists today. First on my

list is Beth Giovennetti who is the ‑‑ and I hope I

said that right, Beth ‑‑ is the managing director of

Special Education Services at the New American

Schools in Washington, D.C. and she has earned a

master\'s of social work from Loyola University of

Chicago. And I have to tell you, I\'m married to a

social worker and I know darn good and well that they

have high credibility. I get that message on a daily

basis. So it\'s nice to have you, Ms. Giovennetti.

Secondly, we have ‑‑ and I think for

people in the audience this is the lady in blue ‑‑ we

have Martha Brooks who is the director of Exceptional

Children, an early childhood group in the Delaware

Department of Education. I know her as the state

director of special ed for Delaware. So we have

state specific titles and more generic titles.

She received her doctorate from Temple

University in Philadelphia, with a major in special

education and human services administration.

The audience and Commissioners should also

know that she is a past member of the Executive

Committee of the National Association of State

Directors in Special Education, and that while she

comes from a petite but proud state, her intellect

and her experience and the manner in which she speaks

to her peers gives her a national perspective and

great deal of influence as it relates to special

education across the United States. I\'m sure that

she will speak today, not just from her Delaware

perspective, but also from that national perspective,

because she has been very influential in the National

Association of State Directors in Special Education.

With her today is ‑‑ and I\'m going to

really mangle this name I suspect ‑‑ Patricia ‑‑ help

me, Patricia. Maichle. I\'m really glad I asked you

for advice. Patricia Maichle is a parent from the

state of Delaware. She\'s a lifelong resident of

Delaware. She has three children. Patricia\'s 20 year

old daughter Tara has Down\'s Syndrome. Pat and Tara

have been advocating for the past 20 years for

inclusive living for people with disabilities in all

communities.

Pat is Chair of the Governor\'s Advisory

Council for Exceptional Citizens, the Special

Education Advisory Panel in Delaware. She\'s also the

executive director of the Delaware Developmental

Disabilities Council.

While I think people often bring academic

credentials as part of their credibility to speak,

what is important for you to know about Patricia is

that I think she brings her life and her experience

as an effective advocate, and I think that you can

see from those positions that she holds, she is a

successful advocate for people with disabilities.

Lastly, we have Polly Adam‑Fullbright.

Polly works as a school psychologist and a program

consultant for the deaf and hard of hearing program

in the Des Moines public schools. She a nationally

certified school psychologist and she holds a

specialist degree and a master\'s degree from

Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

What I think you should also know about

Ms. Adam‑Fullbright is that she is a person who is

deaf, and she has I think done something that, while

everybody wants to make an important contribution,

Ms. Adam‑Fullbright was heavily recruited across the

United States for a lot of jobs. She is a native

Iowan. She chose to come back to Iowa and work in

the Des Moines public schools. I think she does what

all of us hope to do and wish to do, and that is she

is an extraordinarily effective role model for

children who are deaf, in that she shows them on a

daily basis that people who are deaf are competent,

capable, independent and important members of their

community.

Ladies and gentlemen and Commissioners, I

think we have a very interesting panel and I am

looking forward to what they have to say to us.

Thank you, panelists.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you,

Commissioner. Ms. Giovennetti, you\'re first.

MS. GIOVENNETTI: Thank you. Good

morning. I\'m happy to be back in my home town today

to testify before this esteemed commission on the

role of parents as accountability measures within the

special education process. I\'m not sure I\'m happy to

be testifying in front of my father who is sitting in

the back row, but I am glad to be here with all of

you. My testimony will focus on charter schools this

morning which provide opportunities for parent driven

accountability in special education.

Charter schools are public schools

authorized to law in 38 states which are freed from

most state and local laws governing schools in order

to create innovative educational programs. In

exchange for increased autonomy, they are required to

demonstrate positive academic results in three to

five years.

Nearly 600,000 children attend charter

schools nationwide, including many thousands that are

students with disabilities. Charter schools can be

excellent choices for students with disabilities. As

a matter of fact, parents with children with mild to

moderate learning problems often find that their

child performs best in a charter environment, giving

the student centered focus, small scale and emphasis

on accountability of charter schools.

Some charter schools even target special

education populations such as autism, learning

disabilities, hearing impairments and others. I

would like to preface my comments then by emphasizing

that charter schools are committed to fulfilling

their obligations to serve all students, including

those with disabilities.

So the question before us is not whether

to serve students with disabilities, but how to best

serve children with what resources and how to do so

in ways that maintain their autonomy and allow

parents to be an active part in the educational

process.

Although parental choice can be seen as a

kind of accountability in and of itself, charters

face challenges that make it difficult for parent

choice to drive accountability in special education.

There are certain pre‑conditions necessary for a

strong choice system. If your commission can address

the challenges in achieving this, I believe that

charter schools can better facilitate parental

involvement for the sake of their children.

Before we begin, let me tell you a bit

about who I am. I testify before you today as a

licensed clinical social worker with 13 years of

clinical experience serving children with

disabilities in inner city settings. I\'ve conducted

psycho‑therapy with emotionally disturbed children

and their families in outpatient social service

settings, therapeutic day schools in Chicago and it\'s

public school system. I have worked within a variety

of systems, including child foster care, child

welfare and the juvenile justice system, serving as

clinician, advocate and professional witness for the

families that I served.

Most recently my work in the District of

Columbia has included assisting in the creation and

management of the D.C. public charter school co‑

operative, the first educational service agency in

the nation created to serve charter schools.

I currently serve as a consultant under

Mayor Anthony Williams in the creation of the D.C.

State Education Office and serve as the vice chairman

of the D.C. State Advisory Panel on Special

Education. I have managed the work of the special

education working group for the Charter Friends

National Network and have co‑authored two

publications, Charter Schools in Special Education, a

Guide for Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities

for Serving Students with Disabilities; and a

forthcoming article entitled, Serving Students with

Disabilities in Charter Schools, Legal Obligations

and Policy Options.

I have recently joined the staff of the

Education Performance Network at New American

Schools, and hope through that organization to

continue my work on a national level, assisting

schools, districts and states in the creation of

stronger special education systems as a part of

school improvement for all students.

Although I have submitted extensive

written testimony, I would like to take this

opportunity this morning to review three key

challenges facing charter schools, provide some

policy options which may address these challenges and

close with some examples of innovative special

education practices going on in charters in special

education that involve parents.

Before we get to the challenges faced by

charters in the delivery of special ed, let me give

you a little background on how charters are

incorporated into IDEA, via their district status.

IDEA outlines a set of requirements that must be met

by all local education agencies. Although LEAs are

most commonly school districts, the regulations

implementing IDEA explicitly state that the

definition of an LEA includes a public charter school

that is established as an LEA under state law.

The nature of the special education

obligations that charter schools bear depends on this

LEA status. This is where the first challenge begins

in charter school status as LEAs. While LEA status

is an important dimension of charter schools\'

autonomy, this status presents significant

challenges. Because small traditional public school

district face some of the same issues, it is my hope

that changes made to IDEA to benefit charters will

benefit these other districts as well.

One issue with charter school LEA status

is that the definition of LEA rests on the assumption

that public schools are organized into districts that

serve specific regional or geographic service areas.

Charter schools, however, typically do not have a

geographic service base. Additionally, a common

underlying assumption of LEAs are that they are

assumed to be big enough to have reasonable economies

of scale for sharing costs of special education. This

assumption does not hold true for charters, in that,

much like small districts, they are not large enough

to create economies of scale.

If IDEA is going to truly assist charter

schools in serving special needs students, it must

acknowledge the fundamental difference between most

charter schools and most districts, and then

construct a policy and service delivery frame work

that is tailored to the strengths and constraints of

charter schools.

The second challenge is connected to the

first, in that special education obligation that is

created through charter schools\' LEA status can

create a serious financial burden for these schools.

In state where charters are their own LEA,

the burden of creating a program for one or a few

children with moderate to extreme disabilities,

without the support of a larger infrastructure

available to a school within a district, may be

impossible for an individual charter school.

The third challenge lies in charter

schools\' relationships with school districts. This

relationship is important because it affects how the

special education programs will be implemented in

those schools for students. Project search or

special education as requirement in charter schools

was a research project sponsored by the U.S.

Department of Education, which investigated the

status of policies regarding children with

disabilities in charter schools.

This study examined the links between

charter schools and state and district level

components of the education system. The study found

that state charter school legislation does not

clearly define the responsibility of charter schools,

LEAs and SEAs for special education.

As a result both charter and district

leaders are often frustrated, confused and in

conflict over who is responsible for what, and where

lines of responsibility should be drawn in the

implementation of special ed.

The re‑authorization of IDEA provides an

opportunity to address the limits of charter school

special education obligations, and to improve

policies and practices to enhance the ability of

charter schools to serve students with disabilities

effectively. A number of policy options seem

plausible.

The first is to eliminate the geographic

LEA presumption. The IDEA definition of LEA seems to

presume that the word local relates to a geographic

area where the school is located. It may be that

this concept is unworkable with regard to charters,

whose catchment areas are not defined by district

geographical boundaries. This is an issue in states

such as the District of Columbia and Colorado where

catchment areas are the entire district or state.

The second policy option is to limit

charter schools\' LEA obligation by encouraging shared

responsibility between charters and school districts.

Special education obligations can range from

thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per

child, which can be financially devastating for small

LEA charter schools.

To support charter schools as sources of

school reform, federal and state entities may want to

protect them from full, direct application of LEA

obligations by encouraging shared responsibility for

special ed between charters and districts.

The third policy option is to encourage

charters to create or participate in special

education consortia or cooperatives. These

organizations currently exist in California, Texas

and D.C., allowing schools to share training and

services, take advantage of economies of scale and

have access to program support in the area of special

education.

These organizations can also serve as a

liaison between the schools and local, state and

federal entities. As Executive Director of the D.C.

Public Charter School Cooperative for the last three

and a half years, my role has been critical in

creating strong relationships with the District of

Columbia public school system to clarify where the

lines of responsibility for special ed should be

drawn based upon the best interest of the child.

I would like to close my testimony by

providing an example of a school that I work with in

D.C. that brings quality and creativity to their

special education program and involves parents in

every step of the process.

The Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community

Freedom public charter school has developed three

programs, the first of which is called \"All About

Kids.\" This is an annual screening program that

assesses the need for special education services for

all students every year.

The second program is their annual

disability awareness day that exposes parents and

students to different types of disabilities by

completing exercises at disability stations that

allow them to experience what it feels like to be a

child with a disability.

The third program is a self‑advocacy

training program for special education where students

not only learn about and contribute to their

individualized education programs but are active

parts in every step of the IEP process.

All three programs educate staff, students

and their parents about disabilities, encourage

understanding and empowers students with disabilities

to be a more active part of their own success.

In conclusion, charter schools represent

an important strategy for increasing school

improvement and for enhancing student achievement for

all students. To support a strong choice system

where parents are accountability measures within

education, we must establish a pre‑condition that

charter schools can fully meet the needs of students

with disabilities. To achieve this, a combination of

clarity and cooperation is needed in at least two

areas.

One, applying IDEA\'s LEA definition to

charter schools and establishing the limits of

charter schools\' legal obligation for special

education and secondly, to build stronger

relationships between charter schools and their

neighboring districts.

These relationships should develop new,

more effective and more efficient service delivery

mechanisms that can improve special education

services in all schools.

Cooperation between school districts,

schools and states is essential, regardless of the

ways in which the responsibilities are allocated. We

can create a system of choice in which parents can

serve as accountability measures for insuring quality

education for their children. To do that we need to

make changes in the federal legislation. We will also

have to increase the understanding between charter

schools and districts about the responsibility for

special ed. Your commission can help begin this

process.

I thank you again for the opportunity to

appear before you this morning, and I\'m happy to

answer any questions you may have at the appropriate

time.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you. Ms. Polly

Adam‑Fullbright, you\'re next.

MS. ADAM‑FULLBRIGHT: Commissioner

Bartlett and Commission members, I am honored to be

here today to share information with you about

accountability and student achievement. And it\'s

also wonderful to see Governor Branstad who I have

worked with before as I served as a member of the

Debt Services Commission of Iowa. He has served as

Governor for 16 years in the state of Iowa and

provided great contributions to the advancement of

debt services in this state.

I know that you have reviewed my written

testimony and it was provided with some leading

questions. In preparing for today\'s presentation I

wanted to focus more on deaf and hard of hearing

perspectives related to special education. There are

issues that relate to accountability and student

achievement, and I know that you\'ve had an

opportunity to review my written testimony. After I

provided you with that, I also got some good feedback

in terms of what to elaborate on today in my verbal

presentation.

One question that was asked of me last

week was to explain a little bit about my background.

So I\'m going to go ahead and start with that, and

then proceed with the presentation.

I was born deaf and nobody knew this until

I was about three years and nine months old. Now,

back when my parents learned about this, they were

advised to educate me in an oralistic manner. So

they did that, and I was in a classroom from

kindergarten, first and second grade, and fell behind

my peers in terms of my education.

Ironically though, the IDEA movement

started at that time and so what happened was they

ended up placing me in a special education program

which was about 35 minutes away from my home school,

and I was there and enrolled in the deaf and hard of

hearing program where they offered sign language.

And this was a program that worked very well with me.

4

By the time I got to middle school, I went

into regular classroom and used an interpreter as my

accommodation. However, by the time I got to high

school my parents wanted me to come back to my home

school, and we were searching for an interpreter and

could not find one in my local home area because I

grew in a rural small town area and limited services

were evident.

So I ended up using a note taker in the

classroom, and this is what I did throughout my high

school years and that continued into my college

experience when I went to Central College in Pella,

Iowa.

I received my bachelor\'s degree in

psychology there, but I did not have any interpreting

services. Everything was done through a note taking

process and it was quite a challenge. I went to

Gallaudet University after that because I didn\'t know

what I wanted to do after I graduated with my

bachelor\'s but I knew I wanted to work with deaf

education and I knew I needed more academic training.

So I went for my master\'s degree at Gallaudet.

When I entered Gallaudet University it

actually changed my life. I realized how all deaf

and hard of hearing students do have a right to

accessible communication, and that was something that

I grew up missing. And that was a very powerful

lesson that I learned, and this affects education.

I included some comments about deaf

education and sign language and the use of sign

language in my written testimony. What I wanted to

talk about today was specifically about using

American sign language as a way to learn about

printed English. All of you here I\'m sure have

learned spoken English, and deaf children can\'t do

that.

What we like to use is a visual method for

communication so that our deaf students are able to

use their visual acuity to help them with education.

Then they learn American sign language and then that

ties into an effective method for us to teach printed

English.

Many children are born to hearing parents

and many of their parents are not prepared. They do

not know sign language, and so a lot of times they

are learning sign language at the same time as their

children. It does cause language delays for some of

us deaf and hard of hearing students, because of that

circumstance.

So our challenge in education is to teach

parents, as well as children, to learn American sign

language and then that later leads to learning

printed English.

Now, those of you that know about learning

language, it\'s complex, it\'s intricate and it\'s

exciting but it is complicated and it takes time.

One important point that I think I made in my

testimony was that incidental learning takes place.

Most of the time we are able to just hear of

incidental things that may not be a part of their

communication; it may be something that they\'re

overhearing, but it\'s all knowledge that actually

does attribute to growth and development.

Now, research has shown that incidental

learning is not as evident or possible for children

that are deaf. So this has to take place

horizontally when everybody is signing, so that they

can achieve this type of incidental learning. So

this is the challenge I think for educators that work

with deaf students.

You often will not find a totally signing

environment. When you see a signing environment you

will see this possibly in a self‑contained classroom

where deaf community members or deaf students are

conversing with each other but they\'re in a

situation, say for example, in a classroom where you

have an interpreter used, a general classroom, then

you will have that vertical learning taking place.

But the horizontal learning is much more attributable

to the incidental learning that does take place. So

it is best when you can have vertical and horizonal

learning. And with our deaf students at the Des

Moines public schools we do both. I feel that both

methods need to incorporate sign language.

Now, when you\'re in a regular or general

education classroom and you have a deaf student in

there, there is much that can be done when

communication takes place from the teacher to the

student. Now, many times an interpreter will be able

to capture the communication that happens

horizontally but not as easily.

Now, there are accommodations that are

needed. In general, those who receive services in

school programs that are familiar with the needs of

deaf and hard of hearing students, I think they are

actually receiving the types of services that they

need. Now, at our program we have 12 teachers and 14

interpreters within the Des Moines public school

system.

We offer different choices for classroom

teachers to use. There are self‑contained classrooms

and there are general education classrooms. There

are home schools and there are mainstreamed programs.

20

Now, interpreters in our general education

program is also another option for students. And we

have had hard of hearing students that receive

education in home schools with itinerant consultants

that are familiar with deaf and hard of hearing

education strategies and they don\'t require sign

language, but they do need more education in terms of

what their hearing loss effects are.

Another important program that we have is

a parent educator program. We have a consultant that

works specifically with our deaf and hard of hearing

infants and their families, and they also work with

some of the school age children and their families.

So this parent educator consultant is a component

that\'s very important because they go and work with

the entire family to work on communication strategies

and needs of the child, because that is directly

attainable to student success.

Seventy percent of the students, dead

children coming from families, are those that do not

have parents that sign. This is a huge struggle for

us as educators. It\'s critical to develop language

acquisition very young because that directly affects

their language acquisition of printed English.

I do need to clarify a point that I made

about alternate assessments. I inadvertently

commented that there were many students with

disabilities taking this alternative assessment, and

that is not accurate. Five percent of the students

that are deaf actually take the assessment without

any type of an accommodation. 15 percent are using

the alternative assessment and then the remaining

amount are those that just use an accommodation. I

think that\'s quite reflective of what\'s taking place

in deaf education nationwide.

The alternative assessment is basically

for those that do not receive the general education

curriculum.

Well, in conclusion I would just like to

say that there are three things that we see as

critical to student achievement. One of them is

based on communication consistency and that is

relative to in the education system as well as with

parents as well an effective and strong reading

program.

I also feel that reading strategies that

are needed lead to this type of achievement. An

example of that is chunking; it\'s a concept called

chunking where you read and then you show the

interpretation in American sign language and in the

printed English form. I want to thank the Commission

for this time. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Adam‑

Fullbright. Dr. Brooks.

DR. BROOKS: Thank you very much for the

privilege of presenting before this distinguished

commission. As a professional in the field for over

30 years and as a parent of three sons, one of whom

has disabilities and one of whom I\'m very proud to

announce is a up and coming special educator, I have

experienced the IDEA from a variety of different

perspectives.

Today I\'ve been asked to address the

Commission on the role of parents, students and

family members in holding schools and agencies

accountable for the education of their children with

disabilities.

I begin my presentation with two guiding

principles that support my recommendations. The

first is a quote that was shared in an early meeting

of the Monitoring Work Group by James Rosenfeld who

is one of the advocate members of that work group.

Basically what he said, and this is a

quote from another person, and I gave you the

citation in my comment. \"Publicity is justly

commended as a remedy for social and industrial

diseases, some might have said to be the best of

disinfectants and electric light the most efficient

policeman.\"

The accountability process must be a

public one with open and honest sharing of data and

other information. We will not be successful in

building a fair and equitable accountability system,

one all stakeholders will trust without it.

The second principle is equally critical

to my assigned task today, how can students, parents

and family members hold schools accountable for the

education of their children with disabilities. I\'m

not sure exactly where I first heard this particular

phrase, but it has stuck with me ever since and it

has been instrumental in guiding the continuous

improvement of monitoring process in the state of

Delaware. \"Never about us, without us. Making

families full partners in the education of their

children. We do not hold discussions. We do not have

work groups. We do not do anything where we do not

have parents at the table.\"

The following is a brief summary of my

recommendations for establishing different and/or

modifying existing accountability measures and

practices to improve student achievement in ways that

parents, students and family members will be able to

hold schools accountable for the results. I\'ve

divided the recommendations into two levels because I

think they\'re very important when we look at this

from a parent, family perspective.

First is a systems level. We must

continue the work of the National Monitoring Work

Group which was convened by the Office of Special

Education Programs and the federal RRC and it\'s been

working for quite some time and I\'m hoping you will

get to see their reports and more specifics, because

there\'s a lot of information that I\'m not going to be

touching on today relative to the work that that

group has been doing.

The Monitoring Work Group is helping to

build consensus around the critical primary

indicators of the effectiveness of the educational

system for children with disabilities. It is

evolving the continuous improvement monitoring

process which is the system that OSEP has been

operating under for the past four years into what I

call the continuous improvement focused monitoring

process with the primary indicators as the core of

that. And I\'ll talk a little bit about that in more

detail in just a second.

The third critical aspect that I will

touch on is to align the federal monitoring and

reporting system so that they become a single

integrated system. You saw some excellent

suggestions on how not to do that just within IDEA,

but also to do that in connection with the ESEA, and

I think there\'s a lot of ripe field for discussion

there. But at a minimum this would include self‑

assessment, state improvement plan, the bi‑annual

report and any other required federal reporting and

the state improvement grant process itself.

Finally, and this is really relevant to my

task today and that is to identify measures of family

satisfaction because they\'re one of the primary

indicators of the effectiveness of the educational

system for children with disabilities.

The continuous improvement monitoring

process is one of the best things, from my

perspective, that has happened to the IDEA in the

past few years. Although the initial self‑assessment

process at the state level is very, very time

consuming and a lengthy process, it leads to a

comprehensive data based review of the effectiveness

of the educational system in meeting the needs of

children with disabilities. It brings together all

of the stakeholders to not only identify the

strengths and weaknesses of the system, but to

identify solutions and to develop a plan to move the

system toward improving services for children with

disabilities.

The resulting state improvement plan

provides a blueprint that identifies the priority

areas, both in terms of compliance issues and an

overall improvement. It establishes standards about

what is good enough and what are the benchmarks that

are going to help us know that we\'re moving toward

those standards. It is a process that aligns very,

very well with the school reform efforts in our state

and I suspect in many other states. And it works at

the state and the district, and at the local school

level.

By bringing the bi‑annual performance

report which is rather a large document that we are

required to submit to OSEP on a bi‑annual basis, as

the monitoring check point of that, we then are

providing OSEP with the information that they need to

really implement fully the focus part of the

monitoring system.

Finally, using the state improvement plan

completes that loop. It puts the continuous into the

continuous improvement. My goal is that Delaware

will never have to go through the agony we went

through with our first self‑assessment because now we

have a system that will roll forward. We constantly

have check points in it so we know if we\'re going in

the right direction or not. And I think that because

it is such a very public process, we really engaged

our stakeholders and our parents and families in

seeing that process continue.

However, now that the initial round of

self‑assessments is almost complete, the work has

resulted in a much better understanding of what are

the critical indicators. I have been very privileged

to be part of the Monitoring Work Group and the focus

that has been put on identifying what are those

critical indicators has been ‑‑ I think will make the

whole system a whole lot more effective. Again,

there are six that the group have identified.

Effective state supervision, development of

performance of outcomes for infants, toddlers,

children and youth with disabilities, which was our

performance data; inclusion of infants and toddlers

and youth with disabilities in typical communities

and school settings with their non‑disabled peers

with needed support, appropriate inclusion; effective

transitions, both for little guys and for children

getting ready to leave school; and finally, enhanced

emotional and academic development. This gets at

some of the positive behavior support issues which I

hope you\'re going to be hearing more about from other

people.

The last one that I did not mention which

I think is again the most critical one for my purpose

here today is meaningful and effective family

involvement. My experience with the work group and

with Delaware\'s own ‑‑ process clarified for me the

significant level of mistrust that exists between

stakeholders.

Bringing critical friends to the table may

be uncomfortable at times but it is necessary if

we\'re going to insure that families and students with

disabilities are full partners at every level of the

system. Although we would all agree that the

improvement in student performance would keep most

parents happy with the system, it is not clearly

enough. Based on our discussion with parents and

advocate members of the work group, we need to have

indicators that focus on this critical family role.

In my comments I did make some suggestions as to what

those might be, but since I\'m almost out of time, I\'m

going to skip to what I consider the other important

part of my proposal.

And that is that we have to have

individual level accountability. A child focused

well coordinated IEP meeting and the plan that

results from it is a wondrous thing. Unfortunately

it is very, very time consuming and doesn\'t happen

very often. I\'ve had the opportunity to be involved

in an IEP meeting, to see individual paths or long

range plans for a child\'s future development, that

have led to very positive results for that child.

The relationships that emerge when adults

involved in the life of a child take the time to get

to know the child and each other is an investment

that paid dividends for years to come. However, in

order to make that happen we need to move away from

the concept of an annual IEP meeting and move it to

what I would call a transitional, critical transition

IEP meeting.

This critical transition IEP would occur

when a child is scheduled to make natural

transitions, entering kindergarten, moving to middle

school, getting ready to graduate from high school.

Or, and this is really critical, is not making

adequate progress in the goals of the IEP. In order

to effectively do this, the objectives or benchmarks

on the IEP must be true indicators of progress, both

in areas related to the general education curriculum

and area specific to the child\'s disability.

The periodic reporting requirement and, at

a minimum, the annual parent‑teacher conferences will

insure that parents and teachers are tracking this

progress. The IEP team would also establish trigger

levels tied to the objective benchmark measures that

would automatically start the IEP progress over

again. In other words, when it\'s not working we

don\'t wait for the next annual IEP meeting; right

away we get to work to figure out what\'s going wrong

and what we need to do about it.

This IEP progress with major meetings

every three or four years at naturally critical

transitions builds in ways to monitor progress and

required actions where the child is not making

progress, and would maintain a parent\'s ability to

hold the system accountable for their individual

child. And I think that\'s equally important. Parents

are not going to give that piece of this up.

I\'m going to skip over to my one final

note. I think I can do this in a minute. We need to

find a way to insure that every child, even those who

do not have active parent family advocate, gets the

help they need when they are not making adequate

progress. Every child who is not successful in

learning needs access to the problem solving model

that is the heart of special education, good special

education.

We will not always do away with the over‑

identification issues, the increasing numbers of

children being identified for special education

services or the large number of children who are not

successfully graduating from high school until we

find ways to insure that every child has access to

the supports and services they need. You\'ve already

heard a lot about leave no child behind and how we

see that relating to IDEA and I won\'t reiterate that

again.

One final comment. We really need to

identify and articulate to Congress, the way to

alleviate the fears of regular education over the

paperwork and litigation that comes with IDEA and on

the other hand, the concerns of parents who will not

and should not give up their hard earned rights until

there are guarantees that their children will have

the education that they need. Thank you for this

opportunity, and I\'m really glad to turn the mike

over.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Brooks.

Patricia Maichle, you\'re next.

MS. MAICHLE: Thank you very much. Good

morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak

before this task force. It is a great honor to be

able to provide information you on this topic, as a

parent of a young adult with a disability.

As requested, specific recommendations

that I suggest to the task force to insure that

students, parents and families are measures of

accountability, are listed first and then I will

discuss them.

I recommend students and parents and

families should be surveyed for satisfaction of

services on a regular basis with a base line at the

start of service delivery. Students and parents

should be surveyed for satisfaction post high school.

Students and parents should see that schools and

service providers act on their recommendations

through regular feedback from surveys, through

systems change and through higher student

achievement. Surveys should be accessible to all

students and parents and families. All students

should receive self‑determination training at least

at the start of ninth grade.

Students and parents and families should

expect and experience a fair process through due

process. The student and parent/families are the

consumer of service, whether it is educational

service or adult services. If the student and parent

are not satisfied with service, the service needs to

change.

In order to produce a fair and consistent

measure of satisfaction from students and parents,

satisfaction surveys have to be offered and completed

on a regular basis with a base line survey at the

start of service delivery. Students and parents will

report from a consumer point of view what is really

going on in schools. Students and parents will

report what is useful and what is not. They will

report what is working and what does not.

The educational system devotes and spends

a large amount of energy and funds in order to

educate children, to enable them to be contributing

members of society. Societal requirements for

employment and community living have changed

drastically and quickly in the recent past, and

probably will continue to do so in the future. The

systems that support children and adults with

disabilities need to be prepared to change as

quickly. The systems cannot remain static, as they

have in the past.

Students and parents are an immediate

measure of the changing needs in education and in the

adult service system. Their goals and means and

abilities and opportunities are changing as well as

the needs for service. Students and parents must

also be surveyed for satisfaction post high school

for two obvious reasons.

One reason is to measure educational

outcome or expectations, whether vocational or

academic. The second reason is to provide a base

line survey of satisfaction of adult service

providers relatively soon after leaving high school.

Again the educational system devotes and spends a

large amount of energy and funds in order to educate

children. It\'s an atrocity to find that in this day

and age adult service systems do not have the funds

or the capacity to transition young adults from

school to work.

Currently in the state of Delaware the

Governor\'s recommended budget provides for zero

dollars to transition young adults from school to

work. These are young adults who were educated in

special education and for whom the educational system

spent a great deal of energy and funds. These young

adults will be sitting at home in June and for the

next year at least.

These students and parents must be given

the opportunity to document accountability. Students

and parents must see that their efforts have an

impact. To survey just to survey or just to collect

data is not useful, and will soon allow students and

parents to see the measurement system as a waste of

their time. They soon will refrain from taking an

active role in the system.

They must see that the effort that they

put forth is for a reason. They have to receive

regular feedback from the schools and service

providers about their satisfaction or lack thereof,

if that is the case. They have to see systems

change. They in the schools must see higher student

achievement. Students and parents do like to see

written feedback that reports how well overall the

services are measured and graded. It is useful for

them to be able to see how they surveyed the system

compared to how others surveyed that same system. It

is just as useful for students and parents to see the

measurement of the system over time. This allows for

perspective. It is very important that when

satisfaction surveys are completed that the schools

and/or adult service systems provide the

informational feedback to students and to parents and

families.

It is not enough just to receive the

written feedback, but students and parents need to

see that when there are problems, the information

that they provide creates systems change for the

better to meet the needs of the students. They may

see change in a relatively short period of time and

they may see gradual change. They need to experience

change is satisfaction of services is low.

For example, if vocational education is

not available for students and the expectation is for

students to begin work upon exiting high school, the

satisfaction level will be low for students and

parents. If these same students and parents perceive

that the school system is not motivated to change the

system, the satisfaction level will remain low and

the same people will ultimately stop being part of

the system in one way or another. If, however, they

receive feedback that satisfaction is low and that

the school is attempting to begin vocational

education because of the feedback that was received,

the satisfaction level will probably begin to

increase.

But the educational system and the

students and parents want to see higher student

achievement. One sure way of bringing about this

positive change is to survey satisfaction, make a

systems change to meet the needs of the students in a

positive environment and allow for students and

parents to see that their efforts are used in a

collaborative and worthwhile manner. That\'s seems so

simple, and it is.

Surveys that are used for this process

must be accessible for all students and parents. If

a student or parent cannot read the assessment tool

because of educational or language barriers it is

useless. If the assessment tool cannot be seen

because of a disability and there are no

accommodations it is useless. If the assessment tool

is not delivered to the home of the parents or

families but sent home through a backpack or

pocketbook it is probably useless. If the

measurement is to be worthwhile it must be useful.

In order for students to realize their

worth as contributors towards the educational system

and the adult world and to realize their worth in the

system of measurement, they must receive self‑

determination training at least at the start of ninth

grade. Adolescent and young adults rarely realize

the role that they can play in their own advocacy.

They have been so used to their parents and families

speaking for them that they don\'t know that they can

speak for themselves until they\'re out of school, if

then.

A well formed self‑determination training

course or courses can provide the students with the

skills that they need to make decisions for

themselves, about themselves and to speak with

meaning on behalf of themselves.

The Department of Education in Delaware,

in collaboration with the Parent Information Center,

has provided for the past four years a self‑

determination program called Student Connections.

This is an eight week course for students in special

education programs in regular high schools that

teaches advocacy and employability skills. The

students are surveyed pre and post course in addition

to the teachers being surveyed.

This past year the course was taught at

two alternative schools as a pilot for these schools.

The feedback from both the students and the teachers

has been only positive. Students who are able to

receive a course such as this may have a better

opportunity to provide meaningful feedback to the

school system and to the adult service system on

their satisfaction level with service delivery. They

may also be able to better advocate for themselves

and others as leaders in their communities. Both

Mike Chamberlain of the Department of Education and

Cathy Herrald of the Parent Information Center

deserve a lot of credit for the development and

instruction of this program.

Throughout all of the school year students

and parents should expect and experience a fair

process through due process. Accountability can be

measured through many of the steps of the due process

system using students and parents as the measures.

Shear numbers of due process cases can be a measure.

If students and parents are unhappy with a service

system and they see no other recourse, they will file

a due process case. If numbers of cases are low or

lowering over time, satisfaction levels could be

comparable. Numbers of administrative complaints

versus due process complaints could be a measure for

schools. This is not always a good measure, though.

In any case, these processes should be

fair and equitable. If students and/or parents are

so dissatisfied they should take this course of

action which is not a pleasant course of action. They

should be comfortable that the process will follow

rules set forth and that there will be follow up of a

case to insure compliance.

One of the challenges for students and

parents in Delaware is to see that follow up does

insure compliance with the settlements of the cases.

This in and of itself will produce dissatisfaction

for students and parents with a serviced system.

Once again I thank you for allowing me to

speak before you this morning, and I hope that my

recommendations will be taken into account.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Maichle. Commissioner Coulter, five minutes.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Dr. Brooks, you

spoke about continuous improvement and you spoke

about issues of trying to make certain that systems

are responsive to the needs of students, and you gave

us I think some excellent suggestions with regard to

system level and individual level.

I think one of the concerns is that in

those rare instances where improvement does not

occur, so for instance, using your suggestion. If

there were several meetings where improvement had not

occurred, how do you see what you\'re suggesting, in

some way bringing about change. Let me give you two

examples.

In the current system parents now have an

assurance that at least once a year they have some

opportunity to protest, if in fact things are not

going as well as they want to. At least now

systemically a school district is evaluated for

compliance and if they\'re not in compliance then the

state is required to take action.

I\'m asking you, on the less optimistic

side of continuous improvement, how do you see the

responsibility of a school system or a state to

insure that improvement does occur when it\'s not

happening?

DR. BROOKS: Okay. One important thing I

forgot to say was in my recommendations, I do believe

that both the parent and the child\'s teacher should

have the right to request an IEP meeting at any time.

They currently do and I constantly run into parents

who say we can\'t request it more than once a year.

And I say absolutely, you can request it any time you

feel there is a need. And that ought to continue.

In terms of individual accountability and

waiting around for a year, absolutely that needs to

stay in there, that the parent or the child\'s

teacher, the people who know that child the best,

even if a trigger hasn\'t been triggered, should have

the right to request the recall of an IEP meeting.

On the systems level I think it is time to

do some clarification within the law on what are the

steps in the process and the monitoring work group

has spent a great deal of time, especially at the

last couple of meetings talking about what the

sanctions process should look like. It\'s always been

sort of out there, yeah, maybe we could do this,

maybe we could do that, whether you were OSEP level

or whether you were talking state level in terms of

monitoring of our school districts. And I think we

need to clarify. I think we need to put the process

into writing and I think we need to very clearly say,

these are the steps we go through and when these

things have not been accomplished in the time we have

agreed to, and I am a very much believer in a

participatory continuous improvement process, but

there are times when you\'ve got to draw the line and

say, no, this hasn\'t been done. And you\'ve had

enough time to work on it and now we\'re going to move

to the next level of some of a sanction. That begins

to put some reason pressure on.

In looking at the laws as currently

written, it\'s real unclear as to what we can do

either from OSEP\'s perspective or from the state\'s

perspective. And I think there needs to be some

looking at clarifying the language in IDEA so it\'s

very clear that when certain triggers are hit that

OSEP can take this type of action or a state in

monitoring our districts, we can take that type of

action, including the direction of how funds are

used. I\'m talking some hardcore stuff.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Adam‑Fullbright, one of the ‑‑ we saw testimony

earlier this morning on the performance of children

disabilities in Colorado as a total group. I\'m

curious, and obviously within those data are children

with disabilities who are deaf in Colorado.

In Des Moines ‑‑ and I don\'t want to put

you too much on the spot here in front of what might

be your boss and your superintendent. But how does

Des Moines ‑‑ how do the Des Moines public schools

know that they are doing a good job in the education

of children who are deaf?

Let me be more specific about that.

What\'s the process by which the school system and/or

families are involved in looking at the success or

lack of success in deaf education and what measures

do you use to assure that?

MS. ADAM‑FULLBRIGHT: Well, it\'s certainly

a very good question, and thank you for giving me the

opportunity to explain what it is that we do here at

the Des Moines public schools.

Because accountability is strongly

emphasized, we in our program make sure that our

students are learning, that they are achieving and we

do that using the general education curriculum. We

do rely on the IEP to assist and guide us with

individual student needs and student learning

objectives.

Now, we have a team that works together

with the teachers, the support staff, the parents,

the principal, all stakeholders and we discuss at the

local level what the student is doing and what

progress they\'re making. And we also look at

monitoring the IEP goals and when progress happens

and when progress doesn\'t happen, we do call for

another meeting and discuss that modifications may be

made to help that student develop. So it really

happens with that core group. And that is one of the

advantages in our program, is that we are able to do

that.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Adam‑

Fullbright. Commissioner Gordon.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you, Chairman.

A question for Dr. Brooks, the same question I asked

of our earlier panel. Do you think it\'s feasible to

do some merging of monitoring of school districts and

schools to take into account general ed, ESEA and

IDEA?

DR. BROOKS: I was squirming when you asked

that question before so I\'ll squirm up here now.

That\'s a very interesting one. Delaware has not been

a state where we have moved forward in terms of

moving special education into the consolidated

applications. I have been watching closely at a

couple of my colleague states that have been doing

it. In my heart I believe that\'s where we should be

going. But Delaware, for whatever reasons, isn\'t

quite there.

I think clearly in terms of the law, in

terms of the accountability measures, the data, as

far as the data goes, the data in ESEA is very

focused on student performance and I think that in

special ed we have got to recognize there are certain

other things we need to be looking at and collecting

data on as well.

I also think that what we\'ve learned with

the analysis of the data through our self‑assessment,

and now that we\'re working with it at the district

level ‑‑ and Delaware does have a very intensive

program that has consequences for schools, has

consequences for children and we\'re also implementing

consequences for teachers based on our accountability

system. So it\'s a fairly threatening on, I guess

would be the right word. It has a lot of

ramifications, so we have to be very careful about

what we\'re doing.

But when you start looking at that data,

it\'s the dig‑down process that really helps you to

understand where your problems are and what you need

to do about them. So I think in terms of the broad

stroke things, the things that are reported to the

federal government, we absolutely can do some

consolidating as far as they go. And then look to

make sure that we don\'t leave out those other things

that we think are really critical, like LRE and some

of those other kinds of variables that are very and

dear to the heart of special education.

In terms of the monitoring, I think that

ought to be a goal. At this point we\'re going to say

that, because ESEA is monitoring. It\'s a totally

different thing and never has come anywhere near.

We\'re in the process of trying to put more balance

back into monitoring under IDEA. I loved what one of

the previous speakers said about balancing the

process and the results. That\'s what needs to

happen. We\'ve been way over here in the process; we

need to go back.

So I guess my advice would be to certainly

look at it, but look at it with some degree of

caution and possibly do it as one of those things

that gets piloted, just like we\'re piloting the

consolidated application now. Maybe that\'s ready to

move forward into reality and look at piloting the

monitoring over the next five years.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: It simply seems that

there would be a lot of joint learning on the part of

those doing the monitoring and the people being

monitored in terms of bringing the programs together.

A question for Beth Giovennetti. On

charter schools it seems like you were saying there

were two issues involved in supporting charter

schools, the managerial support, so to speak, and

then also what about the costs of the program? Are

there places that have pulled this off in terms of

running charter ‑‑ I know in our state it\'s very rare

that the charter schools can take on special needs

children simply because the financial support isn\'t

there.

Are there places that have pulled this

off, and if so, where?

MS. GIOVENNETTI: I think it\'s a very good

question. One of the things that I didn\'t touch on

this morning in my oral testimony, but that is

included in my written testimony, is a commentary

about the importance of a weighted per pupil student

funding formula. D.C. is a jurisdiction that does

have that in place so that there is a per pupil

allocation for regular education and there is an add‑

on for special education based on the need of

students, the level of severity of their disability.

And I think in D.C., speaking from my own experience

and kind of watching this for the last three and a

half years, Mr. Gordon, this has been a pretty

effective way of trying to assist charter schools in

their ability to create individual programs for

students with disabilities where they can meet the

needs of children from mild to moderate and higher

levels as they come through the door. And we know

that they\'re operating under an open enrollment

system, so charter schools do not discriminate as the

kids come through the door. So I think that that\'s

an important aspect maybe to be considered and

applied in other states that have charter school

legislation, because I know the weighted per pupil

funding formula has been an important thing that\'s

sort of assisted in D.C.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you. Thank

you, Chairman.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner, we are

right on time plus 60 seconds. So the coffee break

will only last for 13 minutes. We\'ll convene at

10:05.

12

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.)

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: If the Commissioners

could return to their seats. Ms. Secretary,

Secretary Pasternak, if you could return to the

podium. If the room could come to order and the

Commissioners return to their seats.

If the room would please come to order,

cease audible conversations. If you know sign,

you\'re welcome to continue to converse, otherwise

stop talking.

I\'ve been asked by the audio personnel to

remind both the commissioners and witnesses to speak

directly into the microphone. These are directional

mikes.

To introduce our next panel on Capable

Accountability Systems is Superintendent Dave Gordon.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you, Chairman.

It\'s my pleasure and privilege to introduce our next

two speakers. The next speaker will be the person

who is the chief of staff in my school district, the

Elk Grove Unified School District in Elk Grove,

California. Martin Cavanaugh has 28 years working in

special education. He has been a leader, both in our

district as the assistant superintendent for special

education, prior to becoming chief of staff. And a

statewide leader in focusing special education on

early intervention.

Just to give you an example of what he has

accomplished in our school district, the

identification rate for special education dropped in

ten years from about 16 percent down to about nine

percent at the present time, and we\'re very proud of

that.

Our second speaker is Sue Gamm who is the

chief specialized services officer for the Chicago

public schools. She has also worked as a director of

the elementary and secondary education division and

assistant civil rights attorney, office for civil

rights, U.S. Department of Education. She has a

special education degree and a law degree, and she is

the proud recipient, I see, from her vitae, of

something called the Gnawing Gargoyle award for

achievements in public policy from the Council for

Disability Rights.

So welcome to both of you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Do either of you

require more than ten minutes for opening statements?

MS. GAMM: I would love some more time.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Twelve?

MS. GAMM: Whatever.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Fourteen.

MS. GAMM: Okay.

MR. CAVANAUGH: Twelve would work.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Twelve and 14.

MR. CAVANAUGH: I\'m going for the bell at

the end.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Mr. Cavanaugh, you\'re

first.

MR. CAVANAUGH: Thank you. It\'s a

pleasure and an honor to be here, Commissioners. And

I\'m going to move myself down below. I have some

overheads for you to see.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: You\'re going to move

down here?

MR. CAVANAUGH: I\'m going to move down

here, and there\'s a microphone there. And I have

passed out to you some of the slides that you\'ll be

seeing in a moment.

As a practitioner I am going to focus on a

story to be told and we call that story in the Elk

Grove Unified School District, the Never‑streaming

story. Never‑streaming means just as the name

applies, never allow a child to leave the advantage

of the mainstream in the first place.

If we look at that concept from the

beginning we can start with a student having trouble

learning to read in the early primary grades. And

unfortunately, upon further review and possible

assessment of special education, we may find that the

student doesn\'t qualify for special education, given

the fact that in California and many places across

the country we use a significant discrepancy model

that compares achievement with cognition.

He kept getting promoted and he was

falling further behind. He\'s on target to fail first

in order to get the help he needs. If we then follow

Johnny\'s story through to the fourth grade, his

academic performance has now spiraled downward. He\'s

now eligible for special education because the

achievement gap required to qualify him is at a point

where he can reach entry level into special education

as a learning disabled individual.

But frankly, it\'s already too late. What

we\'ve done is we\'ve created an angry little boy who

doesn\'t like school, who gets tummy aches every time

it\'s time to get ready to go and he feels unworthy.

Our question in Elk Grove was could we have prevented

the inevitability of special education. Through our

never‑streaming program what we attempt to do is

break that fail first cycle.

What we know about special education, at

least for the learning disabled population, is that

there\'s somewhat of what we call a Catch‑22. If you

play that out into a practical appreciation for where

a child is performing, they are usually about two

years behind ability when they become eligible for

special education. There usually are no services

until that criteria is met.

Unfortunately, what we know about learning

through the Matthew effect and other researched areas

about the curriculum and the development of student

learning is that two years is already too late to

have a hope of returning Johnny back to the general

education classroom.

Now we have a situation where Johnny will

take a lifetime possibly to catch up. Our point is

that we would like to use funds ‑‑ and when we say

funds, we mean all the funds. The problem we see in

public school systems is that funds become largely

categoricalized with specific detailed requirements

on how you use each dollar.

What we are proposing is to use all of our

funds collectively, leverage them so that we prevent

this scenario. You saw in an earlier video a little

boy who was struggling with reading at the fourth

grade level, and the issues around alternative

assessment. Wouldn\'t it be great if we were able to

intervene earlier with that little boy so that we

didn\'t have to deal with alternative assessments?

What we\'re talking about here is striking

a balance.

(A short

interruption was had.)

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Why don\'t you

continue, Mr. Cavanaugh, while we work on the light

bulb.

MR. CAVANAUGH: Okay. I certainly will.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: We have an overhead.

MR. CAVANAUGH: Let me move up here and

I\'ll continue speaking.

What we\'re talking about here is striking

a balance between services for those students who

continue to be at risk of academic failure and

effective systemic approaches for youngsters who need

and benefit from special education services.

What we know about the research regarding

learning disabilities and reading disability

individuals reinforced that need. It\'s been proven

that the discrepancy model has only incidental value

in truly identifying those youngsters who have

reading as the crux of their problem. The two don\'t

necessarily go together.

Moving to the next slide, we\'re looking at

systems change that is based on the implementation of

a service delivery model that is supported by both

state and federal agencies. One of the

recommendations I\'m proposing here is that state and

federal laws must be aligned to allow for front

loading of prevention and intervention strategies

prior to a student\'s referral for special education.

We believe that that is particularly

important. As a school district we had to go through

waiver processes and a whole host of hurdles in order

to do what we feel was right for children from the

beginning.

Change for change sake, and what we mean

by that is just simply proposing a change in

structure does not necessarily change practice. What

we need to see here is having a clear understanding

of what kind of instructional interventions are

needed, should be the driving force behind how the

change is made.

So if you turn the page, I have a sample

of what that might look like at the school site

itself. At the school site what we would want our

sites and what we expect our schools to do is to base

their implementation of all academic services on the

data from which the students at that school are

performing, and then develop a seamless approach

wherein those services can be implemented, so that

the labeling of the child has nothing to do with how

that child receives services because the services are

based on what the child needs.

How never‑streaming works is it

incorporates all of the systemic available services

and resources that the district and the schools can

bring to bear, to make sure that systemically

everyone is receiving what they have. Our

recommendation in that area would be that resources

in teaching expertise must be blended together for

the benefit of student need, that there is a

cooperative conference in the beginning of the school

year wherein all teachers for every grade level have

identified through multiple measures where their

students stand academically. Then we front load the

interventions right from the first six to 12 weeks of

the start of the school year.

The child doesn\'t need what we call root

canal work in order to get help. In other words, you

don\'t have to be failing or at a point where you\'re

in severe need in order to get the help you need.

Systemically it\'s designed so that the help is

forthcoming from the beginning of the school year.

If you turn to page four, the cooperative

conference staff identified those students from the

outset of the school year that need intensive or

strategic level services. And those services can be

applied directly through a specialist, whether they

be special ed or regular ed services. They can also

provide those services in what we call a learning

center. We have all but done away with the

traditional models of a resource specialist program,

a special day class model and a speech and language

pull‑out program. All of our people work together in

a learning center and in Title 1 schools, Title 1

staff and resources join them, so that those services

are seamlessly applied based on student need.

My recommendations for you today are as

follows, that specific learning disabled eligibility

must prescribe specific early intervention for a

period of at least eight to 12 weeks at first signs

of academic failure; that state and federal laws

pertaining to special education eligibility must be

aligned to allow for maximum front loading of

prevention and intervention strategies prior to a

referral; and that the blending of resources and

teaching expertise at the school site must be

conjoined for the benefit of all student need

regardless of the funding source.

So with that, I see I have three minutes,

is that correct?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Yes, sir.

MR. CAVANAUGH: I would like to also just

mention a couple of things, and attached for your

review in a sort of an appendix is an outline matrix

that shows how in fact that actually works.

But in nine and a half years following

this implementation model we did not have one single

due process hearing. Our school district is 50,000

students. Why? Because we worked with parents to

reach the needs in the beginning, not waiting until

the child was failing.

Number two, we prevented a tremendous

amount of false positives in testing. When you

assess a child for special education you often run

the risk of is this a legitimate referral; is this

something that the teacher wants. In my finding the

number one criteria for a child being assessed is the

tenacity of the referring teacher to have that done.

So when you look at that realistically, how much time

are you spending on assessment that should go to

intervention. Our resource specialists prior to

never‑streaming were spending 60 percent of their

time on things other than direct instruction.

When we moved to never‑streaming, we were

able to flip‑flop that percentage. So 60 was being

spent on direct instruction. And frankly, our never‑

streamers have performed at a much higher level. I

have direct data for you, Commissioners, relative to

our statistics on our accountability of this program,

if you would like us to get those to you. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr.

Cavanaugh. Ms. Gamm, you\'re next.

MS. GAMM: Good morning. I must admit

when I first read about the President\'s Commission,

my first reaction was, boy, I got to go talk to those

guys. We have a lot of things to share with you from

Chicago, so we really appreciate the ability to share

and communicate.

Just to give some context about Chicago

public schools, I think people have a sense we\'re big

but I don\'t think they realize how big. We\'re the

third largest school system in the country. We\'re

the third largest employer in the state of Illinois.

I think we\'re second to the government. We have

437,000 kids with disabilities, and that includes ‑‑

I\'m sorry ‑‑ 437,000 students and that includes

57,000 kids with disabilities. It also includes

60,000 English language learners with 100 different

languages. Our population is predominantly minority;

52 percent African‑American; 35 percent Hispanic; ten

percent Caucasian; three percent Asian; and the rest

Native American. 85 percent of our kids are on free

and reduced lunch and they attend about 700 schools,

including our charter schools, alternative schools,

etcetera.

Consistent with national trends, the

number of kids with disabilities eligible and

receiving special education services in Chicago has

dramatically increased since the enactment of 94‑142.

Just looking at the last 12 years, our number has

grown by about 28 percent, and in the area of

learning disabilities has grown 44 percent.

As alarming as this might be, the growth

in the last six years for kids with learning

disabilities was ten points less than the previous

six years. And there was no growth at all in the

areas of mild cognitive disabilities and students

with severe emotional disabilities, even though the

total school population has grown by almost seven

percent.

This occurred at the time when some of you

may be aware that Chicago was sort of on the edge in

initiating standards based promotion. We\'ve changed;

we\'ve grown; we\'ve really worked with that issue of

what standards should we use, but we jumped out of

the box in 1995 when the Mayor took over the schools

and we said we have to make some changes in Chicago.

And that drove the model.

So we were very concerned at that time,

that when you start talking about standards based

promotion ‑‑ and I\'m going to talk a little bit about

how we melded that within our kids with disabilities.

We were very concerned that our numbers would just

skyrocket as teachers tried to explain the lack of

progress by a child or the failure to meet a

promotion was, well, of course, this child has a

disability. And there might be that inclination in

the system.

By our Board policy we looked at standards

based promotion and we said we would presume that all

kids with disabilities would be able to meet the same

standards as their non‑disabled peers but we looked

at that and enabled the IEP team to rebut that

presumption through that IEP process. So for some

kids there\'s more individualized promotion standards,

if you will.

So how did we at least stem the tide? We

don\'t have data like that in California, but at least

we didn\'t see the growth that we were so scared about

seeing in Chicago. One approach was very similar to

California where we used early intervention

approaches also within general education.

We started like many school districts

years ago and started a process laid in procedure

called intervention systems teams. Those teams

really weren\'t given substantive information about

how to do their job. It was a process, it was rules.

Use this protocol, get into individual groups and

talk about kids and talk about how you can help that

child through interventions, but there wasn\'t much

substantive information provided.

About five years ago we changed that, used

information that our friends in Iowa and Pennsylvania

were able to share with us and we started what we

call school based problem solving, used many of the

techniques that we\'ve talked about here, curriculum

based assessment and really looking at individual

kids through very structured intervention. Also

schools, we did about 50 schools at a time. In

another year we should have just about all of our 500

elementary schools in this process where they were

given coaching and mentoring and a person in that

school at least one day a week to work with teams and

this process. We just didn\'t tell them; we actually

worked with them and those people got a significant

amount of training.

We also electronically track our initial

referrals, and we really look at schools that seem to

have ‑‑ or the data will show ‑‑ has at least twice

the system‑wide ratio for initial referrals. And we

work with those schools and we try to work with their

mindsets. Usually it\'s a mindset in terms of how

ones use this issue. Some people\'s minds are easier

to change than others. So when we see high levels of

referrals going on in individual schools we sort of

swoop in and work with those schools.

We started another activity this year

where we work with the 30 highest referring schools

and brought them into a symposium, and we allowed

schools that have really been successful and really

have the mindset, if you will, working with their

peers. We had keynotes of principals who really got

it, talking to their fellow principals about things

that they might do differently. We had teachers

talking to other teachers. So we\'re looking at the

data of these 30 schools and so far it seems to be

working. It\'s not straight across the board, but

certainly the data looks a lot better now than it did

before.

We\'ve also started, thanks to our friends

from Oregon, a positive behavior support system

within the system. We\'re starting small, looking at

more universal approaches towards dealing with issues

around behavior and learning the system so that we

could go the scale from about ten schools up to 500.

We\'ll tell you how that works later, but we know that

this is a good research driven structure and we\'re

learning how to do it.

We\'re also addressing the physical and

mental health needs of our kids. We use a variety of

supports, whether it\'s child by child or through

training of staff. We also have about 15 school

based health clinics and we\'re doing school link

clinics so that our kids have their health needs

addressed both physically and mental health.

We also give out eyeglasses. You may have

heard of our eyeglass campaign. We figure the least

we can do is make sure kids aren\'t reading because

they can\'t see the blackboard or they can\'t see their

books, and we\'ve given out over 30,000 eyeglasses and

have performed eye exams for kids as well.

We also do a lot of outreach on the

children\'s health insurance program to make sure that

when our kids need the health invention, that they

have insurance to pay for it. And we\'re involved in

early periodic screening, diagnosis and treatment

with our nurses and trying again to deal with the

other issues that interfere with learning. You can

have the best teacher, but if a child is ill it\'s

going to be hard to reach that child.

We also know that the earlier we start the

better chance we\'re going to have. So we have a

number of very innovative programs, cradle to the

classroom where we work with our team parents. We\'ve

started a virtual pre‑K. I could give you the web

site real quickly, www.virtualpreK.org, where we\'re

trying to reach all parents of youngsters in order to

get access to some very easy interactive web based

activities for their children.

Because of our expansion of state pre‑K

and Head Start programs in the system, I can now

proudly say ‑‑ is Brian in the room? Brian knows

this issue well. I can now say that for our three to

five year olds we exceed federal LRE settings because

we\'re able to access general ed settings with our

disabled kids and we\'re must less restricted than

we\'ve ever been in the past. We\'re still working for

the older kids but at least we have a good head start

with the younger kids.

We think we\'re making progress, and we\'re

also looking at how we are approaching the issue of

reading. We\'re starting this year a Chicago reading

frame work where every teacher will have a good

working knowledge of how does one teach reading.

It\'s a pre‑K through high school program, and we\'re

lucky to have Dr. Tim Shanahan who was on the

National Reading Panel orchestrating and working with

us on this program.

Just a couple of minutes, if I can, for

some suggestions as we talk about accountability.

One of the things that I want to parrot is the whole

issue of LD eligibility. I\'ll just reference the

National Academy of Science and the recommendations

they gave in terms of how we look at learning

disabilities and eligibility, and I would parrot

that.

The first thing I thought about when the

No Child Left Behind Act, is how we have to align

that with IDEA. We have to look at adequate yearly

progress and think about how we\'re going to

incorporate that into IEPs. I have some ideas, don\'t

have time really to talk about it.

I have to talk about ‑‑ let me just skip

any accountability system that we have has to talk

about and deal with the chronic shortages we have.

I\'m going to call it the crisis we have in teacher

personnel for special education. I\'m just going to

talk about Illinois for a second, where the number of

individuals we have with bachelor\'s degrees,

graduating from schools, dropped 60 percent since

1976\. We reached our highest just when the law

became effective. For the master\'s degree it became

effective ‑‑ before the law became effective. The

law became effective in \'78. That was our highest

year for master\'s degrees. That dropped by 48

percent. So we have about the same number of

graduates today that we did in the early 70\'s. And

you all know how the number of kids with disabilities

since the early 70\'s have gone in exactly the

opposite direction.

We only have two universities in Chicago

that even offer a bachelor\'s degree in special ed,

and we have no alternative certification programs in

the Chicago area currently ready and able to provide

alternative certification programs. So we can talk

about being accountable. We can talk about leaving

no child behind. But unless we have qualified

teachers in the classroom, we\'re not going to make a

dent. I think this is an area that the federal

government, through IDEA, also looking at the highly

qualified teacher requirement in no child left behind

is going to interact with our reality. Right now

IDEA does allow a three year I\'ll call window of

opportunity for folks to become certified. I think

we have to strengthen that. We should put parameters

on it. We have to establish the national models and

we have to become a bully pulpit so that those areas

of the country that aren\'t there yet, school

districts aren\'t left totally in the bag, if you

will, because we cannot create our own teacher

preparation programs; we have to rely on others. But

yet, obviously we\'re accountable for the results.

One minute early. Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Gamm.

Governor Branstad, for five minutes.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Mr. Cavanaugh, I\'m

intrigued by this never‑streaming program. How long

ago did you start this in Elk Grove?

MR. CAVANAUGH: We started piloting it in

1992\. We received a State Board of Education waiver

to implement it fully in \'94. And it\'s been

operating ever since.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Did I hear you right,

saying you\'ve not, since you started this, had a due

process hearing?

MR. CAVANAUGH: We haven\'t had one in nine

and a half years.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: That is phenomenal.

And yours is a big school district, isn\'t it?

MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes, we\'re about 50,000

students and on our way to 80,000.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: I guess I would be

interested in your suggestions as to how other

districts may follow the example that you put

together, how this Commission might be able to

influence a move in the direction of what you\'ve done

in your district.

MR. CAVANAUGH: Well, we\'ve always taken

an interest based approach to problem solving. I

think direct involvement with parents openly, at the

earliest signs of academic struggle, are key, when

the parent is at the point of believing and trusting

that the school district\'s view of the situation is

positively inclined. And I think what happens too

frequently, due to a number of the infrastructure

based compliance issues, eligibility and so forth,

cause the situation to wait far too long when a

parent knows in advance, my child needs support and

help.

If you\'re able to get that help in those

early stages, what you do is you increase the trust

with the parent, but you also enhance the flexibility

that the parent\'s willing to afford the district and

the district to the parent.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: This interest based

approach towards problem solving is very similar to

what I\'ve heard about interest based bargaining with

employees. Do you do that as well?

MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes, we do. Yes, you\'re

correct, on both counts.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: So you\'re using that

system with your employees and that\'s worked well as

well?

MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes, it has. We have an

excellent relationship with our teacher associations

and the other associations in the district.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: And basically, is that

where you got the idea for this? This is the first

time I\'ve heard about that and read about it in the

collective bargaining arena, but I\'ve not heard about

it in the special education arena, and we\'ve heard

some real horror stories in other school districts

around the country where the costs and the animosity

between parents and teachers has been really high.

It sounds like, from what I can hear, what you\'ve

done has ‑‑ the best example I\'ve heard on the

positive side of really resolving that.

MR. CAVANAUGH: We\'ve done our best, and I

don\'t want to lead you to think that we haven\'t had

issues and problems. We have, but we\'ve been able to

work those out successfully.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Let me ask about the

chronic shortage of special ed teachers that Sue Gamm

brought up. Maybe both of you can comment about

this. How do we address this and what do you think?

This is a chronic problem that seems to have gotten ‑

‑ it\'s not only a problem in Illinois; it\'s a problem

here in Iowa. I think it\'s a problem all throughout

the country. I\'d just be interested in your thoughts

on how that can be best addressed.

MS. GAMM: Just again to give some context

to this. I went to a national symposium in

Washington and the figure that was given was that 95

percent of the school districts across the country

report that a chronic problem.

In Chicago, we have 350 vacancies right

now as we speak. I\'m not talking about emergency

certificates. I\'m talking about vacancies. We put an

ad out in the paper when we thought we were going to

be able to get the assistance of our union and pay

non‑certified teachers who we\'d be able to put

through a program that would look like an alternate

certification program. None have been approved yet,

but nevertheless, we were going to try and do it,

mimic what one would look like. And when we put an

ad out to see who might be interested, we got 600

phone calls in one week, as opposed to looking at

certified teachers who might like to go into special

ed, and we got maybe 80 phone calls over a much

longer period of time.

And as I said, the traditional programs

are way less than what they\'ve been in the early

70\'s. So given that data, I can only conclude that

alternate certification could have a huge role in

addressing our needs, good programs that are well

designed, that are based on at least what available

shows, works and I think if IDEA or a task force or

something, that the feds could use as a bully pulpit

to show people, this really has some potential, would

help some naysayers out there who are looking at not

helping this process.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Gamm.

Secretary Pasternak.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. I guess thank you both for being here this

morning and for the nice presentations. I guess I\'ll

get back to the accountability issue. We\'re never

going to fix special education by only looking at

special education. I think that we all agree or

hopefully. I know that you both agree with me that

we\'ve got to make sure that the kids are in special

education receiving the right services from the right

people to achieve the right results.

So my question to both of you, and I guess

I\'ll start with you, Marty, is that if you went from

16 percent to nine percent, as your superintendent

pointed out in his introduction, what\'s the change

and what\'s the lesson for the country from the

changes that you saw there and the kinds of kids that

you were serving before and after the implementation

of this model, which sort of reminds me ‑‑ if I\'m

correct ‑‑ been around a long time, as you know,

about the zero reject‑zero eject kind of concept that

was posited some many years ago.

MR. CAVANAUGH: Right. Thank you, Bob. I

think the issue really takes on two key areas. One

is that systemically there has to be developed a

service delivery model that fits the needs of the

students who go to that school. Much of what we talk

about from a conceptual level, from a bureaucratic

compliance and monitoring level, doesn\'t account for

the service delivery structure which really needs to

be designed locally at the school and acknowledges

who the children are that go there, how they are

performing and then develop systemic ways that we

address those needs by having all of the staff take a

part in that responsibility.

I think secondly to that is the issue that

special education itself is what I would call a fixed

pot. So if we decide to spend money on students that

could have and should have been served in other

areas, we\'re taking dollars away from other

youngsters who have that need. Special education

from my study is largely a medically based model in

that it assumes that anyone who is given an IEP must

be disabled under federal law.

Although there are protections in writing

that are there to prevent that from happening, I see

it happening every day. So I think that there must be

a systemic approach. Never‑streaming does not

subscribe specifically to a particular curriculum but

a way of being in terms of how you, as an individual,

can make a difference for a child.

It also subscribes to best practices. And

we\'ve brought in some very prolific general education

curriculum that has helped us in that way.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Okay. Part of my

question was how has the demographics or the

description of the kids that were in the program

before you implemented never‑streaming and since you

implemented it, how have you seen that change? Who

are the kinds of kids that are now being served more

or perhaps more appropriately in general education

than in special ed. And I guess along that line, to

hear from both of you about how we make general

education more accountable for serving kids before we

go ahead and see them referred for possible placement

in special education.

MR. CAVANAUGH: Specifically dealing with

the learning disabled population, we\'ve seen

youngsters who are now identified as having a

specific learning disability, as having chronic

auditory processing difficulties, primarily where

their immediate short term, and in some cases, long

term memory ability is affected. And it\'s affected

for a long period to the point where following an

eight to 12 week intervention, we\'re not seeing a

spark, if you will, in the child picking up. So we

look at that eight to 12 week intervention as being

demonstrative of at least six months worth of growth

because at that point we\'re picking apart the

children who simply have holes or deficits in their

academic performance versus youngsters who have real

developmental lags that will plague throughout their

school career.

If that is carefully done, as it has been

in our district, we\'re able to filter out which child

needs what. So what we\'ve seen over the course of

this implementation is far better understanding and

positive referrals on the youngsters who do get

referred for special education.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you, Mr.

Cavanaugh. Mrs. Takemoto.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: I was reading the

testimony about ‑‑ a comment that you made, Dr. Gamm,

about the IEP has become a necessary evil to avoid

compliance findings as opposed to be an effective

intervention document.

What would you do to ‑‑ I saw some of the

later stuff about talking about annual yearly

progress. When I speak to parents and teachers in

the field, they\'re saying kids in special education,

the reason that they\'re there is because, as Marty

said, they failed, that they aren\'t good learners and

how can anyone expect us ‑‑ by definition of the fact

they\'re in special education means they can\'t learn.

So tell me a little bit about how you make

that IEP an accountability document.

MS. GAMM: I think it\'s going to behoove

us. We\'re not going to have a choice about this, and

I think it\'s already there, that with no child left

behind we have got to start talking about adequate

yearly performance, because our kids are going to be

judged on their adequate yearly performance and we\'re

going to have to take the bull by the horns and deal

with this.

What I mean about the IEP, one of the

areas that I glossed over because of the time

restraints is that somehow we have to make this law

simple and understandable. I think two keynotes to

an accountability system that we found in Chicago,

it\'s got to be simple enough and understandable

enough so that anybody you ask, any time of the day,

no matter who they are, can give you the tenets of

that accountability system. And if they\'re not able

to internalize that without 30 hours of training,

that could better be used perhaps to do teaching of

reading and how we enable our kids to be better

readers, we\'re already behind the eight ball.

I think what we can do is through the IEP

process, and what I\'m saying is a necessary evil.

When we hear stories about IEPs being 30, 40 pages or

even ten pages and then they\'re put in a drawer and

nobody ever looks at it again, I think it\'s lost its

effectiveness. I think what we could do is first get

a better handle on how to look ‑‑ and the areas we

want to look at, in terms of current educational

performance. I think we need to do that in a way

that you could look at kids across the country,

within states, within districts, within schools and

expect to see certain kinds of information, wherever

that child happens to be, and identify what areas do

we really value and what kind of learning

characteristics or health characteristics we really

need to know about in order to form, if you will, a

beginning benchmark.

Once we have that, then I think the best

people around the table think about, okay, knowing

this, where could we reasonably expect this child,

assuming that child has good instruction, because we

have to assume that, where could we expect this child

to be in a year from now. Then how do we get that?

What kind of supports do we give that child and the

teacher and the parents to provide that kind of

growth that we expect. Then at the end of the year

and along the way, you start measuring are we getting

there. And then that becomes your current educational

performance for the next year.

And we could actually start to track along

the 12 years or 14 years that a child is actually in

school, which I don\'t think we can do now. You would

have to collect 12 IEPs if this child was in special

ed all that time and somehow, with different

parameters, figure out the growth of that child, in

addition to any assessments or state assessments or

local assessments that\'s being used.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: The other

question, Marty, we talked a little bit about this

yesterday, that Elk Grove has a lot of children

learning English and Dr. Gamm, you also said the same

thing. Tell me about how this would help families ‑‑

children who are learning English. Just like

special education, do they bring down the totals?

Are they an excuse?

MR. CAVANAUGH: No, they\'re not. I think

that we look at student need rather than student

category. Because we do that, we\'re able to look at

how we globally and locally serve youngsters based on

what they need. We\'ve had great success with our

English language learners. They\'re comparably very

high performers because we look at what are those

diagnostic and prescriptive teaching methods that

they need and then implement those. So our

instruction is really focused on what does the

student need. And for years what had been happening

was, oh, people in an ESL category, a Title 1

category, a special ed category were all treated

separately and it was hands off, if you weren\'t

funded by that category.

I think that that is something that

continues to need to be worked on in order to meet

the needs of all of the kids.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you. Ms. Gamm,

I read your testimony and heard your comments and I

really appreciate you being here. I want to return

to the issue of accountability.

Does Chicago have any measurement at all ‑

‑ I didn\'t see it in your testimony ‑‑ of academic

performance of special ed students, graduation rates,

grade level, progress on the IEP, score on

standardized test? Do you have any data? Do you

collect any data on academic performance of special

ed kids?

MS. GAMM: We have local assessments and

we also are part of the state assessment. We have

some work to do in Illinois. For example, we just

got the state assessment data back and it\'s on a C‑D

and it\'s a way that we cannot dis‑aggregate or

massage or work with the data. It makes it more

difficult. The data is there, but accessing is an

issue.

I have not gotten from the state ‑‑ we

have some work to do.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: So you\'re the director

of special ed in Chicago schools?

MS. GAMM: Right.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Do you know what the

graduation rates are for your special ed students?

MS. GAMM: Not graduation rates. It hasn\'t

been dis‑aggregated. The dropout rates we have and

we\'re about two to three percent more than the

general population in special ed.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Do special ed students

take standardized tests?

MS. GAMM: Yes. Yes, the same as others,

standardized as well as alternative.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: What are the results?

Do you measure those results?

MS. GAMM: Yes, we do, and they\'ve grown.

Not to the extent that Brian shared in Colorado, but

there has been progress. It\'s aggregated and dis‑

aggregated.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: What system of

accountability could we apply at the federal level

with the federal law that would cause Chicago and

other schools just like Chicago, which is probably

the vast majority, to begin to measure and hold

yourself accountable for performance of special ed

students?

MS. GAMM: Well, as I said earlier, I

think we\'re already there. I think no child left

behind already has a strong accountability system

which includes kids with disabilities. That group is

not excluded from reaching proficiency rates in

reading and math within 12 years and benchmarks along

the way. I think one question to think about is

whether any recognition should be considered at the

IEP meeting that perhaps proficiency in reading might

be slightly different for an individual child given

what you know about that child\'s disability. And

that\'s just a question to be talked about, because

right now, as I read the law, the understanding is

that all children will become proficient. That\'s

just an open question.

But I think what we need to do is align

IDEA and enable us and give us the tools so that we

can be accountable and be successful through no child

left behind. I see us there. The question is the

fine tuning and an overlay under IDEA.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: I may not be

understanding your testimony, but I don\'t understand

the academic results of special education students in

Chicago. At this moment I don\'t understand where

they are. And I don\'t understand that you\'ve got the

data.

MS. GAMM: I can give you a figure. 13

percent of our kids read on or above grade level.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: 13 percent of the

special ed kids?

MS. GAMM: Right, on the state

assessments.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: How does that compare

with last year and next year?

MS. GAMM: It\'s a little bit up from last

year. But we\'re not doing well across the board for

all kids, so it\'s within the context. For all kids

we\'re somewhere around 40 percent. We have a long

way to go. And that\'s up from about in the 20\'s five

years ago. We have a long way to go.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you.

Commissioner Hassel.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: This is a question

for both of you. How should your states measure your

success in special education? What should be the

indicators they look at to determine whether you are

doing a good job?

MR. CAVANAUGH: I think that there is work

underway to look at that issue right now. Certainly

I think, as mentioned, graduation rates are very

important. I think that we also need to look at

standards and benchmarks relative to what we would

expect grade level performance to be.

I think that we need to look at the early

intervention aspects of special education so that the

student does not make year to year growth, but

actually makes better than that in the area of the

learning disabled and for those who require speech

and language as their only deficit.

I think that the functional life skills of

special education students need to be benchmarked

against more specific areas of need in terms of what

tools they will need to carry with them into

adulthood, and those aren\'t clearly defined. So I

think that there needs to be some more work in that

area as well.

MS. GAMM: I would just add to that,

looking at disciplinary issues, looking at issues

around suspension and expulsion. Kids aren\'t

learning if they\'re not in school. Perhaps looking

at some of the positive behavior supports, the extent

to which school districts are ‑‑ because you could

just not report. That\'s an issue. So I think we also

have to look at what schools are doing in order to

enable kids not to act out so that they won\'t get

suspended or won\'t be expelled.

I think another issue that I don\'t think

we talked about, and it coincides with my discussion

about the teacher shortages, is what are states and

universities doing to increase the number of highly

qualified individuals. Again if a school district

cannot prepare credentialed people on their own, we

need to look at other institutions who do and have

some accountability there also.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: Thanks.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Gordon.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Marty, would you

elaborate a little bit. You mentioned before how at

the school level you\'ve implemented a seamless system

of identifying needs using whoever is there, be they

Title 1, general ed or special ed resources to meet

those needs. But then you mentioned, you thought that

the compliance system would never see whether that

was there or not.

How would you change the compliance system

to really pick up on whether those things were

happening at a school?

MR. CAVANAUGH; I think the compliance

system needs to focus on how the school is serving

all of the children, rather than individual gradiated

degrees of service, if you will. What we have now

and often is a laundry list of specific detailed

issues that look to be compliance markers but, taken

out of context, they don\'t really add up to the whole

story. I think compliance needs to focus on how is

the school performing, how is it serving all of its

youngsters, what are the roles and functions of the

staff at the school to get those needs done, and how

well do they do that, in creative ways, given the

limited funds that all the schools have. So I think

that it needs to be more globally reviewed.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Coulter.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Dr. Cavanaugh, I

think you\'ve done a nice job at least describing for

us the results. I really appreciate your attention

to data. I think Commissioner Bartlett\'s pointed

questions about how are kids actually performing is

very, very important to us.

So I think you\'ve talked about how

teachers interact, and I heard you mention, or at

least touch very briefly on how principals interact

with teachers. In that school based level program,

are there other professionals that are required in

order to make this a success?

Let me ask you to describe, it\'s not so

much a yes, no question, as you could describe if in

fact there are others involved, how that\'s done. I

think one of our concerns is that while we have heard

about pockets of success in different places, the

idea that legislation could somehow influence a much

wider spread of the success is a great concern to us.

The term is scaling up that we hear a lot of.

What are the components that are necessary

in a school for it to be successful beyond just

teachers and an administrator?

MR. CAVANAUGH: I think that there needs

to be an actual teaching of staffs on how to view

their work, and what we have seen is ‑‑ and how this

came about in Elk Grove was that we had a dramatic

change demographically that occurred in the late

80\'s, early 90\'s. We were a predominantly white

middle class school district that suddenly found

itself highly diverse with over 47 different

languages spoken and all at once there was this rush

to say these youngsters are different; they must be

disabled.

So we had this huge increase in special

ed. Really you can pin down as a result to change in

demographics. So we had to go back and say to

people, what is your responsibility for these

children learning, and how do you work together. So

there was a lot of training.

We had come off of the traditional student

study team which is really a process where the

students are identified after they\'re showing

failure. And as a result, there were long laundry

lists of kids waiting to get seen by the student

study team, and as a result they were falling further

behind. So we had to regroup.

If I could jump on there, I\'ll show you

one slide you haven\'t seen. This is an actual slide

of a teacher\'s classroom. In the classroom the

students\' names have been omitted, obviously. But

that teacher at the beginning of the school year ‑‑

this happens to be a sixth grade teacher. She knows

from assessment data we\'ve taken exactly where every

student is performing on national percentile rank in

reading, language and math. She knows which students

are ELL or English language students, receiving

special ed and all of that information.

At the bottom you can see a key here that

identifies the percentile rank that those students

are functioning in.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Okay, Marty, pardon

me for interrupting you. My time gets limited as

well as yours. I understand this, but I\'m still only

hearing you say that all it takes is an administrator

and a teacher. Who are the other people involved?

I\'m not trying to give you an opportunity here to

pump up your own job. You\'ve got a good job.

But if we\'re going to pull this off, is it

all we need are good teachers and good principals,

that\'s it?

MR. CAVANAUGH: I think there needs to be

some guidance on how that structure is developed and

then there may need to be the specialists that are

assigned to the school. But each district has the

ability to assign specialists based on their formula

of population, size and so forth. And those

specialists need to work with the team, but they need

not be the savior for every child of need. That\'s

where that give and take has to be a part of what the

principal, the site administrator and the district\'s

core values mandate that everyone operate under.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: That completes this

panel. I\'ll call the next panel which is Future

Accountability Systems, Dr. Lizanne DeStefano,

University of Illinois, to be introduced by Bryan

Hassel.

Dr. DeStefano, do you require additional

time?

DR. DE STEFANO: I think I\'m timed for ten

minutes, but if you could give me 12, that would be

fabulous.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: 12 will be fine.

COMMISSIONER JONES: Ms. DeStefano, you

might want to use the other mike, and make sure you

are quite close to it.

DR. DE STEFANO: Is this better?

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: Dr. Lizanne

DeStefano is with the University of Illinois. She

directs the Bureau of Educational Research. Dr.

DeStefano has an impressive record of research and

publications on many of the topics that this task

force is considering. So we\'re very please to have

you here today, and look forward to hearing your

remarks.

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, Mr. Chairman and

members of the Accountability Systems Task Force, I\'d

like to thank you for allowing me to testify before

you this morning regarding the future of educational

accountability systems and how these systems might be

improved to help parents, policy makers and educators

make better decisions about student achievement and

improve the quality of educational programs.

We have all heard a great deal of rhetoric

about school accountability in the last several

years. I recently read an article in the American

School Board Journal in which the author likened

pronouncements about school accountability to the

most perfect looking fruit hanging just out of reach

at the top of a tree, loaded with promise on the

outside, difficult to attain and often disappointing

on the inside.

After almost 20 years of conducting

research on the local implementation of federal

mandates, that means that I started this research

when I was six years old, I believe this analogy

depicts the gap between what is said about

accountability at federal and state levels and what

actually occurs in schools and classrooms throughout

our nation.

I should say that I believe that everyone

in this room, in our various roles, has

responsibility for closing this gap. State and

federal agencies for providing adequate guidance and

support, local educators for focusing their efforts

on creating educational environments where kids can

succeed, parents for being actively involved in

schools and advocates for their children\'s education,

and institutions of higher education for preparing

teachers who are up for the task of helping all

students learn and for conducting research on valid

and effective practices.

Unless we all work together to bridge the

gap, I do not believe that accountability will do

much to transform the core of the educational

enterprise, schools and classrooms, into active

challenging and exciting learning environments that

foster high attainment for all students.

I came here today because I believe

strongly that it is an opportune time for federal and

state policy makers to stop holding out the promise

of accountability and start taking reasoned steps to

make it a reality. I\'d like to use the remainder of

my time this morning to offer four recommendations

for what these steps might entail.

The first recommendation is provide

guidance for and monitor the quality of state

accountability systems. Until recently, the federal

government has not provided much specific guidance to

states as to the design and operation of state

accountability systems. As a result there is

tremendous variation in how states have approached

accountability, especially with regard to students

with disabilities and English language learners.

While state and local jurisdiction with

regard to education should be respected, it is time

for the federal government to begin to endorse basic

principles that underlie effective accountability

systems and to promote the adoption of those

principles through its entitlement and discretional

programs.

This is beginning to happen with no child

left behind, reading first and Title 1 requirements,

as we\'ve heard earlier, which are quite prescriptive

in terms of the types of assessments, analysis and

reporting, incentives and sanctions that must be part

of state applications for federal funding and local

applications for flow through funds.

Students with disabilities are referenced

throughout that legislation and decrease in referrals

to special education are a prominent indicator of

success. However, it is critical that IDEA also

address in more detail that it does currently the

characteristics of a sound accountability system that

includes students with disabilities and how the

cornerstones of special education, such as referral,

identification, IEP and due process, are related to

these efforts.

Fortunately, through the discretionary

programs of Part D, we are beginning to build a

research base on what works in accountability

systems. And here I\'m referencing some of the work

of Martha Thurlow at the National Center for

Educational Outcomes, who you will hear later this

afternoon. The elements of an inclusive

accountability system include first, all students

with disabilities are included in the assessment

system, LEAs and SEAs should report the number of

students who are not included and the reasons for

exclusion.

There is still a great range of exclusion

rates in states and localities. This is not just an

equity issue, but it also affects the validity and

comparability of the accountability data.

The second principle is decisions about

how students with disabilities participate in the

assessment system are the result of a clearly

articulated participation, accommodation and

alternate assessment decision making process. LEAs

and SEAs should describe the process and how IEP

teams are trained and supported to make these

decisions.

In the last three years I\'ve been

conducting a lot of work in this area and I found

that a lot of decision making processes about who

should participate in assessments and how, are

arbitrary. They\'re not well documented or imbedded

in the IEP process and they often bear little

relationship to what actually occurs on the day of

testing.

For students with disabilities, putting

validity into these processes I believe is linked to

effect IEP team processes. And I\'ll say more about

this later.

The third principle is all students with

disabilities are included when students scores are

publicly reported in the same frequency and format as

other students, whether they participate with or

without accommodation or an alternate assessment.

It is the case still that in some states,

when students take an assessment with accommodation,

those scores do not count and are not included in the

accountability mechanisms for that state.

The fourth principle, the assessment

performance of students with disabilities has the

same impact on the final accountability index as the

performance of other students, regardless of how the

students participate in the assessment system.

Many of the states do not have adequate

ways of representing the performance of students who

take alternate assessments in the final

accountability index.

The fifth point, there is improvement of

both the assessment system and accountability system

over time through the process of formal monitoring,

ongoing evaluation and systematic training in the

context of emerging research and best practice.

There are very few studies that I\'m aware of to

evaluate the effectiveness of assessment and

accountability systems in our country, in an effort

to improve them. This should be common practice with

all accountability systems.

And finally, every policy and practice

reflects the belief that all students must be

included in the state and district assessment and

accountability systems. Many accountability systems

were underway at the time of IDEA \'97. So many of

the procedures and practices that involve students

with disabilities have been retrofitted on existing

systems. And when you look at these systems, that\'s

apparent.

I think that we should go back and re‑

examine all the policies and practices involved with

accountability systems, to make sure that they really

do reflect the idea of including all students.

Federal monitoring in special education

should include meaningful review of state

accountability systems with regard to students with

disabilities and provide constructive feedback on how

the system should be improved to better represent

students with disabilities in school reform.

My second recommendation is develop NAEP

as an exemplar of a universally designed assessment.

It has long been troubling to me and many of my

colleagues in state departments of education as to

why IDEA \'97 requirements to include all students in

accountability assessments does not extend to our

nation\'s most prominent accountability assessment,

the national assessment of educational progress.

The most recent report on the

participation of students with disabilities in NAEP

suggest that at least half of all special needs

students are excluded from NAEP. There are only a

limited number of allowable accommodations and there

is not alternate assessment option for NAEP.

While there have been some efforts to

revise the inclusion criteria and conduct exploratory

studies on the effects of accommodation and

participation of students with disabilities on the

validity of NAEP scores and trends. The fact is our

nation\'s premier assessment does not reflect good

practice nor does it reflect what the federal

government is asking states and localities to do in

terms of inclusive assessment practices. NAEP should

be improved using principles of universal

design.

My third recommendation is to promote the

use of technology as a means to enable educators,

parents and policy makers to ferret out the

connections between student outcomes and educational

processes and plan for change. In my opinion one of

the major reasons why accountability is not working

is over‑reliance on a single test score as a measure

of performance.

True accountability based education reform

requires ongoing assessment of cause and effect.

Multiple measures of student performance,

longitudinal trends and information on instruction,

attendance, behavior, parent involvement and homework

all contribute to an understanding of how things are

working in classrooms, schools, district and the

state and how to make them better.

Technology exists to make this level of

complex analysis accessible to educators. It is

important to foster the development and dissemination

of thoughtful and robust data systems that can

support careful tracking and analysis of instruction,

achievement in the context of schooling.

OSEP has invested money in technology but

the majority of this has been in access and

instruction and very little on information

management. Some commercial programs are available

to do this but they are not very attuned to the

special considerations of students in special

education and English language learners.

Further, meaningful accountability efforts

should deliberately connect all the relevant players

in the educational equation and engage them in data

driven decision making. In a longitudinal study of

standards implementation in Illinois our research

team found that discussions of this kind, when they

do occur, are almost always among educators

themselves. Parents, school board members and the

general community received very little information

about learning standards and student performance and

were given very little opportunity to ask questions

or give input.

Technology offers one means by which

information can be shared and significant others

brought into the discussion of how to improve

schooling.

Finally, I recommend that there\'s a need

to recognize that accountability requires tremendous

change at the local level. It must be acknowledged

that if accountability is to work local practice must

change drastically in terms of how administrators and

teachers function on a day to day basis and interact

with each other, the students they serve, parents and

the community at large.

Accountability shifts the focus from what

teachers do to how teachers perform academically as a

result of what ‑‑ to how students perform

academically as a result of what teachers know and

do. Instead of reviewing lesson plans principals

should be reviewing student performance data and

linking it to instructional opportunity. IEP teams

must think in sophisticated ways about students\'

access to the general curriculum, instructional needs

and participation and valid assessment.

An effective accountability model must

take into account the political, legal, human

resource and time constraints that affect its

likelihood of successful implementation at the local

level. In a recent study my colleague Jim Schreiner

and I found that it took approximately 20 hours of

direct training and follow up to enable IEP teams to

make rational and legally defensible assessment

participation and accommodation decisions. This was

an expensive and extensive effort but it did result

in significant positive change in educational

practice.

We cannot just expect that change of this

magnitude will occur just because a law is passed.

Time lines for implementation, support for

professional development and sustained evaluation and

feedback are critical to support change at the local

level where it must occur if we\'re to see real

changes for students.

Thank you for allowing me to address you

today.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Dr.

DeStefano. The first question, Commissioner Hassel.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: Your last two

recommendations have to do with capacity of the

system to live up to expectations, technologically

and maybe on the human side of things. I wondered

what your thoughts were about appropriate federal

role in building that capacity. Should the federal

government create a national information system?

Should it create a national professional development

system? Are there other tools that you would suggest

the federal government could use to meet those needs?

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, I think a

constructive mindset for federal policy makers to

take is sort of to foster real change instead of

quick fixes. So one thing that I think is important

is to think about the time lines that you\'re holding

states and localities responsible for in implementing

changes, and try to make them realistic with

benchmarks along the way so states and localities can

indicate that they\'re making progress toward these

goals. But the time lines themselves be realistic.

And I\'ll give you an example with IDEA

\'97, where the time line to implement full

participation in statewide assessment was very quick.

And what I saw states doing is doing quick fixes,

just sort of saying, oh my God, we\'ve got this July,

2000 deadline; what are we going to do? And

responding to that deadline rather than really trying

to think about what would be a logical process for

doing that.

So I think one of the ways ‑‑ the roles

the federal government could play is kind of

responsible stewardship of the process, recognizing

the kinds of changes that have to occur at the local

level.

I think federal sponsorship of some

research and development efforts to figure out what

information systems can promote change at the local

level, and how IEPs and other special ed kind of

foundations can be linked into those systems. That is

not an area that is well researched and well

developed and that seems to need to be a responsible

federal role.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: You mentioned some

principles of the design of effective accountability

systems, and you say that the federal government

should substantively review states\' accountability

systems and provide them with constructive feedback.

Do you think the federal role should extend beyond

constructive feedback to more heightened

interventions in the case of states that aren\'t

living up to these principles, and what sort of ideas

do you have on that front?

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, you know, I was

able to attend the Reading First briefings a few

weeks ago and I agree with Sue Gamm that many of the

elements in Reading First are in line with what I\'m

suggesting, in that even the eligibility programs do

have requirements within the application to meet

certain accountability needs. And that what they

were saying at the Reading First panel is that money

will not be given out until those basic requirements

are met.

So I think that a more careful review at

the federal level, with some good principles that

states can follow in putting their applications

together would go a long way, and knowing that are

funds are contingent upon following those principles.

I think we provide a lot of leverage for states to

reconsider their systems, and think about

accountability.

The piece that I think IDEA needs to

consider is how do students with disabilities fit

into that. They\'re referenced throughout the

legislation but I think IDEA needs to go to a deeper

level to figure out how special education funding

will figure into that.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: You spoke about

decisions regarding whether a particular student is

going to participate in state assessments or what

sort of accommodations they will receive, and you

suggested it needs to be training of teams in how to

make rational decisions.

Do you think there also need to be

external standards applied about when it is

appropriate to exempt students, or do you think it\'s

purely a matter of training to insure people make

rational decisions?

DR. DE STEFANO: I think it\'s a

combination of both. I think the accountability

system needs to have clear expectations that all kids

will participate and it needs to have mechanisms that

allow all kids to have valid participation. But I

believe that the IEP team is in the best position to

make those decisions for individual students, and

they need to be trained to be able to make those

decisions.

What we found is that the training was not

merely in what\'s the rules about including kids, but

they had to receive information about what the state

standards were, what the IDEA \'97 requirements were,

the relationship between those two things. So it was

a very deep level of training and a

reconceptualization of access to the general

curriculum, accountability and so on for the IEP

team.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Gordon.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you, Chairman.

Just as a follow up. It strikes me that in some ways

isn\'t the point of IEP\'ing a child too late to

understand that getting to that point was well done

or poorly done so as to be able to catch the student

earlier. How would you address that?

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, I think the day the

student walks in the school on the first day of

school is the time to begin to assess and collect

information and make decisions. Yes, IEP\'ing is way

down the line for where good intervention should

start. And that\'s some of the principles that I

think that an accountability system should address.

And I don\'t want to take up too much of your time,

but let me just give you an anecdote.

I\'ve been doing a study, the Reading

Excellence Act Evaluation in Illinois where I\'m

working with the 40 lowest performing schools in

Illinois, and there\'s a principal who\'s very

interested in raising reading achievement in his

school. He\'s trying very hard. He has extra money

to do. And he said to me that the kids in third

grade do very badly on the state reading test.

That\'s the first year they\'re tested, third grade,

and they do perform very poorly.

So what he\'s done is he\'s taken all of

these extra resources and all his efforts and he\'s

put them in the third grade. So the third grade kids

get special tutoring in reading and the third grade

kids get a lot of extra stuff in order to improve

reading on the third grade test.

He\'s missing the point that there\'s a lot

of days before third grade. And maybe the end would

be better served if the accountability system went

all the way down to kindergarten.

So yes, IEP\'ing is too late. But IEP\'ing

is very powerful and it\'s a central part of special

education, so we got to figure out how it fits in.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: That was going to be

my follow up, which is that some people would say

even kindergarten is too late for many of our kids.

Are we approaching effectiveness really the zero to

five, monitoring the zero to five to see how or if,

for that matter, it connects to the K‑12 system and

could we do more there in your experience.

DR. DE STEFANO: I think the most

sophisticated approach to accountability that I\'ve

seen are really P‑16 in nature, from very early,

three to five year old to the first four years of

college, and having accountability measures and

benchmarks for that entire period.

So yes, I would say the earlier the

better. The reality is, you know, the reliability

and validity of assessment information at the very

early years is much more variable than K‑12. So we

also need to work on better ‑‑ we\'re not going to

just be able to extend the same accountability system

down. We have to think of what other good indicators

would be.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Coulter.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: No questions.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Governor Branstad.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: I\'ll pass.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Secretary Pasternak.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Thanks, Lizanne.

Let\'s do a couple of quick questions here. Is there

ever a reason in your opinion for a student with a

disability to be excluded from participation in

assessment?

DR. DE STEFANO: There are valid reasons.

In my opinion there are valid reasons for a student

to be excluded from the standard state assessment.

But there are not valid reasons for a student to be

excluded from representation in the accountability

system. So you may not be able to take the standard

state assessment, but there should be some mechanism

to represent your educational progress in the

accountability system.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: So are you

troubled, as I am, by the fact that the current

version of the IDEA talks about participation of

students with disabilities in state and district

mandated testing but does not mandate their

participation in accountability systems?

DR. DE STEFANO: Yes, I\'m very concerned

about that.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Would you

recommend that that\'s something that we consider in

the upcoming re‑authorization?

DR. DE STEFANO: I would. Because again,

I think there\'s no reason to put kids in a standard

state assessment if it is not going to give good

information about their performance. But you need to

then figure out what is a good way to get information

about their performance.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: I guess one of

the things, among many, that I\'m troubled by is there

seems to be a big disconnect between teachers

understanding that the kinds of accommodations in

assessment should be the same kinds of accommodations

that they were using in instruction. From your

higher ed perspective ‑‑ I know this is not the

personnel prep hearing; we\'ve already had that one.

But nonetheless, since it\'s such a critically

important issue, I just wonder if you\'d share with us

why you think that occurs and what are some

strategies that we might be able to look at to fix

that.

DR. DE STEFANO: I think for many teachers

who have been traditionally trained in special

education, they get a lot of information about

individual assessments of children and not very much

about large scale achievement type tests, which are

typically the tests used in accountability. And so I

think it\'s fairly new arena for many teachers to

think about what a student would need to participate

in a test and they have just not made the connection

between their instructional accommodations and

testing accommodations.

I agree that pre‑service programs could

make that connection stronger. But we also have a

tremendous need for professional development of

teachers who are practicing in the field to make that

connection as well. So I think that universities

play a role in pre‑service to give people information

about accountability and assessment and the role that

that plays, but there\'s an equal, if not greater,

continuing education need as well.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Do you see it as

a failure on the part of higher ed to train teachers

appropriately and understanding how to make the same

sorts of accommodations in instruction that one would

then want them to make in accommodations in

assessments?

DR. DE STEFANO: I think it should

certainly be a part of any high qualify professional

development program. But I also think that it\'s true

that when teachers enter the field sometimes the link

between instruction and assessment is not as clear in

their regular day to day practice as it should be as

well.

Another example that I didn\'t have time to

talk about today but you know, I\'m so tired of people

focusing on the test score when they talk about

accountability, rather than what it means in student

performance. So when a principal or superintendent

says to me I need to raise the test performance of my

third grade kids, I just want to scream because what

I think that person should be saying to me is I want

to raise the reading performance of my third grade

students.

So I think that our accountability systems

in general are focusing on the assessment and not

strongly making that link between instruction and

assessment. I think higher ed plays a role, but I

think the principals of the accountability systems

should say it\'s not just the test score, it\'s what

kids should know and be able to do.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Would you suggest

it\'s okay to teach to the test, though, if it\'s a

good test?

DR. DE STEFANO: I think that if it\'s a

really good test, it\'s okay to devote a significant

portion of instruction ‑‑ to let it guide a

significant portion of instruction. But I would have

to say that in my career, which began at age six, as

you know, I have not seen that many tests that are

worthy of being the focus of instruction. So I think

that ‑‑ and also for most of our accountability

systems we don\'t have good data about how well the

test actually represent the standards that it\'s

supposed to assess.

So I would say in general teaching to the

test is a bad idea. Although you should be cognizant

of what\'s on the test if you\'re going to prepare your

kids fairly to take the test.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: I see that I\'m

not going to get the five minutes from Commissioner

Coulter, nor the five minutes from Commissioner

Branstad. Nonetheless ‑‑

DR. DE STEFANO: Mr. Jones is a very

strict timekeeper, isn\'t he?

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: These guys are

brutal up here. It\'s the Chairman. Anyway, I just

would apologize for going over my time, but very

briefly. We won\'t have time to talk about it but I

am intrigued greatly by your comments about the NAEP.

And since there is a desire on the part of the

President to talk about allowing states flexibility

as long as the state assessments are benchmarked to

the NAEP, I would just appreciate you sharing your

thoughts. If you could send it to the Commission and

that way you could share it with me, that I could

then talk with folks at OERI and NCS about some of

your ideas, because I think they\'re very important

ideas.

DR. DE STEFANO: I\'m very worried about

the administration putting so much emphasis on NAEP

in accountability when it has this glaring flaw of

not really being an inclusive assessment.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Takemoto

will be the concluding questioner for the first

round. I do note that we will have an opportunity

for commissioners to have a second round of

questioning, so you can be preparing any additional

questions you may have. Commissioner Takemoto.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: I\'m intrigued by

what you talked about using technology as a way of

measuring achievement. Are you talking about things

like data mining? You\'re talking about multiple

measures, sophisticated analysis?

DR. DE STEFANO: Right. I\'m talking about

data systems that would be accessible to a classroom

teacher or even accessible to a parent that would

include information about classroom assessments, end

of unit assessments, district assessments,

attendance, homework, other things, that could be

easily manipulated and allow aggregating up from the

classroom ‑‑ from the individual student to the

classroom to the school to the district, to enable

people to look at patterns of student achievement and

to figure out what can we do differently to improve

these patterns of student achievement.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Does that go even

deeper into the analysis that this student seemed to

never understand word problems but can compute

terrifically, or would you be going up to a higher

level like ‑‑ I think what Marty was showing us was a

nice system that shows across the board, in a

classroom, in a school for just a single student, how

that student is progressing and what the needs are.

DR. DE STEFANO: I think ideally it would

do both of those things. It would go deeply for an

individual student but also allow for aggregation so

you could describe a classroom or school.

Our data base capacity has gotten

incredibly sophisticated in this country but we

haven\'t applied it very much I think to classrooms

and schools. While there can be marvelous and

incredibly intricate things happening within the

computer, what the teacher or the user of the data

base has to do can be very, very simple to get good

information. So I\'d like to see some of that

technology applied to accountability.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: You\'ve done lots

of different research across multiple ways, and you

also, in the area of technology and your last

recommendation about making sure that teachers are

trained to do something. You have the 20 hours of

instruction. Add that to the assessment and the IEP

meetings and everything else, there is not enough

time, not enough money to do some of this.

So do you have any ideas about expert

systems for training teachers in how to do

appropriate IEPs or some of the stuff that you\'re

teaching in the 20 hour training.

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, first of all, I

think that the kinds of changes that we\'re expecting

at the local level are going to require commitments

to professional development that we have really never

seen in America in education. So I report that 20

hour figure because that\'s a real number, and I think

we need to start thinking differently about how we\'re

going to support our teachers.

I think expert systems are one way to do

that, where teachers can actually learn on line,

learn asynchronously to do some of these things. But

again, that requires time as well to train people to

do that, to provide them with the technology. So

that\'s really only a part of the solution. And I

think a bigger challenge is re‑thinking our

professional development and continuing education

system to provide teachers with the information that

they need to be current and effective.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: I\'m going to go

ahead and let the next round go, and I\'ll come back.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Executive Director Todd

Jones.

COMMISSIONER JONES: I want to ask a

question about the role of superintendents and

administrators. You had talked about how systems

aren\'t being used in many cases. My question is do

you think ‑‑ the decision makers about whether to

implement those systems are the administrators and

superintendents. Is a lack of knowledge about how

useful these systems can be in improving learning or

is it an aversion to these system. To use an

example, the way you described the principal who

wanted to focus on improving the third grade

performance on the test or administrators who are

skeptical about a standards driven model for gauging

aggregate performance. To what extent do you see the

mix in those or are there other things that you would

say?

DR. DE STEFANO: I think a big thing in

the schools that I\'ve been visiting recently is the

principal\'s priority and commitment to improvement in

the schools. Some principals I sit down and talk to

tell me that they spend 60, 70 percent of their day

dealing with behavioral issues in that school, and

they see that as a very, very major role in what they

do.

So they\'re obviously conceiving their role

and how to best use their effort in a very different

way than as the instructional leader in that

particular school. So I think partly it\'s an issue

of leadership and redefining the principal\'s role and

getting people to buy into that role.

I also think it\'s a leap of faith. We

have not been very data driven in education in the

United States. So it\'s a leap of faith to think,

well, if I\'m going to collect data and do things in

response to that data, things are really going to get

better. And if you\'ve been to meetings where people

from successful school districts come and talk to

you, it\'s almost like an epiphany for them. Okay, we

said we were going to do; we did it; and oh my gosh,

things actually got better.

So part of it I think is changing people\'s

belief systems and attitudes that it will really work

if you commit to it and really collect data and

follow it. I don\'t think that that\'s been our mantra

in education.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Hassel,

second round.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: You mentioned the

need to change NAEP in various ways to make it a

meaningful benchmark in this area. In addition there

are also a lot of students taking alternate

assessments. Do you think there needs to be a NAEP‑

like assessment or some other sort of federal

benchmark created for those kind of assessments, that

states have to benchmark against or is that

unfeasible, what are your thoughts?

DR. DE STEFANO: I believe that such a

system is necessary. I think if NAEP is going to

reflect best practice then it should be an inclusive

assessment, and everybody should be able to

participate in the National Assessment of Educational

Progress.

It\'s hard for me to think of a rationale

to say, well, we have a national system, National

Assessment for Education Progress but it\'s really

only for these kids. So I think that some alternate

form of NAEP is probably necessary. That\'s not going

to be an easy thing. There\'s already groups of

people who have come together to talk about it, and

it hurts your head after you\'ve been in a room for a

while thinking about everything that such a system

would have to deal with. But I don\'t think that that

should mean we don\'t do it. I think we should think

about it and think about what such an assessment

could involve and how it could be responsibly carried

at the federal level.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Gordon.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you, Chairman.

You talked earlier about IEPs, how they would fit

into an accountability system. My sense is that they

are wildly variable in quality. Do we have a good way

of assessing on a large scale the quality of IEPs in

an efficient enough way to actually make it work?

DR. DE STEFANO: There have been a lot of

studies on IEPs, in looking at their quality in a

variety of areas. I don\'t think I\'ve read one that

says IEPs are really doing the job. I think everyone

agrees that the IEP process could be improved.

I think there\'s some very simple things

that we could do that would align the IEP process

better with assessment. One of the very most basic

has to deal with the time that IEPs are written. Very

often IEPs are written in the spring of one year by

the group of people who have had that student for

that year and then the student goes to the next grade

and that\'s the grade that assessment is being done

in. The team that made the assessment

recommendations is not the team that\'s implementing

them, not the one that really deals with the

assessment and so you have this kind of disconnect

there.

When we did our training we said, okay,

let\'s reconvene the IEP team in the fall and write

another IEP for the assessment and everyone said, oh,

my God, we can\'t do that. It\'s too much time, it\'s

too much effort. So I think there\'s just some basic

procedural things in the way that IEPs are done that

if they were changed could make it better.

Another thing that\'s very simple, we

reviewed 680 IEPs in Illinois, randomly chosen. On

none of the IEPs was state assessment presented.

There was not a scrap of state assessment data on any

of the IEPs. That indicates to me that people aren\'t

thinking about the state assessment in their IEP

planning.

So yes, I think there\'s some very basic

things that we could do that would help that

situation.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Second round,

Commissioner Coulter.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: I want to

compliment you on your testimony. You\'ve given us a

great deal of information. I think it goes beyond

even the areas which we initially asked you to

address.

As you look at the use of technology, I

think which you commented on, if I heard the

testimony correctly, that there have been appropriate

emphasis in terms of research and technology as it

relates to accommodations in instruction.

DR. DE STEFANO: And access, like closed

captioning, voice recognition, that kind of thing.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Right. Could you

comment just a little bit more ‑‑ I think this

follows up on Commissioner Takemoto\'s question about

how the use of technology could enable more kids with

disabilities to demonstrate what they know on state

assessments.

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, I think that if you

had a good classroom level data system where you were

routinely entering evidence of students\' progress

from classroom assessments and other things, and then

had a mechanism to summarize that for individual kids

or for the classroom, that could be in fact evidence

that you would use in an accountability system for

adequate yearly progress or portfolio assessment or

those kinds of things. I think that kind of evidence

would be as valid as an on‑demand assessment for

showing what kids know and be able to do in that

classroom.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: I think our only ‑‑

would be that it\'s aggregating that kind of data up

and making it comparable to other students, but I

think it\'s troubling.

DR. DE STEFANO: If I could just respond to

that. I think that what you need there is some

really clear idea of what curriculum is and

standards. So you can aggregate it up in relation to

the standards and then you could report to the

standards. Kids can have two different ways of

achieving the same standard but if you\'re aggregating

it, does the kid know how to do that standard, then

comparability isn\'t really an issue.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Second round, Governor

Branstad.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Yes. I want to follow

up a little bit more on your comments about NAEP and

how you think NAEP needs to be changed in order to

better accommodate children with disabilities.

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, one thing is I

think that we need to up the research and development

that\'s being done on NAEP to figure out how we can

preserve some of the really important things about

NAEP. I think the longitudinal data and the trends

are a great thing. How we can preserve that but

still allow more kids to take NAEP. So I would think

about some studies that really documented what are

the effects of having students with disabilities

participate in NAEP with accommodations, without

accommodations, and come up with some clear cut

policies about inclusion and exclusion, who should

really participate.

There have been some studies that have

been done, but they\'ve been very small and they

haven\'t really been substantial enough to really

serve as a basis for policy. So I think you need to

rachet up the R&D for that.

The second thing is I think then there

needs to be an alternate to NAEP that would allow

kids who we would not even expect to participate in

the standard state assessment, to be reflected in a

measure of national educational progress. So I think

the work needs to begin to develop some kind of

alternate assessment for NAEP. And then I think NAEP

needs to be accountable. If it\'s going to be the

benchmark for all of these other things, it better

have students with disabilities in it. So I think

NAEP needs to be held accountable for the percentage

of students with disabilities and English language

learners who participate.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Do a lot of states use

just a sampling on the NAEP? I think in this state

we have not had all students take the NAEP; we\'ve

just had a sampling of students take the NAEP.

DR. DE STEFANO: Right, but the samples

should be reflective of all students.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Right now it\'s not of

kids with disabilities.

DR. DE STEFANO: Or English language

learners, yes.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Secretary Pasternak,

second round.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Can you give us

some thoughts about how we can get the test companies

to incorporate principles of universal design in

designing their assessments?

DR. DE STEFANO: I think put it into the

legislation and, you know, one of the things about

Reading First is they say, here\'s what assessments

have to have in order to be valid for Reading First.

Here\'s what your assessment system has to look like.

And I think putting principles of universal design

into that list of requirements for an assessment

system or requirements for an accountability system,

publishers are very interested in what Reading First

says. They\'re very interested in having their

products endorsed as being appropriate for that.

That\'s very powerful. And I think that will be a big

leverage.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Do you think ‑‑

because my crystal ball is in the shop ‑‑ do you

think that as we increase our emphasis on high stakes

testing, kind of take the discussion in a different

direction for just a second, that we will see more

kids referred for possible placement in special

education?

DR. DE STEFANO: I might be naive about

this, but I think that scenario has sort of come and

gone. I think that the fact that referral to special

education is such a prominent indicator in a lot of

accountability systems that if that is going up,

there\'s a problem. I don\'t see that. It could

always happen, but I\'m not as worried about that as I

was four or five years ago when I thought that that

might be a problem.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Let\'s talk for a

second about progress monitoring that you mentioned

earlier. Why do you think there\'s been such a

failure to scale up progress monitoring across

special education in the country, and what do you

think we might be able to do about that?

DR. DE STEFANO: What do you mean by

progress monitoring?

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: You were talking

earlier about IEPs and monitoring the progress that

kids make. I think one of the challenges for us is

to look at AYP for kids with disabilities because I

think unfortunately we haven\'t really expected kids

with disabilities to make the kinds of progress that

we should. That\'s philosophical. So I guess the

question is we know that progress monitoring works,

we know how powerful the technology is. It\'s been

around for a very long time. We keep hearing around

the country that there hasn\'t been sort of scaling up

of progress monitoring.

DR. DE STEFANO: I think teachers and

principals are getting mixed messages. They have the

IEP, which is supposed to be the cornerstone of

special education, it\'s supposed to really drive the

process. But really, it\'s not a very useful document.

Because of lots of problems, one of them being that

it\'s really not outcomes oriented, it\'s very hard to

use the IEP as an accountability document. If you\'ve

been a teacher and you\'ve tried to do it, it really

is a hard process to do.

Sometimes, as we said, with the timing you

inherit an IEP that was written by somebody else,

that you\'re going to do different things with that

kid. So I think that special education has tended to

rely on the IEP as its accountability system and it

really doesn\'t fit the purposes of the new

accountability system that we\'re seeing.

I think maybe one of the reasons we\'re

behind is they\'ve sort of taken comfort in, well, we

have this IEP so we\'re accountable, when really

they\'re being asked to do different things.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: I see my time is

up here, but based on what you said earlier and in

response to a question I asked a different panel,

would you be in favor of us having a national

alternate assessment?

DR. DE STEFANO: Yes.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: What would that

alternate assessment look like?

DR. DE STEFANO: I have no idea.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Well, you got a

minute.

DR. DE STEFANO: But I\'d be willing to

think about it. We\'ve had some preliminary

discussion, and I think a good place to start is to

take the NAEP frame works, because they are pretty

commonly accepted, valid frame works, the content

frame works in NAEP, and see how they could be ‑‑ how

they could play out for the population of kids who

would be taking an alternate assessment and then try

to figure out what would be valid representations of

student performance to meet those modified frame

works.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: I think there are

lots of issues for us to think about in

conceptualizing that. For example, kids with autism

apparently do better with reality based text, non‑

fiction than they do with fiction. So when we talk

about universal design, then I think people like us

would be able to sit around and say we ought to have

items ‑‑ less non‑fiction ‑‑ I mean more non‑fiction

items and less fiction items as a way of

accommodating the needs of kids with autism.

DR. DE STEFANO: Or student choice as a

way of accommodating that.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Yes. Thank you

very much.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Without objection,

we\'ll hold the hearing record open for 30 days, if

you could prepare an additional response on that

point. I think it would be very helpful to us.

DR. DE STEFANO: Great.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: And for the final

question, Commissioner Takemoto, second round.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: You\'ve danced

around this and I\'d like for you to just give us

something more specific. IEP is not ‑‑ even though

the law says it needs to be measurable, you know,

progress, benchmarks, all those other things, in

practice it\'s not necessarily doing that.

DR. DE STEFANO: That is correct.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Would you

recommend as an alternative to IEP some of the multi

variant performance data so if the child is making

yearly progress or annual progress you would not

necessarily need an IEP?

DR. DE STEFANO: What I would like to see

if I would like to see multiple measures of student

performance integrated into the IEP as a way of

checking to see whether students were making adequate

yearly progress. Right now, what is typically done

is the goals that are stated on the IEP are ‑‑ okay,

did they achieve that goal, did they not achieve that

goal? Well, if you read IEPs, they don\'t cover

everything that a student does in their educational

program. Often you can\'t figure out what they cover.

You read an IEP and you look at a student and you

think, how do these two things match up?

So I would like to take it beyond the

goals that are on the IEP and in the present level of

educational performance, talk about that child\'s

performance in relation to the educational standards

of that state and make a judgment about present level

of performance broadly, not just related to the

specific goals of the IEP.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Then how do you

measure performance? For instance, a child taking a

test in eighth grade gets a 30 percent. They take

that same ‑‑ they take a different test in ninth

grade, they get a 30 percent. They take a different

test in tenth grade, they get a 20 percent, 20th

percentile. The target is moving up all the time, so

is staying at 30 percent progress, is dropping down

to 20 percent lack of progress, because of the

different ways that kids learn. Can you speak to

that a little bit?

DR. DE STEFANO: I think it\'s hard to

speak ‑‑ I don\'t mean to be dancing, but I think it\'s

hard to speak in generalities about that, because

obviously if a kid\'s performance declines, there can

be lots of reasons for that. Perhaps there\'s a

medical reason, a physical reason, an emotional

reason and so on. So I think the best group of

people to interpret student performance and say

whether or not it\'s a decline, whether it\'s to be

expected, whether they\'re making adequate progress is

the IEP team and the parent as an active member of

that IEP team.

But that team has to be also incorporating

benchmarks to say, okay, we think that it\'s adequate

yearly progress, but here\'s compared to external

standards, and here\'s why we think that difference is

a valid one or here\'s how we explain that difference.

So it\'s a combination of data on student performance,

a well trained IEP team who knows what their job is

and some external benchmarks to sort of frame the

analysis of is this adequate or isn\'t this adequate.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: And that takes

teacher prep?

DR. DE STEFANO: It takes a good

accountability system that you can figure out. It

takes teacher preparation and it takes data.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: And moving beyond

the reason that your child isn\'t progressing is he

has a disability, to really figuring out what\'s going

on here. And I don\'t know that that\'s the way IEPs

are currently structured, really gets at what\'s going

on behind this.

DR. DE STEFANO: Right.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: But again that

takes a lot more work. Are there ways that we can do

it smarter so it\'s not adding thousands of hours onto

what teachers are already doing?

DR. DE STEFANO: Well, I guess maybe

changing the focus of the IEP, not from assessing

whether they\'ve achieved the individual goals and

objectives that are stated on the IEP because we know

that those aren\'t comprehensive. But requiring that

they address in the IEP team the broader issue of how

is this particular student meeting the goals of the

general curriculum or the goals for that state or

learning standards or whatever the big picture is,

and having that be part of the IEP. That\'s why I

think we\'re missing the accountability loop.

Before there was alternate assessment,

you\'d go into a state and you\'d say, okay, how are

you assessing the kids who aren\'t participating in

the traditional assessment? They\'d say, well, IEP

progress. And you\'d say, well, are you assessing IEP

progress? And they\'d say, well, we don\'t really know.

So that\'s why I think we\'re missing the

boat there and that\'s how I think IEPs can be

improved.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: That would be I think

a fair challenge to the Commission to sum up the

morning.

DR. DE STEFANO: Why don\'t you just do

that?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: That would be our

challenge. Dr. DeStefano, we very much appreciate

both your testimony and the testimony of all of our

witnesses this morning.

We will now recess for one hour for lunch

and reconvene at 1:00.

19

(Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., a

21

luncheon recess was had.)

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Proceed to your seats

and the hearing will come to order. The afternoon

session of the Task Force on Accountability Systems

of the Commission on Special Education is hereby

convened.

Our next panel is entitled Accountability

Systems for Assuring Proper Use of Alternate

Assessments. To introduce our witnesses, Governor

Terry Branstad.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much,

Steve. The first witness will be Paul Marchand,

Assistant Executive Director for Policy and Advocacy,

and he heads the National Governmental Affairs Office

for The ARC of the United States, formerly the

Association for Retarded Citizens of the United

States.

The ARC\'s Government Affairs Office

assists federal agencies and the U.S. Congress in

formulating programs and benefits for individuals.

He\'s a graduate of Fitchburg Massachusetts State

College where he majored in special education. He

recently received his college\'s distinguished alumni

award.

Martha Thurlow is the Director of the

National Center on Educational Outcomes at the

University of Minnesota. In this position she

addresses the implications of contemporary U.S.

policy and practice for students with disabilities

including national and statewide assessment policies

and practices, standard setting efforts and

graduation requirements.

Daniel Wiener is the assessment

coordinator for the Special Populations with the

Massachusetts Department of Education where he

coordinates development and implementation of

statewide alternative assessment for students with

significant disabilities. He\'s a graduate of Clark

University where he studied education.

Paul, are you going to go first?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Do any of you require

additional time?

MR. MARCHAND: Mr. Chairman, I\'m looking at

that metal bell and the last thing I want is another

thing to set off the alarm so that my luggage gets

checked. So I\'m hoping to violate all the rules so I

don\'t get the bell. Hopefully we\'ll try to get it

all in, in ten minutes.

I thank the task force very much for this

opportunity. I will make a few opening comments and

then summarize my recommendations into one conclusion

in my written statement. I do this representing The

ARC, but I would say that most of the viewpoints that

I will be talking about are shared by many of the

Washington based consortium of Citizens with

Disabilities Education Task Force.

The legislative history and actual

practice recognizes that a very small proportion of

special education students should be considered

candidates for alternative assessments. And that a

high proportion of such students would be those with

more severe levels of mental retardation and other

cognitive impairments.

I would remind us all of the strong

linkage between alternative assessments, the IEP,

access to general curriculum, high school graduation

and ultimately to employment, economic independence

and a successful productive adult life for students

with disabilities.

For too many students today school

districts are not successful in preparing them for

successful adult life. And we\'ve heard today many of

those key indicators; high drop‑out rates, low

graduation rates, transition from school into

nothing, and a 70 percent national unemployment rate

for people with disabilities.

While we recognize the schools and

educators are not solely responsible for these

negative outcomes there is clearly much room for

improvement in our nation\'s schools. Parents and

students themselves want and deserve better results.

I say this not to criticize the statutory

construction of IDEA but to call for improved

implementation. The ARC is concerned with the entire

life span of people with mental retardation. We know

from our extensive work on Social Security, Medicaid,

Medicare, vocational rehabilitation and other job

training programs that success in special ed can mean

the difference between dependence and independence

with huge costs to taxpayers and the loss of human

potential when things don\'t go right.

For example, today our nation saves about

three and a half million dollars per child in

preventing institutionalization over the life of an

individual, even after we subtract the cost of

special education. Pre‑public law 94‑142, there are

almost 60,000 school aged children living in

institutions for people with mental retardation.

Today there are fewer than 3,000 such children. This

may be an unintended consequence of IDEA but what a

terrific outcome for the children and for the

taxpayers.

Given the continued challenges for success

that all students with disabilities face it is

paramount that IDEA succeed and that all students

succeed. We believe the measurement of students\'

outcomes for all students through appropriate

assessment instruments is a most important component

in that outcome determination.

Now, I\'d like to summarize six

recommendations and my single conclusion in regards

to accountability and alternative assessments.

Number one, alternative assessments are

relatively new, the tools themselves, the decision

making process on who they apply to and everything

else surrounding them are fairly new science.

Parents, teachers, administrators need to learn more

about these assessments. The federal government must

deploy more and better guidance, training, technical

assistance and best practice dissemination if fair

and prompt implementation is to be realized.

Number two, within desired flexibility

major inconsistencies among states and schools that

we have today such as minority over‑representation,

application of discipline procedures and the over‑

utilization of segregated environments must be

avoided in the use of alternative assessments, now

and in the future. Again, the federal government can

be of great help to prevent this with appropriate

intervention, with effective data collection and

interpretation, training, technical assistance and

best practice dissemination.

Three, the potential overuse of

alternative assessments likely the result of low

expectations or the lack of access to the general

curriculum must also be avoided. We believe that no

more than two percent of all children with

disabilities should receive alternative assessments.

And preliminary reports from OSEP indicate that SEAs

and LEAs are on a good path here, but scrutiny and

intervention will likely be needed in places where

two percent goal is exceeded.

The next, to assure appropriate decision

making on the use of alternative assessments it is

vital that parents, students and teachers are trained

since they will be the key decision makers as part of

the IEP team. For the vast majority of parents this

will be new territory and they deserve the

opportunity to learn about the tests, how they are

applied and the potential ramifications of their

decisions. Again the federal government must create

and help finance training initiatives.

Next, there are important inter‑

relationships between the alternative assessments,

access to the general curriculum, academic and

functional achievement and post‑school outcomes.

We\'ve heard a lot about that all day. As the federal

government analyzes via data and other means how

alternative assessments are working, they should also

review these inter‑relationships to obtain a better

global picture regarding the ultimate outcomes.

The final IDEA regulations on alternative

assessments are minimally prescriptive and give

states great flexibility. The federal government

should carefully assess the overall application of

alternative assessments on outcomes and provide more

guidance where necessary, given the minimally

prescriptive regs.

Finally, beginning in July, 2000 states

are required to report data collection under use of

alternative assessments. Early indications are that

some states are well ahead of others in meeting this

requirement. Now that we\'re in 2003, what is the

federal government\'s response for those states who

are well behind? As you may have deduced from my

recommendations, none of them point to the need for a

statutory change in IDEA. Instead they all point to

a better and expanded arsenal of guidance, training,

technical assistance, dissemination to states and

LEAs, educators and parents from the Department of

Education.

I\'m sorry that Dr. Pasternak is here

because my final statement says thus: ‑‑ and OSEP

leaders should consider these recommendations as

their homework assignment for the coming year in

regards to alternative assessments. Thank you for

the opportunity.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Paul. Dr.

Thurlow.

DR. THURLOW: Thank you. Can you hear me

okay?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Closer.

DR. THURLOW: Really close. All right.

Thank you. I\'d like to address you from the

perspective of what I\'ve learned over the past decade

working at the National Center on Educational

Outcomes. It\'s a federally funded project, OSEP

funded, to look at issues surrounding outcomes for

students with disabilities and most recently, really

focusing on assessments for those students. And I

want to speak primarily now about the alternate

assessment and other alternatives for including all

students in assessment and accountability primarily.

We\'ve been looking at the inclusion of

students with disabilities in assessment and

accountability systems now for more than a decade and

I think the progress that has been made is really

striking. For those students in the regular

assessment system, pretty much states have figured

out how to provide accommodations, how to begin to

adjust instructions so that students do have access

to the general curriculum and can succeed both in

standards based instruction and in standards based

assessments. We\'re clearly not there everywhere and

not for every student, but the progress really is

dramatic I think.

The dramatic changes I believe are

directly attributable to IDEA \'97 and the requirement

that students with disabilities be included in state

and district‑wide assessments. The IDEA requirement

that states and districts develop alternate

assessments for those students unable to participate

in regular assessments has been a greater challenge

for many states, probably for the majority of states.

The fact that it is a challenge doesn\'t mean that it

cannot be done. Requiring that alternate assessments

be part of states\' accountability systems I believe

is going to help insure that the same dramatic

progress that we\'re seeing for other students with

disabilities also is going to occur for those

students with the most challenging and complex needs

in our educational systems.

Questions that NCEO often hears are ones

like aren\'t alternate assessment students working on

different standards; how can alternate assessment

students be considered proficient; how can you

aggregate the scores of alternate assessments

students with the scores of other students?

I\'ve provided the Commission with a paper

that is very long, because it addresses more than

just alternate assessment. I did that because all

aspects of the assessment system and the

accountability system are linked to each other. If

you talk about alternate assessments and you don\'t

also address what\'s going on in terms of

accommodations you\'re not going to get the whole

picture. So when something is done to one part,

something bulges in another part. So the paper that

I\'ve given you is long and comprehensive. And today

I only want to talk about the alternate assessment.

I\'d like to focus on why it is important

that IDEA include a requirement that alternate

assessments be included in state accountability

systems, a requirement that would be consistent with

the requirements now in No Child Left Behind.

Second, I want to comment on the

importance of allowing states the opportunity to have

their alternate assessments evolve through the

typical assessment development process that states

have used for their regular assessments, so that

alternate assessments can make it possible to

document improvement in performance for the students

who are in the alternate assessment, those students

with significant disabilities.

And then finally, I\'m going to urge that

the array of alternatives be limited so that states

really can align the regular assessment and the

alternate assessment to standards and not shuttle

students into non‑standards based assessments.

So my first recommendation is that states

include ‑‑ there be a requirement that states include

all students with disabilities in accountability

systems regardless of the way in which they

participate in the assessment system. I think

research is confirming that assessments can help

drive improvements in standards based instruction,

particularly for those students who previously have

been left out. So we now have students being included

and as a result their instruction is improving.

Alternate assessments, when they\'ve been

carefully developed can serve the same function for

driving improvements in instruction for students with

significant disabilities. For this to happen we have

to recognize the challenges of low expectations for

students with disabilities, we have to support

educators\' skills in providing instruction to

students with disabilities and we have to insure that

alternate assessment developers have aligned their

alternate assessments to state standards. I don\'t

think that\'s happening everywhere at this point.

That\'s an important piece.

All states have been working in some way

to develop their alternate assessments. NCEO,

National Center of Educational Outcomes has been

documenting what\'s been happening. We see that most

states are using a body of evidence approach

collected by educators, parents and the student to

demonstrate and document the student\'s skill and

growth toward those state standards.

Sometimes the alternate assessments also

incorporate characteristics of the educational

support that the student is getting. In states I

believe that have figured out how to align to

standards and have carefully thought through who

really needs to be in the alternate assessment, we

are seeing that there are fewer than two percent of

the total population in the alternate assessment.

This translates to about 20 percent of the students

with disabilities.

However, we see in some other states that

have chosen different kinds of approaches, that

perhaps haven\'t aligned to their standards, that 40

percent or more of their students with disabilities

have been designated for participation in the

alternate assessment. Some of these states have a

two prong approach to their alternate assessment, one

prong for students with significant complex

disabilities, the other prong for students who are

functioning not on grade level. Alternatives for

students not functioning on grade level are likely to

result in negative instructional consequences for

those students I believe.

To the extent that states develop clear

guidelines for who should participate in the

alternate assessment and to the extent that those

guidelines define a group of students with

significant complex disabilities, then it is possible

to hold alternate assessment students to high

standards and to document how they can reach

proficient status.

Many states are finding that as they

implement their alternate assessments significant

benefits are accruing to those students who are being

assessed and to their teachers. If a decision was

made for some reason not to include the alternate

assessment in the accountability system, it is likely

that the number of students pushed into that system

would increase. It\'s also likely that the

significant positive benefits of assessments on

instruction for those students would not be realized.

Second recommendation: allow those

alternate assessments to evolve through the typical

assessment development process. I think that there

are many states now that have really followed that

process, so that they think very carefully about what

the standards are, that they go through a process of

scoring portfolios if that\'s the approach that they

use, that they do standard setting in the same manner

that standards are set for regular assessments, that

in those cases of thoughtful processes resulted in an

alternate assessment that truly does identify

standards for students with the most significant and

complex disabilities and that can assess whether

students are proficient or not. Many states,

Massachusetts is one example, and we\'re lucky to have

Dan here today to explain in more detail what that

means.

Third recommendation: limit the array of

alternate assessments so that states do not shuttle

students into non‑standards based assessments. I

think this is the easy way out and that there are

some states that have jumped on easy avenues to

saying they\'re including all students, but not

keeping those students on that standards based avenue

to really be able to move towards standards and to

have their instruction improved in the end. I think

that out of level testing is one of those that I

worry about. Off the shelf individualized

assessments is an avenue for an alternate assessment

is another one that I worry about.

Let me conclude by saying that as we

consider the re‑authorization of IDEA it\'s critical

that we stay the course in the requirements for

students with disabilities to participate in

assessments, and part of that I think we need to add

that we need to have accountability for all students

and that really means all students, students in the

regular assessments, students using accommodations,

students in the alternate assessment.

With that, I\'ll end.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Dan.

MR. WIENER: It\'s a distinction to be the

last person to address the Commission for today.

I\'ll do the best I can. I would like to shift down

below, though, and show you some overheads, if I

could.

I\'m going to echo much of what you\'ve

heard today and I\'m going to share with you how, in

Massachusetts, we have put the requirements of IDEA

\'97 into place in terms of assessing those students

with the most difficult to assess and who typically

have been left out assessment systems previously. And

I\'ll begin by stating my recommendations, because I

believe that\'s what you asked me to do first.

We believe in Massachusetts that it\'s

important to include all students in the assessment

and accountability systems that we\'ve set up. Right

now 95 to 99 percent of all students with

disabilities are participating in assessments. All

of those are included in our accountability index.

We don\'t believe there is any excuse for not

including a student with a disability except perhaps

for a medical excuse on the day of the test or for a

student who misses a significant portion of their

instruction due to illness. Otherwise, our goal is

to include 100 percent of all of these students.

We also believe that we want to continue

the push to mandate the provision of all necessary

test accommodations. We in Massachusetts offer a full

range of those accommodations including some non‑

standard accommodations and fully aggregate these

results into all of our reports. And continue to

provide the requirement to include alternate

assessment as part of that system. In terms of the

success that we\'ve enjoyed in Massachusetts, I can

say that the federal requirement was instrumental in

leading to these efforts and these results.

It\'s important to include students with

significant disabilities in the assessment because

their educational needs matter as well. We currently

assess in our alternate assessment one percent of our

assessed population, of the general population of

students in alternate assessments. We know that when

those students participate and the results are

counted, they get the goods. They get the resources

that normally would have been sent to students who

were contributing to the overall score of a school.

So now these students count. They\'re starting to get

video cameras, money for field trips and other

resources, texts, manipulatives, etcetera that they

were heretofore denied because it wasn\'t even seen as

an essential part of their instruction.

We believe that as our curriculum frame

works document indicates, standards are valued in

outcomes for all students. All means all and it\'s a

state\'s responsibility to figure out what that means

in terms of its students who are significantly

disabled. We also feel that if we think that all

students can learn, and we do, that we need to

document how that\'s occurring. We need to provide

challenging instruction for those students based on

standards that allows them to show progress and

improvement, and starting with the requirement to

assess those students after July 1st, 2000 we\'ve

begun to do that.

But there are a number of steps that

states need to undertake before this can truly begin

to work. What we believe that states have had to do

and what we in Massachusetts did, as soon as we heard

about the new requirement for alternate assessment,

is think about who these students should be. Are we

talking about 20 percent of our students? Are we

talking about five percent? Are we talking about

those students who absolutely without a doubt, even

given accommodations can\'t participate in an

assessment?

These should be promoted as guidelines

rather than requirements or criteria and we\'ve indeed

given IEP teams these guidelines for their decision

making. We also needed to discuss what approach would

allow these students to demonstrate their learning,

their achievement and performance in the most varied

way possible.

We also think we need to define what it

means to have access to the general curriculum. It\'s

not enough to say access to the general curriculum.

It sounds like a platitude, a mantra without much

substance to it. We did the hard work I believe in

teasing out our learning standards along a continuum

of learning. If we can get the machine to work, I\'ll

be happy to show you what that might look like. But

I believe the Commission has a copy of our overheads,

so I\'ll continue to follow along with those as we

move through the presentation.

We\'ve gotten good advice from our

statewide Advisory Committee and our contractor. We

work with an excellent contractor by the name of

Measured Progress which is formally known as Advanced

Systems. They were among the first assessment

contractors to delve into the arena of alternate

assessment. They\'ve helped us greatly, wonderful to

work with.

We also now have a network of teachers who

are beginning to give us good feedback on our system,

on our scoring guidelines, telling us what works.

We\'ve given them a lot of responsibility to help us

and they\'ve responded well. They\'ve really been an

incredible group to work with, and I believe that

they have seen that the department is willing to

listen to what we have to say to them. So this is an

important relationship, this three‑way relationship

that all feeds into the middle. We\'re the managers

of the alternate assessment. We listen and take and

carefully review all the advice that these entities

present us with.

We\'ve had to come up with guidelines for

teams to understand who the kids are who must take an

alternate assessment or at least who should be

considered for alternate assessment. What you see up

here is more or less the classic definition of a

student with a moderate to severe cognitive

impairment who has substantial modifications to their

instruction and the level and content of that

instruction, and whose instruction typically is

intensive and individualized. They\'re not students

for whom you get good information on a paper and

pencil test. That\'s not the typical way you\'d assess

a student like this.

But we understand, and thanks to some

guidelines, put forth in IDEA \'97 originally, we were

thinking about students who might require alternate

assessments who weren\'t necessarily cognitively

impaired. And we know for a fact now that there are

a number of students, a small number of those, who

are alternately assessed who present unique and

significant challenges to their testing. Those

challenges can\'t be overcome through the use of

accommodations. Those students also should be able

to take an alternate assessment. They\'re students who

have Cerebral Palsy, they\'re students who are

behaviorally impaired, they\'re students who are

medically fragile and other students for whom taking

a standard assessment would take more time, more

effort and would put them at risk more than is

absolutely necessary. So we have two kind of groups

of alternate assessments that we\'re looking at. They

all are based on a portfolio that looks something

like this.

We have some required forms, but the bulk

of the portfolio is evidence, either in the form of

work samples, data charts or video tape or some

combination of those that show us evidence of a

student\'s level of performance in three areas called

strands in each subject.

This is one of the most rigorous alternate

assessments in the country we believe, but it

absolutely was designed to parallel as much as

possible the standard assessment. We had to figure

out a way to score a portfolio and came up with

several scoring criteria that we believe can be

applied universally. A universal rubric has to be

flexible and broad and generally stated, but we have

been able to come up with a way to do this.

We looked at portfolios in terms of how

difficult or complex the material is, how accurate

the student\'s response was, how independently they

gave that response, whether they are making choices

and self‑evaluating, reflecting on their performance

and the number of ways and times and places and

adults with which they apply these skills, the number

of different settings and learning environments in

which this occurs.

We\'ve also thought carefully and long and

hard and done some very exhaustive work on access to

the general curriculum, what that means. We\'ve

looked at our standards. We\'ve tried to tease out

the essence of each standard, what is the big idea,

the core content, the key concepts in each standard.

We\'ve teased them out along a range of what we call

entry points, low, medium and high complexity and

then the standard as written. We did that with

panels of educators who work together to do this for

every single learning standard in the assessed

subjects. And then we give this information to

schools and to IEP teams to set challenging goals for

each student.

This is what a standard for algebra looks

like. The grade seven and eight learning standard

for algebra is to solve simple algebraic expressions

for given values. We know that the essence of this

standard is to use symbolic representation for

unknowns and variables, to determine what those

variables are and to simply algebraic expressions.

So using a model such as this, where you start with

the standard as written and move successively

downward in complexity, the point is to find, to

identify challenging, achievable, meaningful and

measurable outcomes for each student that relates to

the standard as written.

This is what we think has helped us get

where we are now. We have good leadership at the

department that puts out a uniform message. We\'ve

got the contractor. We\'ve done extensive

professional development and we support our teachers.

It\'s critical that teachers feel supported. We come

at them with a brownie, not a stick. We help them

get where they are by rewarding good practice and

giving them incentives, not sanctions. And obviously

good communication.

I\'m on my next to last slide here.

Conclusions that we draw right now from this are

that, as Paul said, this is brand new. We have one

year of good data. We\'re not even sure how great the

data is but what we know from this data that we do

have is that teachers spent the first year primarily

learning the process. We\'re not certain that the

data we have actually reflects student performance

and achievement yet. We\'re getting there. We\'re set

up to do it. We need to make certain that teachers

know what they\'re doing so that we can ascertain this

a little bit better.

But early evidence suggests that this is

leading to better teaching. Teachers understand the

standards and how to adapt for their students.

They\'ve got much higher expectations for their

students than they had before. We\'ve seen some

unanticipated gains on an anecdotal basis primarily,

and that teachers are beginning to use the results of

the alternate to set challenging goals for their

students.

And I will end with a quote that is fairly

typical, although it doesn\'t reflect every teacher in

Massachusetts. A middle school teacher, special

education teacher working with this population said:

\"At first I thought standards made no sense for my

students because they were so disabled. After

learning about entry points, which is the way we

access our standards along the continuum, I realized

all my student could participate meaningfully in

standard based instruction. Now I\'m raising the bar,

setting challenging outcomes for them and they\'re

meeting higher expectations and I\'m seeing their

unanticipated gains that I never thought possible.\"

So I think this is good testimony from the field.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Takemoto

for the first question, and Commissioner Coulter will

be second.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Thank you to the

whole panel for speaking to students who may not be a

part of the regular accountability systems, but

giving us ‑‑ I\'m sorry. I\'m looking at Martha. ‑‑

the way that they are designed now, but giving us

ways of bringing them into that whole statewide

accountability system.

Dan, you\'re talking about this as being

your first year of really implementing this new

approach.

MR. WIENER: This is our second year. We

have one year of data. We\'re in our second year. We

also had a field test where we were refining the

process. So we\'ve been living and breathing alternate

assessment in Massachusetts for about three years

now, both one year of statewide data.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Previous speakers

talked about not requiring people to do things, turn

on a dime. We\'ve had five years since IDEA \'97.

Martha, how much longer is it going to take states to

make their accountability systems more ‑‑ a part of

the statewide accountability for alternate

assessment?

DR. THURLOW: There\'s not a simple answer

to that question because states are in such different

places. There\'s a handful of states who could do it

right now I think.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Who are doing it

right now.

DR. THURLOW: Who are doing it right now.

And there are other states that are probably sort of

holding off saying, well, maybe this will go away,

typical kinds of responses. So we have the whole

range of progress in terms of meeting what IDEA \'97

required, just the same way as when we think back to

ESEA in \'94 and what it required. Not all states got

there right away.

How long is it going to take? I think it

will go quicker if we have some strong requirements

that all kids must be accounted for in the

accountability system. That\'s going to help. And

then as others before us have talked about, actually

putting some benchmarks along the way and having some

consequences would help, too.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: What are the

biggest stumbling blocks ‑‑ what\'s in the way of

doing tomorrow?

DR. THURLOW: My opinion, the first

stumbling block is an attitude in low expectation,

not believing that all kids really can learn. So

that\'s a huge stumbling block.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Can you legislate

attitudes?

DR. THURLOW: You can\'t legislate

attitudes, but what you can do is make sure that the

places that are doing it, that information gets out

there so the people do see it can be done. Every

time I speak to audiences about expectations for

kids, somebody always either during the presentation

or afterwards comes up and says, you know, that\'s

where I was. It wasn\'t until I had to do it that I

realized that these kids could do it. I was shocked

how well they did. So it\'s part of getting beyond

that by having to do it I think.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: So just having

people have to do it. What are the carrots? I\'ve

heard a lot about sanctions. What are the incentives

for anybody on the panel?

MR. WIENER: For us the key has been

teachers, as I said. We identify and reward good

practice. We\'ve created a teacher network of folks

who helped us score last year. We\'ve looked at what

they\'ve done. We\'ve told them that\'s great, can you

help train other teachers to do what you do? And

we\'ve trained them to be trainers. We now have ‑‑ I

started this doing it myself out of a cubicle and now

I have 150 teachers doing the work with me and for

me, which has been wonderful.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: With compensation?

MR. WIENER: Sometimes there\'s

compensation involved, but typically it\'s in the form

of reimbursements from our contractor to the school

for the substitute that has to take the place of the

teacher who\'s going out to train. There are a number

of ways in which you just ‑‑ you listen to teachers.

You don\'t tell them what they have to do. You kind

of treat them respectfully and professionally. And I

guess I agree with the conclusion that teachers will

probably do anything you ask them to do if you ask

nicely. That\'s not silly. That\'s absolutely true.

I\'ve been impressed and surprised at the degree to

which most teachers, not all, have embraced this in

the spirit of innovation and novelty and ways to make

them better professionals. Certainly our resource

guide to the frame works has shown them new

activities, new approaches. They\'ve appreciated

that. They\'ve contributed to it. They\'re telling us

it\'s working. They\'re telling us what we need to do

to make it even better. That for me has been the

absolute key.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Thanks.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Coulter.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Well, I think it\'s

really important if we could kind of clear up some

terms. I\'m a little confused. It could be because I

had too heavy a lunch or whatever. So I want to do

is I want to ask the three of you to see if we can

get some agreement between the three of you.

Paul, you mentioned that you felt as

though two percent of all children with disabilities

should be involved in the alternate assessment.

Martha, I thought I heard you say that states that

seem to be far along and making good progress have

about 20 percent of all kids with disabilities in

alternate assessment. And Daniel, I thought I heard

you say that approximately one percent of kids with

disabilities ‑‑ one percent of all kids, which gets

us at a different metric ‑‑ in Massachusetts actually

participate in alternate assessment.

So folks, what ought to ‑‑ Martha, I know

you\'re telling me what is. What ought to be the

percent of kids with disabilities involved in

alternate assessment? I\'d like to hear three

answers, hopefully all the same number, but we\'ll

see.

DR. THURLOW: I would base my what ought to

be on data. So I think that we\'ve seen in those

states that have very carefully defined who should be

in the alternate assessment, and they\'ve defined that

relatively narrowly. It\'s not an assessment for

everybody. It really is for a relatively small group

of students. In those states we have seen

percentages of the total population ‑‑ total

population of students ranging from .6 percent up to

maybe two percent. That\'s the high end. I would say

two percent is the high end.

I translate that into a percentage of

students with disabilities, using a rough translation

of if there\'s about ten percent of the kids have

disabilities, then making that translation, it would

be anywhere from six to 20 percent of your students

with disabilities. So that\'s how I get there.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Nice data based

answer. Thank you very much. Daniel, Paul.

MR. WIENER: I agree with Martha.

MR. MARCHAND: I\'ll push the envelope

further. I\'ll use students with mental retardation

as my base, recognizing that there will be other

types of students who will also be candidates for

alternate assessments, and using, for purposes of

this definition, somewhat old mental retardation

categorization.

We have over 600,000 students now with

that label in our schools. About 85 percent of them

have what we call mild mental retardation. It\'s a

serious disability but it\'s mild mental retardation

in comparison to moderate, severe and profound mental

retardation.

I would imagine and I hope that every

single one of those 85 percent of those students are

absorbing the regular curriculum through access and

are high candidates, if not complete candidates, for

regular assessments.

Then we get into that gray area for me, of

those students with moderate mental retardation and

where they are in terms of their academics and

whatever else they\'re learning, via the IEP, a number

of them should also be candidates, potentially

candidates for the regular assessment, which then

leaves those with severe, profound mental

retardation, those not likely to be dealing with

academics for the most part, as the greatest

potential candidates for the alternatives.

That gets you down to 90,000, 80,000

students countrywide. Then you add from there those

other disabilities, the severity of which would also

get you there. A personal view is attempting to

rachet that down, again with the ultimate outcomes of

access to the curriculum and whatever so that we can

get down two percent of students with disabilities.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: So listening to the

three of you then, you\'re the lower estimate, two

percent, and Martha and Daniel, somewhere around ‑‑

six percent was actually your lowest number. It

could go up to as much as 20 percent. Okay.

We heard a lot of testimony ‑‑ am I done?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: You\'re done.

COMMISSIONER COULTER: Darn. All right.

Sorry.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: You asked for one

number from three people, and it took you five

minutes. So I can\'t help you. Secretary Pasternak.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Paul, I\'m sorry

that I missed your testimony particularly, but I did

have a chance to read it. So I\'d like to ask you,

and actually all of the panelists, what do you all

think that we should be trying to assess when we look

at the needs of kids with significant cognitive

impairments?

MR. MARCHAND: I would that the goal of

assessment parallels the goal of the ultimate outcome

which I spoke to, which is preparation to the max for

adult life. For some, that will mean, without a lot

of extraordinary effort, meaningful jobs, economic

independence, independent living. For others it will

mean that with some substantial level of supports

throughout their adult lives. And for others it will

mean substantial supports in the possibility that

employment will be marginal, if attainable, depending

on the skills, the jobs available in that community

and all other considerations.

How one creates that assessment, to look

at what I call the ultimate outcome. Are you ready

to live your life to the max as an adult, is the

place where I would go, and I would leave it to the

experts in the tool development to figure that out.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Conceptually then,

has it been your experience from the families that

you\'ve talked that in many instances we don\'t expect

enough of students with cognitive impairments and in

fact we don\'t provide the kinds of rigorous

instruction that they might benefit from, if we in

fact did provide that kind of rigorous instruction?

MR. MARCHAND: It\'s my experience that

individuals with cognitive impairments probably have

the lowest of expectations among our citizenry and

among our educators. So yes, they would be the prime

candidates for what you talk about.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: How do you help

us deal with the argument that if we try to provide

high school diplomas to those kids we are in fact

watering down the value of the high school diploma

that other students receive? What\'s your view about

what the Commission might do in terms of looking at

the issue of helping those students to achieve the

goal that you just articulated so eloquently, how do

we in fact try to make that happen by encouraging the

acquisition of the high school diploma for those

kids?

MR. MARCHAND: This is complicated. It

will certainly take up the rest of your time. As

you\'re aware, as Martha is aware and some other

commissioners are aware, there is an ongoing study of

that whole issue of high school diplomas and

cognitive impairment, spearheaded by the Kennedy

Foundation and the University of Maryland and the

University of Maine. Those models are in

development. I don\'t know that you want to wait for

that probably two year process to complete itself,

but I would certainly latch on, catch onto that and

then do whatever you can with the resources available

in your agency to move that faster, quicker and then

once it\'s done, get it out to the entire nation so

that whatever gains can come from that everybody can

succeed through it.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Anybody else on

that one?

DR. THURLOW: I would just like to make

sure that we keep those two systems separate as much

as we can in our thinking, because as I argue about

the importance of including all kids in the

accountability system, I\'m talking about where we

hold educators, school systems, states accountable

for kids. And I think we have really significant

issues, as Paul mentioned, related to when we talk

about high school diploma. What we have out there in

the states right now is a big mess.

There is nothing equivalent in terms of

high school diplomas and what\'s happening for kids

with disabilities across the nation right now. So

it\'s an issue that does need to be studied and I

think we need to think really carefully about how we

approach that. But I want to make sure we keep those

two separate.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Okay. Paul,

lastly, would you be willing to reconsider your

comment about not changing the statute if we had,

based on the testimony that we heard earlier today,

we pretty much had consensus, at least on the issue

that this current statute requires participation of

students with disabilities, in state and district

mandated testing but not their inclusion in the

accountability system, if in fact that was

inadvertently omitted from the last three

authorizations, would you be willing to at least be

open to the possibility and prospect into it?

MR. MARCHAND: Yes, we\'d be open. What I

was saying in terms of statute is all those things

that I\'ve talked about led me to conclude that there

was no statutory tinkering needing to be done in

those areas. But that\'s an area that should and

could be considered.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Thank you very

much, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Gordon.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Thank you, Chairman.

I have two questions which are inter‑related. Number

one, it sounds from your testimony, like you said,

creating these assessments is a very sophisticated

one, but that it potentially has a very positive

value for quality curriculum, quality of instruction.

Should we be investing substantially more at the

federal level in helping people to do that as

compared to helping them do paperwork and compliance

kinds of things? And then secondly, related to that,

what should be the role of the education people, one

we train them, establishing and helping us get

further along this road.

MR. MARCHAND: I try through repetition

make clear that the federal government needs to be

much more involved in training, technical assistance,

best practice dissemination, research activities and

everything else that surrounds this whole topic.

Clearly more needs to be done.

I\'ve forgotten your second piece. I

apologize.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: What should be the

role of ‑‑

MR. MARCHAND: Higher ed.

COMMISSIONER GORDON: Education and

schools.

MR. MARCHAND: Well, we have a tremendous

need for in‑service training of our school teachers

in special education with or without this issue.

This just piles onto the great need for in‑service

for existing teachers, to catch up to this new stuff.

And then for the pre‑service activity for the

training activity going on for new teacher

development, if we don\'t get it right while they\'re

doing pre‑service, then we\'re just going to be stuck

catching up with in‑service or lousy practice. So it

has to happen in both arenas.

DR. THURLOW: Ditto.

MR. WIENER: I certainly think if we value

alternate assessment, I think it\'s important and

indeed it\'s mandated there should be ‑‑ it should be

funded absolutely. And your second question which is

intriguing to me, because we\'ve just begun a higher

education network of teachers to align the things

they teach to pre‑service educators before they hit

the schools, incorporating the construct of alternate

assessment into what we\'re training them to do so

that their internships and their placements involve

the collection of work in portfolios that meet the

requirements of the alternate assessment. So we\'ve

begun to do that and yes, we think it\'s important.

COMMISSIONER PASTERNAK: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Governor Branstad.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Martha Thurlow, in

your presentation you talked about how in trying to

align the alternate assessments that this is one of

the areas where it often hasn\'t been done very well

with educational standards. I\'d like your thoughts

on who\'s done a good job and what are the best

practices out there in trying to come up with

alternative assessment systems that are aligned based

on educational standards and meet the needs of kids

with disabilities that can\'t ‑‑ so you have the

accountability, that haven\'t been able to be done

through the other processes.

DR. THURLOW: I\'ll start this anyway. I

think those states that have carefully thought about

the standards that underlie their regular

assessments, so they look at their state standards

and really carefully think about what are the essence

of those standards. As I said before, the first step

is really defining who the alternate assessment is

for. If you haven\'t done that carefully, then it\'s a

hard step to go to the next step to say what is the

essence of the standards for these students who will

be in the alternate assessment.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: In terms of the

alternative assessment these are kids with

significant cognitive disabilities, is that who we\'re

focusing on here primarily?

DR. THURLOW: I\'d say mostly. Significant

complex disabilities. As Dan indicated, most of them

will be students with cognitive disabilities. There

may be some students who have significant physical

disabilities that make it impossible for them to

respond or take in information in the same way. But

primarily it\'s going to be students with cognitive

disabilities.

So we think about ‑‑ the states have

really looked carefully at their standards, probably

involved their general educators, their parents,

business people and have looked at those standards

very carefully to identify what is the essence of

those standards, what is sort of the broad general

meaning of those standards, the essence of those

standards that would apply to students with the most

significant disabilities.

MR. WIENER: I work in what I like to

characterize as a cave. I don\'t really come out of

it very often and when I do, I look around and I see

what my counterparts in other states are doing, and

it seems to me that they\'re having less trouble

aligning with standards as much as they are adding

onto it, some of the non‑standards based performance

criteria, which Jerry Tindal spoke about this

morning, the functional applied academic skills, the

non‑academic functional skills. There\'s a lot of

confusion about ‑‑ well, let me just say that in

Massachusetts we think that if the standard

assessment is measuring academic performance and

academic performance only in four subject areas,

that\'s what the alternate assessment should do as

well. It\'s an alternate to the standard test.

It\'s not a whole bunch of other stuff

that\'s individualized or specialized. It\'s the

general curriculum that we\'re assessing. A, they\'re

getting instruction based on the standards, and B,

how much they\'re learning of that material.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Commissioner Hassel,

last question.

COMMISSIONER HASSEL: Dan, in your system

the IEP team sets goals for each student that\'s in

the alternate assessment program, and then the

student\'s success towards those goals counts in the

high stakes accountability system of your state, as I

understand it. Are you worried in that context that

IEP teams will set goals that aren\'t ambitious

enough, is that a problem or something that needs to

be addressed?

MR. WIENER: We actually don\'t count IEP

goals toward the statewide accountability. That\'s

not what we assess. We know that IEP goals are

tremendously variable. They\'re often not measurable.

They\'re often things like Dan will hand in his

homework on time 50 percent of the time, that sort of

thing, which have nothing to do with academics. In

other cases they are very clearly academic, but we\'ve

said for our alternate assessment, you need to

identify a goal, an outcome for a student in a strand

of particular subject area that\'s challenging,

achievable and measurable, and show us the evidence

of whether or not that student was able or how well

that student was able to achieve that outcome. The

outcome is set by the team.

We\'re trying to incorporate that process.

Right now it seems like the IEP process is divorced

from that outcome setting that\'s standards based. We

need to bring them much more together so that the IEP

talks more about academic content at the level at

which the student can begin to address it. It\'s not

happening uniformly enough to do that on a statewide

basis yet.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you,

Commissioner. I want to thank this panel for a

really helpful presentation. We all really

appreciate it. Would you all join me with a round of

applause for all the witnesses today?

1

(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: We in fact have

caucused, and amongst the seven of us we\'ve had votes

for seven different witnesses for who would get the

concise bell. So I want to say that ‑‑ but then we

had another vote and several votes, and several

rounds until we got to a majority. And by majority

vote, but with unanimous favor, we\'ve selected the

guy that shamelessly pandered and campaigned for that

bell, Marty Cavanaugh of Elk Grove, California.

Afterwards. I still have to use it for an

hour or so. So if you\'ll just hold off for just a

second.

We\'ll now proceed to the public hearing.

Todd, where are people going to speak from?

COMMISSIONER JONES: Folks, we\'re going to

moving the microphone up here to the ‑‑ the good man

who\'s coming to the front right now is going to be

moving the mike up. Chairman Bartlett is going to be

calling the names of the speaker and the speaker

who\'s on deck from the list.

Chairman, do you want to address the rule

sheet?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: I\'ll read the list.

We\'ll call on the first 20 people to have signed up.

They\'ll be invited to provide three minutes of

comments in order in which they registered. And then

at the conclusion of that, if Governor Branstad and

several of the commissioners are able to stay and

would like to stay, to hear from the alternative list

which as I understand about 12 other people, again

with three minutes.

In addition to your testimony here or in

lieu of, at your choice, written testimony may be

submitted to the Commission at the registration table

outside the hearing room or on the web site.

Individuals or organizations that have testified

previously will still be invited to testify or to

speak today, but we\'re going to put you at the end of

the alternate list so we make sure we hear from

everyone who hasn\'t spoken before. The one exception

to that, we have a fair number of people who have

identified themselves as within the organization

named Parent. We\'re going to take all of you just in

the order that you signed up, right off the bat, with

the permission of the task force.

Again, additional written comments are

always welcome. We\'re going to have a time limit,

the time cards up here for two minutes and one minute

and then 30 seconds. At the end of that, you get the

bell.

Dr. Esther Streed is the first witness,

and then followed by Joani S. Gent. Dr. Streed.

DR. STREED: Good afternoon. I\'m a

parent. I\'m in that big category. I\'m the mother of

Angie and Renee. I\'m also a professor of education

at Central College, yes, doing teacher preparation.

I\'m a veteran volunteer on behalf of Children with

Disabilities and Their Families, including Chairman

Branstad, eight years on your developmental

disabilities council and five years on your special

ed advisory panel.

I\'d like to welcome the rest of the task

force and the Commission to the fine state of Iowa,

and thank you for dedicating your time to improving

education for all citizens and all children in our

country, but especially those with educational

challenge.

I\'m going to start by reading a piece of a

letter that I just got last week to you. It says:

\"Dear Esther. Hi, how are you? Well, me, great. It

made my day when I got your address. I\'ve wanted to

write to you for a long time. Well, me, I\'m very

happy with my life. I got a great boyfriend and a new

house. I\'m working at\" blank \"cafe. I have been

there for four years and I love it. It\'s like a

family. What do I do there? Well, I do dishes,

cleaning\" ‑‑ I think she meant bussing ‑‑ \"I get

weekends off sometimes. Sometimes I get called in

and I always go in. I never say no. And bosses like

workers like that, you know.\"

I\'m going to call this young girl Ruth. I

met Ruth originally in my role as a home

interventionist in the 70\'s. Hard to believe I was

old enough to do that then. It took both of my hands

to get Ruth to hold any kind of an object. The

minute that I would release either one of my hands,

the object would fall to the floor, as would her

hands.

She was born the year that 94‑142 was also

birthed. Also born that year was my only biological

baby, Angie, my blessing. And she\'s the one who has

guided my path in education. As my daughters, my

foster children, my students ‑‑ because I taught pre‑

K through high school kids for 20 years ‑‑ my

enumerable friends and I have matured with the ‑‑

system, especially the system here in Iowa. We\'ve

come to recognize some key concepts that I really

want to highlight for the Commission today.

In spite of Garrison Kieller\'s claim that

not all of our children ‑‑ in spite of his claim ‑‑

not all of our children can statistically be nor need

to be above average. Number two, accountability is

important. Ongoing evaluation and assessment is

vital to personal and professional growth.

The magic is in what\'s measured, how it\'s

measured and what we do with it. In spite of

multiple degrees including that ultimate ‑‑ one,

those assessments seemed really important at the time

but all of that for me has been overshadowed by my

attitude, sensitivity, creativity, civility and even

endurance, if I\'m going to enhance this peaceful

world.

Number three, real value comes from

accountability that is meaningful, meaningful to the

person who\'s being measured. Yes, Iowa is the keeper

of the criterion based measurements. That\'s because

they give us a clear picture of where students are,

where they have been and where they are going.

I only have 30 seconds left? No, okay.

I\'m confused.

Number four, caution. Large scale

accountability can too easily become myopic and

exclusive.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Dr. Streed.

You didn\'t have 30 seconds left, you had 30 seconds

when she first put the sign up.

DR. STREED: Oh, okay. I\'m sorry.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you.

DR. STREED: Can I close with my student\'s

self‑assessment?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Sure.

DR. STREED: I think I said it at the very

beginning. She said, \"Well, me, I\'m very happy with

my life,\" and I think that\'s what we need to keep in

mind.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thanks.

DR. STREED: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Linda, perhaps you

could stand over here where the speakers can watch us

and watch you, too. But I know you\'ll have to

balance.

Joani Gent, followed by Tammy Gudenkauf.

MS. GENT: Thank you, Chairman and members

of the task force. My name is Joani Gent. I\'m from

Ames, Iowa. I value the opportunity to speak to you

today in support of IDEA and renewed emphasis on the

implementation of the concepts of inclusion that is

in IDEA, with least restrictive environment.

Just 40 miles north of you, as you sit

here today, there\'s a small school district called

Gilbert, and within that elementary school\'s walls my

12 year old daughter is preparing to leave school, as

is her best friend Amy. They\'re both wrapping up

their school days with Amy probably packing a lot of

homework into her backpack on her own, whereas my

Morgan is receiving help. She has friends who are

helping to tape messages onto her voice output system

so that we at home can understand what happened that

day at school with her.

She has teachers who are writing in her

notebook of correspondence that goes between home and

school. And her one on one aide is probably making

sure her library books and homework sheets and papers

which includes notes and pictures and friends are

packed into her backpack.

Like Amy, most of my Morgan\'s friends are

typically developing children. Morgan is not. They

read and they write and they use materials designed

for sixth graders. She instead listens and learns

about those same materials but experiences simplified

approaches to learning the concepts through the help

of her special ed teacher and her one on one aide.

I describe Morgan and our school district

to you today because I want to tell you how this

least restrictive environment for her has also been a

very successful inclusive education for that entire

building of 450 children. Through her education

she\'s contributed to the other children\'s learning.

In her friend Amy\'s words, \"It\'s good to have Morgan

with us. We tend to judge people on how they dress

and act, but Morgan doesn\'t do that.\"

Of all the possible judges of Morgan\'s

inclusion, the two potentially harshest have to be

her younger siblings, but Jeb and Ada, Jeb even being

just a year younger than her, are her greatest

champions. They\'ve never questioned or doubted her

right to be in that building with their neighbors,

their Sunday school classmates, sharing educational

experiences.

With Morgan being seen first as a student

in that building, it\'s contributed both to her

education and theirs. They have learned not only ‑‑

she\'s comfortable in contributing to them just as

they are with her. In fact, they designed lists to

plan who can be her partner on projects and her

helper, so both in academic and social areas. She\'s

learned about maps and oceans and heat and cold

sources. She\'s also learned about respect, and she\'s

not alone. Amy told me, \"Ask anyone in sixth grade,

we\'ve all learned that different people have

different things we need to work on. We\'re not all

the same and that\'s okay. We all know we\'re the same

on the inside.\" Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you so much.

Tammy Gudenkauf, followed by Sonja Kerr.

MS. GUDENKAUF: Good afternoon. Thank you

for your time and attention today.

This is my daughter Emily\'s third year in

the public schools of Iowa. Currently she is in a

great full inclusion program. She is making

incredible progress, cognitively, physically and

socially.

I also see some really great positive

effects on the normal kids in the room. The same

cannot be said for the two years previously. Emily

has been physically, verbally and emotionally abused

and neglected in school. Her very life was placed in

jeopardy by a drug overdose.

Emily has been denied used of her

augmentative communication device in the special ed

classroom because the teacher thought it was

developmentally inappropriate for the other children.

It took Emily too long to talk. A teacher has told

me in an IEP meeting with much of the IEP team

present that she did not want my daughter in her

room.

I attempted to follow appropriate channels

as defined by the school administration to no avail.

I reported these incidents to the best that I could

understand the process. I have to date received no

results in the area of accountability.

Who is accountable for special education

in our schools? Emily has spent two years in self‑

contained classrooms without many social

opportunities and with limited cognitive or physical

progress. But now she is in full inclusion with

similar supports as was required to keep her in a

self‑contained classroom, but with much improved

treatment both physically and emotionally. The

quality of Emily\'s education would be further

enhanced almost to the level of her normal peers if

her AEA support people had more reasonable case

loads.

For example, Emily\'s vision itinerate who

has proven excellent at finding ways to teach her and

adapt to her needs has at least three times the

maximum case load recommended by national standards.

Along with improved accountability, IDEA must be

fully funded to the promise of 40 percent that the

federal government gave so many years ago when the

law was passed.

We need to be certain these funds support

our AEAs and schools. These funds must get to our

kids through the services and supports required to

help our children become contributing members of our

society. Because my daughter is in a good program

now I am able to leave her at school today while I

participate here. How many parents were unable to be

here today because their child is not safe in school?

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Gudenkauf. Next witness is Sonja Kerr, followed by

Kelley Sunderlin.

MS. KERR: Good afternoon. My name is

Sonja Kerr. I\'m a private attorney from Minnesota.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly today.

I\'m here today on behalf of the Council of

Parents, Attorneys and Advocates, COPAA. COPAA is a

national non‑profit organization which has as its

purpose the enforcement of IDEA through adequate

legal representation and imparting knowledge of the

laws to students and parents.

We are going to submit our comments in

writing, but we have three key suggestions that I

want to highlight today.

First of all, we are all aware of the

monitoring work group and we applaud the monitoring

work group. We would encourage the Commission to take

a look at some independent systemic compliance

mechanisms. Those could include private funding,

providing funding for the National Council on

Disability to conduct comprehensive reviews of the

state of IDEA compliance on a regular basis. It

could include developing explicit criteria for what

constitutes non‑compliance with IDEA, and defining

consequences for non‑compliance. It should include

contracting with independent entities in each state

to respond to parent concerns and to help teachers

understand those concerns.

For example, state control and

responsibility for IDEA would be enhanced by

establishing within each state\'s Attorney General\'s

office a division to act upon such complaints. In

this day and age it is sad that you can call an

Attorney General in almost any state to complain

about a car, about a lemon law, about how your health

insurance is being handled, but if your child\'s

education is at stake, the Attorney Generals in most

states do not touch those situations.

COPAA endorses the findings of the

January, 2000 National Council of Disabilities

report. We do not believe that litigation by parents

can or should be the primary method for assuring

compliance or accountability for IDEA. However, we

do believe that parents should have improved access

to legal representation.

One idea is that Congress should fund in

house ombudsmen in large metropolitan districts. We

know that large metropolitan districts have

difficulties. We understand that there are going to

be cracks in every systems, and not every parent has

the resources or the ability to solve those problems

without an attorney. So we would recommend in house

ombudsmen.

Finally, we would request a competent and

impartial administrative hearing system throughout

the country through a study of due process systems

throughout the country which has never been done. We

have specific ideas for that which we will forward to

you in terms of a code that COPAA has endorsed.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Kerr.

Kelley Sunderlin, followed by Jule Reynolds.

MS. SUNDERLIN: My name is Kelley

Sunderlin. I\'m the mother of two disabled boys,

Victor, 14 and Elijah, seven. We live in Blaine,

Minnesota, and I\'ve come here today because

accountability and compliance with IDEA is hard to

come by in my experience.

When I first began to navigate the special

education system I thought the problem was mine. I

thought that maybe I wasn\'t knowledgeable enough. I

soon learned that the problem is that the IDEA exists

on paper, but no one is enforcing it.

A year ago January 18th, 2001 I signed a

settlement agreement for Elijah, my seven year old.

A key part of that was to make sure that Elijah who

has autism received applied behavioral analysis

therapy. In March I learned that staff were not

trained in ABA, and implementation wasn\'t happening.

Elijah was repeatedly injured at school during this

time, and staff told me that the IEP team could not

decide ESY for Elijah, only administrators could.

A hearing officer ruled for me in part,

but the district appealed to the state and it was

reversed. It\'s not part of a lawsuit in Federal

Court. In the past few weeks the district has forced

another hearing to get out of the settlement

agreement since it was not being implemented. They

won, of course. So as far as accountability, I don\'t

see it.

We had a deal; the school broke it. And

the state of Minnesota helps them out of it. With my

son Victor, the same lack of compliance occurred. No

one told me I could contest the district\'s decision

to refuse to classify Victor in special education.

Victor has a learning disability. Two states,

Illinois and Indiana, classified him but Minnesota

will not.

I received no notice of rights for Victor

until after two years, after we asked for a hearing

to get Victor qualified, the school wrote an IEP for

him with no reading services. They said Victor does

not need any. The believe it\'s acceptable for my

eighth grade son to be reading on a fourth grade

reading level. Reading is central to Victor\'s

success in life.

I\'ve never seen the test that the school

district presented to the hearing officer or the

teacher\'s subjective judgments. Accountability will

not happen unless you, the federal government, make

it happen. Should I have to spend thousands to get

Victor a tutor when I\'m already paying taxes? Should

I have to worry if Elijah is physically safe at

school?

Licensed and training teachers are the

key. We knew research‑wise Victor can be taught to

read. We know research‑wise Elijah can improve

through ABA but my district won\'t use these

approaches because a distinct way to teach Elijah,

ABA means you have to track and measure progress and

my district and my state do not wish to measure

Elijah and Victor\'s progress because if they did, the

progress they described to hearing officers as

better, as improved is but a sham.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Sunderlin. Jule Reynolds, followed by Kevin Pochl.

MS. REYNOLDS: Thank you. My name is Jule

Reynolds, and my children attended Des Moines public

schools. Thank you for the opportunity of input on

re‑authorization.

I started with parent involvement, parent

participation in the state and local level. Frank

Vance, our special education director back in the

1980\'s included me as a stakeholder as we were

examining early childhood services in Iowa. He

developed a statewide parent‑teacher partnership that

still flourishes today called PEC.

As a mom of a young child with multiple

disabilities, I was impressed with the team work and

commitment of the DE staff. The most important

outcomes from those initiatives for me was the

possibilities of partnerships with families. How do

we measure the success of our involvement as families

under the provisions of IDEA?

We look at the progress of our kids and

with the acceptance from their peers. IDEA paints an

entire picture of my child for school programming.

Good evaluations are the key in developing a plan for

student success. The older my child gets, the more

important it is that we build on what he is capable

of and not just what he cannot master.

It is even more important that the players

that paint this portrait are looking at him from many

angles. Challenges with multiple disabilities can

hide true abilities and their talents. We must focus

on the importance of good transition planning as IDEA

describes it. Because unlike my other child, no one

was asking my boy what do you want to be when you

grow up? Thank you for asking him now through IDEA.

The IEP process is working. Recently I

heard a public health doctor say all kids will be

successful at something. Let us guide them through

the IEP process to set their goals to be successful

and welcomed into our community. She said don\'t

allow their success to be measured by street drugs

they sell or the fights that they win or the adults

that they offend. I believe a young person would

rather choose to be successful in the classroom than

to be successful on the streets.

LRE, IDEA calls for continuum of services

and access to the general curriculum. Parents and

students knock on the doors of our neighborhood

schools 25 years ago and they let us in. Today\'s

students are opening the same books and have access

to the same curriculum and they, too, are finding

success, tying challenging curriculums to positive

behaviors is raising the bar for kids who thrive

there. Most kids may not find success in the same

way other kids do, but they are capable of gleaning

those things to impact their lives.

My boy appreciates the opportunity to be

in computer club after school because the computer

club is more than about learning about computers.

That club is about connecting with slang that other

kids use. It\'s about understanding sarcasm that comes

from in group support. Keep access to that

extracurricular activity. I also think kids with

disabilities are lessons within themselves.

Kids are turned on right now with reality

TV. This is called reality school. This is called

community. This is how our kids learn, behave, win,

lose and achieve. The social studies lessons that

come from diversity is a lesson that could be learned

only from experiencing it, not by reading about it or

being lectured about it.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Reynolds. Kevin Pachl.

MR. PACHL: Thank you. Our daughter Sara

is ten years old and has intractable epilepsy and

other developmental disabilities including autism.

She is a very medically fragile child. Sara

currently attends school in ‑‑ ISD Number 11 in

Minnesota.

Our family has had numerous problems with

the ‑‑ central special education administration.

Every important service we need for Sara has been a

struggle. The first issue was physical therapy. The

district would only provide Sara one‑half hour of

indirect PT and we asked to have that time switched

to one‑half hour of direct PT per week.

We found out that the district had an

illegal PT policy so we filed for a due process

hearing. In a very rare move, the district\'s law

firm typed up an order of judgment against themselves

and asked that the hearing officer rule against them.

He did. By the way, the school district still has an

illegal PT policy.

The second problem was Sara\'s right to

attend her neighborhood school. When Sara

transitioned from her pre‑school program to

kindergarten we were never told that she could be

educated in her neighborhood school with the

necessary support and services. This was contrary to

the district\'s own least restrictive environment

policy at the time.

Sara\'s neighborhood school was Hoover

Elementary but the district administration instead

sent Sara to Hamilton Elementary, a center based

cluster site for kindergarten. We as parents did not

even know we could have input into Sara\'s placement.

We did not know our rights at the time. We did,

however, make a written request to the special

education department asking that Sara be moved to

Hoover. Without any team meeting the director of

special education wrote back and stated that the

center based program at Hamilton was the best for

Sara.

We decided to protest the process used by

the district as inconsistent with the way the IEP

process is supposed to work. I filed a complaint

with the Minnesota Department of Children, Families

and Learning on two issues. The first issue, Sara\'s

right to go to Hoover, her neighborhood school. The

second issue was that the director of special

education made the decision, not Sara\'s team. In the

end our state agency found that the IEP team in my

district was broken and non‑compliant.

Sara finally got to go to Hoover, but the

team process is still broken, corrupt and non‑

compliant. We asked for an assistive technology

evaluation in writing to see if there was any

technology that could help her communicate, being she

is basically non‑verbal. The district delayed

evaluating her for over a year and then did a shoddy

evaluation. For some reason they did not even try a

single augmentative communication device, even though

communication was a reason for an AT evaluation.

At the beginning of a hearing the district

agreed to accept and pay for an independent education

evaluation which was done at ‑‑ center, but for some

reason the district refused to hold an IEP meeting

until after the hearing. The hearing officer

mentioned more than once that an IEP meeting could

certainly be held during the course of a hearing to

solve the problem, being they agreed to our private

evaluation.

Finally, they scheduled an IEP meeting on

the very last day of the hearing. This just happened

to be on the same day I was testifying which meant

that I could not attend the IEP meeting. I believe

this scheduling was an intentional effort to exclude

me from meetings, but fortunately Sara has two

parents, so Sara\'s mom went to the IEP meeting ‑‑

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Mr. Pachl, if you

could summarize, please, or conclude.

MR. PACHL: Basically the school district

‑‑ my daughter needed a \$600 device. They spent over

\$100,000 in attorney fees, filed ‑‑ we won the due

process hearing. They appealed. We won the second

level. Now they\'re appealing to Federal Court,

spending over \$100,000 on a \$600 device.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you. If you

could submit the entire testimony for our record, we

would very much like to have it.

MR. PACHL: Okay.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, sir. Kristi

Sandford, followed by Deb Samson.

MS. SANDFORD: Good afternoon, everyone.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for you and the Commission

for allowing me to speak today to you.

My name is Kris Sandford and I\'m from

Blaine, Minnesota. We are in a large metropolitan

school district. I have a son, Aaron who is 19 years

old. Aaron has Downs Syndrome and he is medically

fragile. Aaron has been in special ed since infancy

but I did not get a copy of my procedural and

safeguards form until he was 17 years old.

It seems to me that giving people written

information about their rights is central to

accountability. How can I exercise my rights without

knowing them?

Let\'s talk about exercising my rights. I

filed two complaints to my state agency, findings of

non‑compliance both times. Help for my kid? No.

One complaint followed a due process hearing. My

state agency sat on that for months. They found non‑

compliance and gave me no remedy. None.

I have had two hearing decisions, one said

my kid gets comp ed for one year, but the district

gets to decide what that is. If I don\'t like the

remedy to be decided by the district, my choice is to

go to a hearing. The second hearing, the district

stipulated they denied Aaron\'s speech and language

services. I said enough is enough. Give me the

money and I will make sure Aaron gets what he needs.

The hearing officer said no, I can\'t do

that. So here is 45 more hours of comp ed. So now

my son is 19. He has not been educated. He has a

year and 95 hours of comp ed and no education.

Accountability? Two hearings, two complaints and

many hours of trying later, I am still looking for

accountability. Thank you very much for your time.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Sandford. Deb Samson, followed by Lori Reynolds.

MS. SAMSON: Good afternoon. My name is

Deb Samson, I\'m from Nevada, Iowa and thank you,

Chairman Branstad and Commission for offering us this

opportunity today.

My family journey into the world of

disability began with the birth of our son Rick in

1968\. He is medically considered a quadriplegic and

uses an electric wheelchair. Since he was born in

1968, it was prior to 94‑142, and so our resource was

the UAP 140 miles from home where we went for OT, PT,

speech, nutrition, education and everything else that

kind of met his needs in his very young life. It

required that we leave him there for extended periods

of time, and it included his entire kindergarten

year.

Once he\'d been gone for a year and we were

so unhappy with that situation, we approached our

neighborhood school principal and said can Rick go to

school here, and our principal\'s response, yes, he\'s

a child. We can meet his needs.

He began school there and we alternated

back and forth between the UAP and home for a period

of time. I just think of the contrast, and I\'m

telling you that in a historical perspective to

remind us that the early intervention services that

provide those very same services, we traveled 140

miles one way, are now provided in homes and what a

benefit that is to families. I have often wondered

what kind of a difference it would have meant to our

family if he had been born in that area instead.

Anyway, our beginning in school was very

good. He was felt very welcomed and everything else.

However, there was a problem in fifth grade, and we

read in the paper ‑‑ and this was after the passage

of the law ‑‑ that they were going to send him to

another district to school.

Through a series of interventions and

filing complaints and what have you, the upshot was

when he was going to enter the fifth grade year, we

got a letter the day before that said he will catch

the bus to another system, even though we had filed a

complaint and the state provisions were in effect.

The Department of Education had to

intervene for us and get a permanent injunction

against the school for Rick to be able to attend.

However, when we took him to the school, the

principal was standing on the steps and said I cannot

let him in. I say that story because I want to talk

about how I do believe IDEA is a civil rights issue

as well as providing education for children.

Rick benefitted ‑‑ that was the worst time

in school. The good time was that Rick graduated in

1987 with a regular diploma from that very same

school. 13 days after graduation he moved into an

independent living center, the first developmental

milestone he had met on time in his entire life,

leaving home. And it was all because of the

transition planning that was very vital to his

success and it was the people in the school that

showed Roger and I that life could be different.

And in changing Rick\'s life they also

altered ours immeasurably since Rick is living on his

own. He is happy living down here in Des Moines on

his with attendant care meeting the needs that he

has. He is not competitively employed but he does

volunteer work. He continues to take classes at a

community college, and he considers himself

successful and so do I. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Samson.

Lori Reynolds, followed by Delores Ratcliff.

MS. REYNOLDS: Thank you for having this.

I am here as a parent of Doug. When Doug was born he

was a normal little boy. He drank a bottle, he wet

his pants, he did everything on time until about the

age of two when we realized Doug didn\'t talk. We

immediately contacted our AEA and they provided

immediate services in home until he was age three.

Then he was bused to a special ed program that was

about 20 miles away, but it worked.

Because of what they did for him at an

early age, Doug is now included in a regular

education program and he is barely successful. The

piece I haven\'t told you about is Doug has an

invisible disability. He has mental health

challenges, many of them. He has anxiety, he has

panic disorder, his a oppositional defiant disorder,

he has behaviors. As of late he likes matches.

So because of this little boy I had to

learn a whole lot about special ed, IDEA and all

kinds of educational resources for him. What I\'m

asking you guys to do is under IDEA there is a piece

that\'s called parent training. Because of that

parent training I learned so much. I now help

families across the state, as well as my own son.

When my family is in crisis I know who to call, I

know how to get ahold of them, and I have contact

people.

I can call a team meeting at any time.

They always meet. I can call any person on our team

and say we\'re in a crisis and put something together

and they\'ll help do it. That\'s because of the

parent involvement piece. That\'s because I got

involved and I learned. I\'ve gone to conferences all

over. Without that piece and without the full funding

for that piece, parents don\'t know and then they

angry. When you have a child with special mental

health needs, our kids are kids that people don\'t

like necessarily, and they would like to throw them

away. So those parents especially need to be able to

get the training.

So I\'m asking you to please fund IDEA 100

percent at the 40 percent rate so we can all have

training and we can help kids with all disabilities

including mental health needs. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Reynolds. Delores Ratcliff, followed by Dennis

Dykstra.

MS. RATCLIFF: Hello, my name is Delores

Ratcliff. Thank you for allowing us to have public

comment. I\'m speaking today for the National

Learning Disabilities Association of America.

I am a national board member and a co‑

chair of the advocacy committee. I\'m also a board

member of our state of Iowa LDA and have served as

past president. Our membership is approximately

50,000 strong across the United States and Puerto

Rico. We\'re a voice for millions of children with

learning disabilities in schools across our country.

Our organization is made up of parents, professionals

and adults with learning disabilities.

We\'ve talked here today of accountability

for systems and students, and standards based

education. The Learning Disabilities Association of

America firmly believes in high expectations for all

students. We believe that standards based education

defines student expectations more clearly and

provides all students with access to more uniform

curriculum.

We also support the idea that curriculum

is no longer simply presented to students and that

greater focuses on measuring what is actually

learned.

LDA does not believe that standards should

be used to hold against students with learning

disabilities, to hold them back until they can meet

standards without the use of accommodations for

learning weaknesses. Accountability through high

stakes testing, without appropriate accommodations,

and using only a single test score instead of

professional judgment is hurting our children with

learning disabilities.

Three weeks ago I attended the LDA

International Conference in Denver, Colorado. While

there, I held a sobbing mother whose promising young

son with a learning disability was trying to pass a

state high stakes test. He entered high school as a

freshman with strengths in athletics and music.

Because of studying for this high stakes test this

year, however, he dropped all extracurricular

activities, attends extra sessions nights and

weekends, doesn\'t go out with his friends anymore and

has rubbed his eyebrows off with stress. This is

accountability gone astray.

I also would like to talk about the

accountability and No Child Left Behind for the LDA

of America, that wants to extend to children who are

in the juvenile justice system. Recently funds were

cut for assessment for these youth. It is estimated

that 75 percent of incarcerated children have

learning disabilities. They need to be afforded the

opportunity for an education that includes

evaluations for learning disabilities that result in

appropriate instructional interventions. We can\'t

afford to leave these children behind, too. Thank

you very much.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Ratcliff. Dennis Dykstra, followed by Glenda Davis.

MR. DYKSTRA: My name is Dennis Dykstra

and I\'m a consultant with the Department of Education

here in Iowa, specifically with the Bureau of the

Children and Family and Community Services and that

is the agency that has the general supervision

responsibility for all IDEA programs here in Iowa.

Integral to any dialogue on accountability

systems is a discussion on adequate funding for

special education services. First, I\'d like to read

into the record a brief letter from Iowa\'s Office of

the Governor.

\"Dear Governor Branstad, Thank you for

your leadership as Chair of the President\'s

Commission on Excellence in Special Education. We

are proud to have an Iowan serving in this capacity

and are hopeful that you will provide a strong voice

for quality education for children with disabilities.

Please convey to President Bush our belief that the

most important action the federal government could

take to insure the ability of states to deliver

quality special education services is to live up to

the promise made in 1975, to fund 40 percent of the

cost of special education.\"

\"For Iowa that commitment would mean

\$215.7 million for the 2000‑2001 school year.

Unfortunately, the state actually receives only \$45.4

million, less than 25 percent of the promised amount.

It is time the federal government lived up to its

commitment made back in 1975 to fully fund quality

education for all children. Thank you for your

continued advocacy for improving education for people

with special needs.\" And that\'s signed sincerely,

Thomas J. Vilsack, Governor, and Sally J. Pederson,

Lieutenant Governor.

As progress is being made towards the 40

percent target, attention must be paid simultaneously

to funding provisions in IDEA, in particular, the

maintenance of effort provision.

Both states and LEAs have maintenance of

effort requirements that prohibit them from reducing

their funding levels from the previous year.

However, a provision in IDEA allows LEAs to treat as

local funds up to 20 percent of their annual increase

in federal Part B dollars, and count this as part of

their state and local contribution.

OSEP\'s current interpretation of this

provision prevents LEAs and Iowa\'s intermediate

education agencies from taking full advantage of this

intended flexibility in meeting the maintenance of

effort requirement.

By treating a percentage of the increase

in federal Part B funds as local funds, an LEA will

be able to meet the maintenance of effort requirement

even though the LEA reduces the amount of their state

and local funds. Unfortunately, OSEP\'s current

interpretation of this provision allows for a one

time only reduction in state and local funds as any

further annual increase in Part B funds will be

needed to backfill that one time reduction.

It is Iowa\'s assertion that OSEP\'s current

interpretation does not support the intent of

Congress to meet their 40 percent target of funding

special education. If this interpretation cannot be

revisited or modified, then Congress needs to modify

the maintenance of effort and treat as local

provision as large IDEA annual increases continue to

be appropriate.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr. Dykstra.

If you could submit the balance or your entire

testimony for the record, we would appreciate it.

Glenda Davis, followed by Beth Rydberg.

MS. DAVIS: My name is Glenda Davis. I\'m

with the Parent Training and Information Center in

Nebraska. That would be that really fine state on

the other side of the Missouri River.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Is that the one with

the football team?

MS. DAVIS: Oh, please. Yes, it is. I

want to thank the Commission for giving me the

opportunity to speak on behalf of parents from

Nebraska.

IDEA is a good law and should not be

diluted. The many children in special education in

Nebraska and across the United States need to be

protected and provided with a free and appropriate

public education. IDEA is the frame work to make this

happen.

I have a few suggestions and

recommendations and concerns. School personnel

including special and regular educators,

administrators and support staff need more training,

more support and adequate compensation. The best

interests and highlighted individual needs of each

child must always be the first and only priority for

all members of an IEP team.

Parents and school personnel need to fully

understand the meaning and the importance of team

work when planning for the future of a child. All

team members must be treated with respect, dignity

and as equals. The issues of behavior, suspension

and expulsion must be clarified, not weakened, and

the law must be used as it was intended to keep

children in the least restrictive educational

environment and not out of school.

Positive behavior intervention must be in

place whenever and wherever necessary, and I\'m

referring to a frequent incident. Police must never

be called to school for a seven year old.

Issues of non‑compliance must be

addressed. The burden placed on parents to insure

compliance must be alleviated. Keep IDEA intact,

give it a chance and you will not leave any child

behind. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms. Davis.

Beth Rydberg, followed by Jim Behle.

MS. RYDBERG: Good afternoon. I speak to

you this afternoon as a mom of twins with multiple

disabilities. I have also worked as a professional

advocate, but today I lay that down and I talk to you

strictly as being a mom.

My sons have received special education

services for the last 12 years. The first day my

three year old sons climbed on that big yellow bus I

testified at a meeting very similar to this in the

Iowa legislature, telling why it was so important

that my children receive services.

I listened to more seasoned parents talk

of the battles that they had won just to get their

children into the building. Little did I know that

my involvement in school was going to be more than

baking chocolate chip cookies.

Through the years I\'ve worked with

extraordinary teams and horrible teams. I refer to

them as the get‑its and the not get‑its. We were

fortunate in kindergarten to have a principal that

got it. She said, you know, I think they would get

so much more out of a regular education program;

let\'s do it. We did it, and not many other people

were, not many people got‑it, why we were doing it.

Some teachers thought we were there just

to socialize. Some didn\'t understand why after

modifying materials, they still couldn\'t be like the

rest of the kids. But we went on, and I began to see

the importance of supporting support staff.

I made sure planning time to modify

materials was written into both of my boys\' IEPs. I

served as a parent representation on the committee

that made recommendations for the national standards

to prepare educators. We made sure teachers in

general ed and special ed had time to collaborate and

it was written into their daily plans in the IEP.

My sons have an extraordinary program that

with the help of assistive technology has helped them

actually be a part of a general education program not

just sitting in the back of the room. I can\'t stress

how their team has worked from the top on down to

make this work, and the results have been astounding.

Last fall we received a call from school ‑

‑ and excuse my tears, but it\'s a call every parent

dreads. The principal said your child is in my

office. He says he\'d like to die. We listened to

that and the team listened to that and we made a lot

of changes in the way that they were receiving their

services.

We worked hard at changing what wasn\'t

working in his program. We made sure that people

were trained in new technology that could be used the

first day of school this year, not December. He

doesn\'t talk about wanting to die anymore. He\'s been

elected head of his Boy Scout patrol. Friday he

leaves for Washington D.C. on a field trip with his

class.

My heart is in my throat, but he believes

he\'s capable and so does his brother. But you know,

every child doesn\'t have a team that\'s willing to

step up and truly design an individualized

educational program. Every child doesn\'t have

parents that are able to comprehend the educational

laws, the standards, even the language that they\'re

written in. And every child doesn\'t have parents

that have the time to do battle, and at times we have

to admit we have to do battle for our children.

IDEA gives us the frame work to help make

our children capable to contribute as much as they

are able to the world around them. Children

shouldn\'t have to feel like they want to die, that

their life is worthless before we get what it means

to be educated in an appropriate way.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Ms.

Rydberg. Jim Behle, followed by Pauline Sampson.

MR. BEHLE: Good afternoon. I\'m Jim

Behle. I\'m the associate superintendent with the

Iowa City schools in Iowa. I\'m today representing

the Urban Education Network, which includes eight of

the largest school districts in the state of Iowa

that serve our students and children in Iowa.

I\'m going to focus most today on

implementation at the local education agency, because

I think many of your questions this morning talked

about how policy can affect that implementation.

First I would say, I bring the perspective

both of special ed and general education, one of the

reasons my colleagues asked me to speak today.

First, I want to emphasize, let\'s continue the

implementation of IDEA, \'97. We\'re fortunate in our

district that when we did a major curriculum review

of our special education programs that took place in

96‑97 at the same time as IDEA \'97 was passed and

implemented, and that helped us greatly so that we

could focus our program not only what we saw as

individual needs in our district but also upon the

rules and regulations of IDEA \'97.

We need more time to implement many of

those. As an example, our program is very similar to

that explained in the Elk Grove Unified school

district. We\'re making great progress in

implementing standards and benchmarks with our

student in IEPs. However, we need more time to

monitor that to extend those benchmarks and to make

sure that we\'re doing a good job.

We assess 98 percent of our students on

the standardized assessments in our district. We

still need time to develop alternative assessments

and we need to support the technical expertise and

the time to be able to do that so we can measure not

only performance but progress of our students.

We do collect data, but we also need time

to work with our staff, our principals and our

teachers on how to use that data so that it is not

just a number, as was explained earlier, but

something that can truly impact student achievement

in our district.

So the time line is critical in any

implementation. We still feel we need time and

assistance in implementing IDEA \'97.

Quickly, some other things I would point

out, that I support some of the other things that

were mentioned earlier today, particularly the models

as described earlier in the Elk Grove school

district. I think special education needs to be a

continuum of supports and services, not viewed as a

separate program to place students in.

We need the flexibility to blend our

funding resources so that we can front end the

services as was discussed earlier, and that as we

call our model the student needs model, that it

focuses on that. We need funding for early

intervention so that we can catch students earlier

and work with them.

You\'ve heard a lot of testimony on having

well trained teachers; that\'s critical and you\'ve

already, as you indicated, have heard that in the

past. Our teachers tell us they leave the profession

because of the paperwork, the legalistic environment

and the reduced time for instruction. So I would ask

you to address those in your recommendations.

Balanced process and outcomes, and

specifically what we want there is that as you ask us

to do more things with accountability, which we\'re

more than willing to do, that we balance that with

the amount of paperwork and the process that teachers

are required to do. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr. Behle,

if you\'d submit your entire testimony for the record.

I want to call Pauline Sampson, followed by Frances

Wilke.

One of the other commissioners and I do

have to leave in order to catch a flight, but

Governor Branstad and other members of the commission

have agreed to stay on for the second half. It

appears that we\'ll be able to hear from the entire

individuals that signed up as alternates and we

appreciate that. Everyone\'s testimony will be made a

part of the record.

I want to say, as a guy from Texas, I very

much appreciate the Iowa hospitality today. If any

of you see Uncle Loris and Aunt Shirley from

Kingsley, I would appreciate you saying ‑‑ tell them

their nephew is looking pretty good. And I do want

to say on behalf of President Bush and Secretary Page

and all of us who work on this issue, we very much

appreciate the expertise and the information that you

provided. Thank you very much. Governor.

MS. SAMPSON: I\'m Dr. Pauline Sampson.

I\'m representing a local education agency about 30

miles north of here. I\'m the director of special ed.

I have 550 students out of about 4,800. I wanted to

start out my speech, but I want to give a person

credit for this.

Heidi Hays Jacobs has worked with a lot of

different districts on instructional strategies that

are most effective. She starts out all of her

sessions ‑‑ and I think some of the parents will have

attested this already ‑‑ by placing a chair in front

of the group, and asks everybody to visualize a

student in this chair, that none of our policies or

our decisions will forget that there is a student in

this chair.

In Iowa we\'re very proud of our students

and our education. We\'re also very proud of our

local autonomy. Sometimes that presents its

challenges as we work with standards. In our

district we work very hard to include a full

continuum of services; however, without the full

federal funding at the 40 percent, we are constantly

coming back to our local taxpayers to make up for

that difference. We will do that and we do that in

Ames. However, with the tightening budgets across

the state and in other places, I worry that we will

not be able to continue with that same practice.

I\'m advocating for early intervention and

prevention, for commingling dollars and for any

accountability. We already have the data. We test

exclusively all the time in Iowa. We have it for our

special ed students. We include 98 percent of our

special ed students in those assessments. We are

working on the alternate assessments. We started it

three years ago in our district when it was the law,

and the state department came through this year to

give us help.

So we\'re doing that. So we ask for any

new accountability measures to be looked at

carefully, that we don\'t forget that there\'s a

student in this chair that it impacts. We want to

include the best for all kids, and I want to

encourage parents to come to the district and ask for

that support. We go to the parents and we constantly

look for customer satisfaction; we\'ll continue that.

We will continue looking at student achievement. I

know where 551 of my students are the last three

years, in reading, in math, in writing. And also

will soon learn science. But we can\'t forget that

they have social needs as well, be part of a learning

community, and we must include that.

So again I would like to see that we

actively pursue full funding so that we can continue

having the best education for our children here in

Iowa. Thank you.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

Frances Wilke.

MS. WILKE: Thank you very much for coming

today. I wanted to tell you that I really would like

to encourage you to get the federal government to

ante up the 40 percent that\'s due to us. It is so

critical that all children have the choice and the

continuum of the spectrum of education that they

need.

My son is at the very profound level, and

he now lives at Woodward Resource Center, and it is

the right place for him, but it is not the right

place for so many other children. He\'s getting what

he needs because I\'ve been a good advocate in working

together with the school system. Some parents just

don\'t have ‑‑ don\'t have the skills, time or

understanding.

Please don\'t give us a dog that won\'t

hunt. Thanks.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

Jeff Grimes.

MR. GRIMES: My name is Jeff Grimes. I

work for an education agency that serves central

Iowa. I\'m a school psychologist by profession and

would want to represent myself also as a person

deeply committed to excellence in education for

children with disabilities.

The main point that I wish to make is that

accountability is a function of the design of the

special education system and its perceived purpose.

The Education of the Handicapped Act called upon Iowa

and other states and local agencies to initially

implement a child find system. Iowa got very good at

that child find system and became aware that the

results were not what they needed to be.

In 1980 Iowa began a review of the special

education process. State leaders supported this

process, William Lepley and later Ted Stillwell, the

director of education, operating under the leadership

of Governor Terry Branstad, carried out this process.

Six years of implementation of an alternate service

delivery system were put into place preceding the

development of an alternative set of rules for

special education.

In 1995 Iowa\'s rules governing special

education were changed. Those rules in the revised

system placed an emphasis on systematic problem

solving. What I distributed to the panel was

excerpts from two rules. One, defining systematic

problem solving and on the opposite page, a

definition and identification of general education

interventions.

In order to implement this, in order to

implement these practices which focus on prevention,

early intervention and remediation, it requires the

participation of not just administrators and teachers

but also school psychologists, social workers,

occupational and physical therapists and other

support services.

The focus of the rules includes the rights

of parents and children, a focus on intervention and

a focus on the results of the special education

system. Iowa, like Elk Grove, California, has

implemented a comprehensive statewide system to

operate in a different manner and to put results as

the centerpiece and not the process and the details

of the special education services.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: You\'ve run out of time.

So if you can just wrap it up.

MR. GRIMES: I will in thanking the

Commission for the opportunity to address them.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

David Egner. Is David here?

MR. EGNER: I\'m David Egner. I\'m with the

Council for Exceptional Children. I just wanted to

comment and say from what\'s been discussed today, the

discussion concerning the extent to which the No

Child Left Behind Act applies to special education

students, Council for Exceptional Children\'s

interpretation is that it does apply and we would

support efforts to clarify that linkage in terms of

accountability system for holding systems accountable

for results.

We continue to have concerns over how then

you balance that with the individualized nature of

goals in the IEP which is the foundation we believe

of the law, and the extent to which any efforts to

look at accountability by this Commission could

factor into the equation the individualized nature of

the IEP for children and not confuse standards based

reform as in any way limiting the ability of an IEP

team to individualize goals for children which we

think must be protected in any accountability system.

Beyond that, that\'s the extent of my

comments for today. Thank you very much for this

opportunity.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Great. Thank you very

much for being very succinct. Sharon Schultz.

Incidently, I think we have ten more

presenters after Sharon. Thank you all for your

patience. It\'s very obvious to me we have a lot of

people that care very deeply about this subject, and

have some strong feelings and we appreciate your

commitment on this very important issue. I also want

to thank the panel. Some of them had to leave because

of the plane connections. But you ahead, please.

Thank you, Sharon.

MS. SCHULTZ: Thank you very much, and

thank you, Commissioners. I am Sharon Schultz from

Muncie, Indiana. Just a little bit of background and

where I\'m coming from is that I was teaching in that

self‑contained classroom prior to 94‑142. I then was

a district administrator, director of special

education and I\'d like to also add, one due process

hearing in six and a half years and it was a leftover

from the previous administrator.

I\'ve gone on to now teach at the

university and I\'m also a private consultant. I\'m

speaking to you as a practitioner and as a member of

the National Education Association. I submitted a

paper which deals with a couple issues, which at the

association, of course, we are concerned, And that

is if we\'re going to talk about accountability

systems, a couple of the underlying pieces are the

incredible paperwork that kind of gets in the way.

I have colleagues that look at IEP forms

from five to 33 pages, and also the issue of case

load. I also came specifically as a practitioner to

address three issues that have been addressed today,

so I\'ll be very quick with this.

One is that if we\'re going to talk about

accountability systems, the issue of multiple

measures has to be attended to, and only just

multiple measures as it now exists in IDEA in

reference to eligibility, but also multiple measures

and tying that directly to the academic standards in

the states where students are in school.

The second one that I wanted to talk about

was the issue of the need for quality professional

development. Researchers in my experience has proven

to be true, that researchers have said that up to

approximately 70 percent of a teacher\'s time is spent

in assessing, formative assessment and summative

assessment of students. However, less than 50

percent of the current in‑service teachers have a

strong fundamental background in authentic assessment

and matching those assessments to instruction and

student standards. So with that, and also in the

area of professional development, the issue of how do

we tie academic standards to present levels of

educational performance and goals and objectives for

children.

The third issue, which I found as I moved

to the university, is the strong need to involve the

university in preparation of our pre‑professional

teachers. I work currently with both general

education majors and special education majors, and I

think that Indiana is making some progress because of

a mandate by our Standards Board, that all general

educators have a strong background in working with

kids with disabilities. I would like to see that

happen in some extent on the national level, that we

really strongly emphasize that all educators have the

continuum from working with children with

disabilities to the children with gifts and talents.

Thank you for your time.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much,

Ms. Schultz. Thank you. L.D. Widewa.

MS. WIDEWA: First of all, I\'d like to say

that I\'m the Iowa and United States Autism

Ambassador. I\'m the president and founder of Autism

Awakening, the Autism Council for worldwide, as well

as the Autism First Steps Action plan. There\'s a

reason why I tell you that today.

I have authored over 19 pieces of autism

legislation as well as 87 to 100 platform statements

for autism. The reason why I bring that up is

because several of those platform statements were on

education. We addressed not only education issues,

health issues and many other issues.

I\'m not going to spend a lot of time on it

today. I\'ll instead submit it. But I\'d like to say

that I do support, and so do all the ambassadors

around the world, not just the U.S. ambassadors that

are here today, but there\'s approximately over 80 of

us and 40 United States ambassadors. We support you

fully funding the IDEA.

These children truly need it, and not just

children with autism but all disabilities need that.

I have to say that my daughter is a classic example

of how 40 to 48 percent of children with autism can

fall into the cracks.

My daughter was absolutely totally

profound at 22 months old. I know looking at her

today that\'s hard for you to imagine. But when I\'m

in Washington I\'d be more than happy to submit

pictures or videos that you can look at so you could

see my daughter before. She received no education.

She received no type of treatment at all. As a

matter of fact, we were told to come back when she

was six years old. We were told that there was a

possibility she would end up in an institution. To me

that was very sad.

I love my little girl, and you cannot

imagine what it\'s like when you lose those words.

They\'re so precious and they\'re so dear, when your

child can come up to you and just put those arms

around you and say I love you, mommy. And then when

you lose them, it\'s so devastating.

But I want to spend the rest of my time

today, because I want you to hear what me as a parent

has done for my child. I want you to see the benefit

of early intervention firsthand, of what this could

do. And I don\'t mean early intervention at five or

six years old, I mean at two years old, three years

old and older.

I want you to understand that at 22 months

old she could not do this. She was gone to us. Can

you say hi to the President\'s Commission?

CHILD: I can. Hi.

MS. WIDEWA: Say how are you. Can you say

how are you?

CHILD: I can\'t.

MS. WIDEWA: What do you say? What can you

say?

CHILD: Silly.

MS. WIDEWA: Can you say I love you,

mommy?

CHILD: Yes.

MS. WIDEWA: As you can see, my daughter

can talk today. That\'s what some of these children

can get if you help them. I\'m an exception to the

rule. I got lucky. I worked with experts from

around the world. I got the best of the best, and I

didn\'t give up. But some of these parents, they

don\'t understand those crucial first steps. They

don\'t ‑‑

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: She\'s better with the

microphone than some of us are.

MS. WIDEWA: That\'s the difference, what

early intervention can do. We had to take her out of

state. We did not get that in Iowa.

CHILD: Mom, it\'s my turn.

MS. WIDEWA: Now I want to go to Chuckie

Cheese\'s.

We found out about the diet, vitamins and

minerals used with autism. We found out about how

they talk in pictures and everything and we taught

our daughter on a daily basis. But these guys can do

this in school for some of these kids, too. I\'m not

going to say she doesn\'t still have autism. But I can

say my daughter has made a great difference.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

MS. WIDEWA: To finalize, because I

realize I\'m already over my time, but I appreciate

you taking the time to see my daughter. These kids,

they deserve this. They deserve this and the parents

deserve to hear these children\'s words or to have the

augmentation devices that they don\'t get and they

deserve to know those crucial first steps. In autism

we put together that autism action plan that took

every profession and broke it down into the crucial

first steps, not only that the professional needed to

know but what the parents needed to know from that

professional. We even went out and made all the

handouts for them.

So in that we ask please help these kids

and fully fund IDEA. And I\'ll see you in Washington.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

Cindy Laughead. She\'s left? Okay. Mardi Deluhery.

MS. DELUHERY: I\'m Mardi Deluhery and I am

the parent of a daughter who receives special

education services from 1980 until 2002, and I\'m also

with the Parent Educator Connection. Saying that,

we\'re overtime ‑‑

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: And your husband was

here this morning, right?

MS. DELUHERY: He was here this morning,

yes, he was and he is very interested in these

issues. He wasn\'t able to stay the whole day but he

is interested in these issues.

My interest is in least restrictive

environment. I think I\'m going to be very brief

because lots of other people have made that point

very well, so I\'m not going to tell you all my

stories. But just urge you to resist any request

there might be to dilute that. It\'s been important

to all our children. Thank you.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

Martin Ikeda.

MR. IKEDA: Marty Ikeda from Heartland AEA

11\. I\'m the coordinator of research and special

projects. In thinking about Leave No Child Behind on

the graphic that the Commission is looking at, the

top graphic has the situation in which we\'re

currently living, in which the general education is

separate from special education, and we have students

who general education meets their needs and special

education meets their needs, and kids in the middle,

they\'re what we call in the sea of ineligibility,

what Dr. McNulty, Gerald earlier today said floating

around down there.

We saw an example from Elk Grove of a

system that\'s depicted in the bottom graph, where

we\'re bridging the gap for students, where we have

general education interventions, as Mr. Grimes talked

about, in the Iowa law to support students before

they fall behind, to help them move forward.

In this bottom graphic we have the

intensity of the problem. As the problem gets more

intense, the amount of resources needed to solve the

problem get more intense, kids get into special

education.

We have some data from about ten percent

of schools in Heartland area education agency that

when students receive general education interventions

about 20 percent of students do not need to go onto

entitlement. About another 40 percent of students

continue on in general education without needing

special education entitlement. And about 25 percent

of students, after good intervention from general

education, with support from itinerant staff like

school psychologists and education consultants, go up

into special education.

But what\'s different in this system is, if

you turn the page over, this table has the numbers of

and types of assessments that were conducted at

Heartland AEA from 1995 to 2002. For 8,189 students

in that time frame who were being explored for

initial special education eligibility, there were

16,700‑some odd evaluations given. But notice the

distribution. Over 50 percent were functional

academic assessment data that teachers can use to

write measurable IEP goals and monitor the student\'s

progress.

One of the staple tools in IDEA, measures

of cognitive achievement, in those last seven years a

total of 15 have been given at Heartland AEA, and

similar numbers are reflected in the re‑evaluation

data as well.

My closing comment to you would be, as you

look at IDEA, examine models like this in which we\'re

trying to get teachers better data upon which to make

their decisions, because accountability is not just

about statewide tests, it\'s about helping teachers

make better decisions in the classroom. Thank you.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

We did get an opportunity to hear from Sharon Vaughn

and a couple of others, Dan Reshley who used to be at

Iowa State. Both made presentations to the full

Commission when we were in Houston, very similar to

the actual experience that you just related to us

from the Heartland AEA. We\'ve heard also from Elk

Grove in California. And I think this is an area

that we are really seriously looking at. So we

appreciate you giving us some actual data that goes

along with the research that we heard in Houston.

Next is Alecia Rahn.

MS. RAHN: My name is Alecia Rahn, and I

thank you for this opportunity. I\'m a school

psychologist that serves two rural school districts

just outside of Des Moines. I serve kindergarten

through 12th grade students, both general ed and

special education.

I spend my time doing a variety of things

but I wanted to give an example of how I use data in

my every day practice. Jerry Tindal this morning

talked about classroom based assessment and I want to

talk about the system we use for early

identification. For kindergarten through third grade

we use benchmark assessments for reading. So three

times a year we ask students to read out loud for a

minute using curriculum based measurement. We do

this in fall, winter and spring for each of those

grade levels.

Curriculum based measurements are short

duration fluency measures where students just read

aloud for one minute. Those data are available

immediately. We sit down with our principals and our

teachers and we\'re able to make decisions about how

the students are doing. So for example, in second

grade we know by the end of fall we want them to read

50 words per minute, at the end of winter we want

them to read 70 words per minute and at the end of

spring we want them to read 90 words per minute.

We can look at those scores immediately to

see how those students compared to those benchmarks.

If they\'re not, we can say, hey, we need a smaller

group, some more intensive interventions. Let\'s give

them some of that intervention and then follow them

with progress monitoring data. We can continue to

look at that data over time to make decisions about,

well, they\'re making progress; we can continue. Or

they\'re not; let\'s make a phase change and do

something different.

So I can use the data in a variety of

different ways. If those students make slow progress

or they need intensive intervention that\'s not

available in general education, we can consider

special education entitlement. And I use the data to

answer the three questions that I gave in front of

you. One would be about what is their rate of

progress; is it expected or is it slower? And we can

compare that to either their class median or another

identified standard.

I can then look at the conversion

evidence, again to answer those three questions for

entitlement. Also during special education we answer

those three questions at annual reviews and three

year re‑evaluations.

So in conclusion, we use data to make a

variety of decisions in our schools every day. I\'ve

seen my teachers and my administrators very excited

about using that data because they\'ve seen the value

of it. Those data help us to insure that we do leave

no child behind. Thank you.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you, Alecia.

Tim Blakeslee.

MR. BLAKESLEE: I\'m Tim Blakeslee. I\'m a

special education teacher in a school district about

one hop away from here, north of Des Moines.

I\'ve been kind of teaming with these two

over here. I happen to be a special education teacher

with a day off today, by some fluke, so I\'m not

skipping school to be here.

I\'ve been asked just to be here to talk

about from a teacher\'s perspective how kind of that

alternative delivery system can affect kids and how

using assessment to link to interventions and to

eligibility, possibly into accountability kind of

works. So I presented to you is two kids that came

to my school district this school year.

My school district has about 65 percent

free and reduced lunch, so we\'re a pretty

impoverished group. We have some special needs. I

think that\'s partially helped us to embrace our AEA

and embrace data and accountability.

In front of you, we have a high turnover

rate, as I said, so these are two students who just

came ‑‑ third graders who came into my district year

from another school district. On the case scenario,

the first student is Victoria. She came in as a

third grader reading about 30 words per minute in

third grade material. As Alecia talked about, that\'s

not anywhere near the benchmark where we would like

to see third graders.

So instead of panicking and saying this

kid has to be in special ed immediately, we looked at

those three questions. Where is she at right now,

how she compared to the benchmark and another

question would be, what kinds of instructional needs

does she have?

We took those needs, placed her along with

general ed material with some alternative materials

and put her in a smaller group for part of the day.

As you can see, for the first part of the data there,

she made really, really nice growth, about two and a

half words per week in second grade material. So we

looked at that, her parents were kind of on board

with us the whole time, but at parents conference

time we\'re thinking she\'s making really great growth.

We didn\'t have to talk about special

education at all. What we did talk about, now we can

move her up into an actual higher group, but we want

to keep kind of doing the things that we\'re doing.

At that time we moved her up and monitoring her

progress in third grade material and she has

continued to make really nice gains towards meeting

her benchmark and I can see her being in general

education in a year or two totally.

The other student, to kind of further the

point, is Josh. He also came in towards the fall of

this year. He\'s a student that probably was reading

about 15 words per minute in third grade material

when we got him.

Needless to say, again we said, what can

we do? But we didn\'t say let\'s do special ed right

away. We looked at where is he at, was does he need?

We actually placed him in a group of second graders

who were at a lower level, put him in more first

grade material and as you can see, his rate of

progress wasn\'t where we wanted him to be. So at

that point we talked about special ed. We used that

ongoing data to say, yes, he would be eligible but

also to directly tie into what his goals are going to

be for his IEP.

So what I\'d say is problem solving frame

work can work, that ongoing data and assessment for

me as a teacher is very, very useful. I\'d promote

that. And it\'s also very good to communicate to

parents in an ongoing fashion. Thank you.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Thank you, Tim. Thank

you very much. Katherine Fromm. Is Katherine Fromm

here?

Richard Owens, Richard T. Owens. Okay.

Katy Behneas.

MS. BEHNEAS: Good afternoon. I\'ll be

very brief. I\'m Katy Behneas. I\'m assistant vice

president for Government Relations for the Easter

Seals National Office, and I\'m also here on behalf of

the consortium for Citizens with Disabilities. What

a great ‑‑

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: And a native of Des

Moines.

MS. BEHNEAS: And I\'m a native of Des

Moines. I appreciate the opportunity to see my

parents. They appreciate the opportunity, too.

I wanted to say what a great day and what

wonderful testimony. I would ask that child find be

part of your discussion about accountability. As one

of the moms earlier said, finding little kids sooner

rather than later will be helpful to all of us.

Also many states are developing school

readiness standards for kids before they enter

kindergarten, and how those affect children with

disabilities again would be something to look at.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to be

here in Des Moines. I hope all of you will come back

sometime, especially during state fair time where you

can see what\'s really special about this place.

Thank you, again.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Can I ask just one

question?

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Sure, go ahead and ask

questions.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: You still have

part of your three minutes. Tell me more about the

school readiness standards, what you were talking

about. I know what they are but tell me what you\'re

talking about when you say incorporate students with

disabilities into them.

MS. BEHNEAS: I\'ll give you one specific

example. Illinois is working on pre‑K standards for

three and four year olds, about what three and four

year olds should do before ‑‑ skills that they should

acquire before they go to kindergarten. As the

development of those standards, what modifications do

children with disabilities need to be able to meet

those standards or participate in those kinds of

activities.

So kids should have certain social skills

or pre‑reading skills, that those aren\'t used, A, to

preclude kids with disabilities from participating,

but that there are also accommodations available for

children so that they can in fact be on that journey

for school readiness. Does that make sense?

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: So school

readiness programs should look at kids with

disabilities as part ‑‑ as what they\'re serving and

not ‑‑ and make those accommodations in school

readiness programs.

MS. BEHNEAS: Exactly.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: As the standards.

MS. BEHNEAS: Exactly.

COMMISSIONER TAKEMOTO: Thanks.

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Is there anybody else

that wants to make a presentation? I believe in a

very open system. So if there\'s somebody else that

wants to make a brief presentation, I want to give

you that opportunity now. That\'s our last one that

I\'ve got on my list.

I want to introduce Stephanie Lee, the

director of the office of special education programs

for the U.S. Department of Education. Stephanie,

thank you for being here.

17

(Applause.)

GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: I want to thank all

the staff that helped with this, and the panel

members for coming here and for listening. I also

want to thank all of you in the audience. I think

everybody has treated each other with respect and

dignity and we know this is a very important issue

that we\'re dealing with. The President has given us a

very important and difficult assignment. He doesn\'t

want any child left behind, and that\'s especially

true for children with disabilities. We\'ve heard

some really heart rendering stories about the

struggles that parents and families have had and the

progress that\'s been made.

I just want to assure you that we want to

build on that. We want to use the knowledge, the

expertise we\'ve heard on what\'s been learned in the

last 25 years, to try to make it better. I think

we\'ve got a great group of people that is committed

to this, and we do appreciate all of you that have

come to listen and to present and to be part of this.

This process will go on. There\'s several more

hearings and then meetings of the full Commission

that will be held regionally around the country.

Our goal is to be able to make our report

and recommendation sometime around the 1st of July to

the President. But I personally am very pleased and

honored that this hearing for the accountability task

force was held here in Des Moines, Iowa. And I want

to thank all of you for being a part of it. Thank

you very much.

(Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned

at 3:25 p.m.)