Education Week - Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2015 - (Page 2)
After Special Ed., Path Is Less Certain
Many students with disabilities feel unready for the choices they face
B
efore the law that
governs special
education was
enacted 40 years
ago, youths with
disabilities were
often marginalized.
Only about
1 in 5 children with disabilities was
enrolled in public schools in 1970,
according to the U.S. Department of
Education.
The legislation that later came
to be known as the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act made a
dramatic difference. Students with
disabilities now have the right to
be educated in public schools with
their nondisabled peers and to be
prepared for a positive and productive
life after school.
But many families and young
adults experience the transition to
life after graduation not as a launching
pad, but as a cliff.
Under the special education law,
schools have responsibilities, including
transportation, therapy, and job
training. The school is a one-stop
shop, and idea offers a strong structure
for receiving services.
Life in the wider community, on
the other hand, is like going to a
restaurant, asking for a menu, and
being told there is none, said Barb
Ziemke, a senior advocate for the
National Parent Center on Transition
and Employment, a new project
of the Minneapolis-based pacer-for
Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational
Rights-Center.
She said families have to puzzle
out the menu items themselves-
going to different "restaurants" if
necessary. And though transition
planning is a legal requirement of
the idea and must start no later
than age 16, some families feel that
the topic is broached too late, or is
too general, to be helpful.
"I had rights within special education,"
said Ms. Ziemke, who has
a 26-year-old son, Brandon, with
an intellectual disability. "My child
had rights. There were processes,
there was structure, and there was
predictability. Once you leave high
school and you're in that adult-service
world, even if you have services,
you don't have many rights."
LOSS OF STRUCTURE
Families, too, may find themselves
so consumed with the everyday
work of making sure their child's
K-12 schooling needs are met that
meaningful transition conversations
are put off. Leaving school seems
like a far-off prospect when a child is
still in elementary school.
"We lose track of what do we want
this adult to look like," said Crystal
Prall, an Alexandria, Va., mother of
20-year-old twin sons, Robbie and
2
EDUCATION WEEK s JUNE 4, 2015
Cullen, who have with intellectual
disabilities. "You're so wrapped up in
whatever fire is going on right now."
In the best of all worlds, the life
of a young adult with a disability
would be as well supported after
leaving school as it was when the
student was covered under the idea,
said Melody Musgrove, the director
of the federal office of special education
programs, and a state director
of special education in Mississippi
for six years. The young adult would
have received training in how to
meet his or her unique educational
needs when attending college, for
example, or adult services would be
in place that offer job training and
transportation.
"The services are seamless, they're
already aligned, the student knows
what to expect, the parents know
what to expect," said Ms. Musgrove,
"That's a great example of how we'd
like this to look."
No one would say those seamless
connections are in place for all
students covered under the idea.
But the outlook for students with
disabilities after graduation is not
wholly negative-just mixed.
UPS AND DOWNS
For example, the four-year graduation
rate for students with disabilities
is on the rise and now stands at
62 percent as of the 2012-13 school
year, the most recent year that the
Education Department required all
states to calculate graduation rates
using a uniform method. When the
department first started requiring
that uniform calculation, in 201011,
the graduation rate for students
with disabilities was 59 percent.
But variations among states make
it difficult to draw a conclusion from
the numbers alone. States have the
discretion to create diploma options
for students with disabilities that
may reflect less-rigorous requirements.
On
the education and employment
front, the picture is also
mixed. For instance, a federal study
that tracked youths with disabilities
eight years after they left school
found that 60 percent had enrolled
in college, not much lower than the
67 percent reported for youths without
disabilities. But students with
disabilities were more likely to be
enrolled in a community college or
vocational school, as opposed to a
four-year-college, than their typically
developing peers.
Sixty percent of youths with disabilities
were also employed for pay
outside the home eight years after
leaving high school, compared with
66 percent of all youths. However,
young adults with disabilities reported
earning less money than
their nondisabled peers-$10.40 per
hour compared with $11.40.
Local, state, and federal initiatives
are underway to offer more
supports to youths with disabilities.
Data from the Education Department,
which requires states to report
on whether they're meeting the
federal law's requirements to offer
transition planning, show an average
compliance rate of 87 percent in
the 2012-13 school year.
Advocates are also pinning hope
on the newly enacted Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act,
which was 11 years overdue for
reauthorization when Congress
approved it last year. The law governs
the work of the country's employment,
adult education, and
vocational-rehabilitation programs,
and the revised law offers significant
support to youths and adults with
disabilities.
State vocational-rehabilitation
agencies, for example, must make
"pre-employment transition services"
available to all students with
disabilities, and students with significant
disabilities are to be offered
extended services to prepare them
for jobs for which they earn regular
wages in "integrated" settings alongside
people without disabilities.
"I don't know that there's ever
been any other act that has put
quite as much emphasis on transition,"
said A. Anthony Antosh, a professor
of special education at Rhode
Island College in Providence who is
working with that state to improve
its youth and adult services for people
with disabilities. "The impact has
the potential to be good."
INCREASED FOCUS
The rehabilitation-services administration,
which operates out of
the Education Department, has for
the first time teamed up with the
office of special education programs
to operate a technical-assistance
center to help states improve student
transition planning. The center,
which started its work in 2014
and is housed at the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte, works
with vocational-rehabilitation agencies,
states, and school districts.
Other policy at the federal level
is also driving a closer look at student
outcomes. The office of special
education has switched the focus of
its state monitoring to more clearly
measure how students are doing
academically and whether they are
graduating on time.
At the school level, educators are
working to address several issues
that affect students' success when
they leave school-and that will
ensure that those students aren't
getting counseled out of high school
entirely for bad behaviors linked to
their disabilities. For example, they
are starting to look at their population
of students with disabilities
when it comes to disproportionate
use of school discipline polices such
as expulsion or suspension. Elementary
and secondary students with
disabilities are more than twice as
likely to receive an out-of-school suspension
than their typically developing
peers-13 percent to 6 percent,
respectively, according to 2011-12
data collected by the Education Department's
office for civil rights.
The department also found that
students with disabilities ages 3-21
represent a quarter of students arrested
and referred to law enforcement,
though they make up 12 percent
of the student population.
Strong self-advocacy skills are an
important ingredient of school success,
inside and outside the classroom,
but special education is also
seen by some students to stress compliance
over forging one's own path.
Several research-based programs
are underway to help students learn
how to find their own voices.
REACHING FOR 'SOMETHING'
At the family level, however, the
policy landscape is still fractured,
said Ms. Ziemke, the advocate with
the pacer center.
After years of working with families
and reading individualized education
programs, she suggests that
schools focus on a realistic assessment
of a student's strengths. That
means getting beyond taking notes
on what the students say they want
to do, which may not be realistic.
"Families want to know: What
can I expect, what can he actually
do? Can he work eight hours
a day, or should he stay for four
hours? That level of information is
very seldom provided through the
assessments that are done," Ms.
Ziemke said.
Another idea is to create a centralized
entity where families can
be connected to all the services
that they may need once their
child leaves high school, she said.
That means getting rehabilitation
agencies, schools, job counselors,
and employers talking to each
other. Some places already do this,
but often teachers are at as much
of a loss as parents.
"I don't want to leave out how
hard so many professionals are
working," Ms. Ziemke said. "A lot
of the transition teachers have a
frustration, too. They know they're
supposed to prepare these students
for this 'something' that's out
there, and they can't get their arms
around that 'something,' either." s
The ON SPECIAL EDUCATION blog tracks news and
trends on this issue. www.edweek.org/go/
onspecialeducation
By Christina A. Samuels
http://www.edweek.org/go/onspecialeducation
http://www.edweek.org/go/onspecialeducation
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2015
Education Week - Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2015
Inside
After Special Ed., Path Is Less Certain
DATA OVERVIEW: Students with Disabilities In School and Work
BY THE NUMBERS: Hearing Impairment
Md. Senior Opts For University Geared To Students With Hearing Impairments
In College, Students Face Choice: Seek Help or Go It Alone?
BY THE NUMBERS: Emotional Disturbance
At Lab School, Pennsylvania Student Prepares for Career In Culinary Arts
After K-12, Students Must Be Self-Advocates
BY THE NUMBERS: Specific Learning Disability
On Road to College, Georgia Student Learns To Speak for Herself
For Job-Oriented Students, Work Experience Is Critical
Discipline Policies Push Students Off College-and-Career Path
BY THE NUMBERS: Autism
Budding Politician Sets Sights on College
State Diploma Requirements Vary
Common Core: Will Bar Rise For Students With Disabilities?
BY THE NUMBERS: Intellectual Disability
In Virginia, Jobs Enable Twin Brothers To ‘Walk Taller’ After High School
Graduation Rates Reach New Highs, But Gaps Remain
TABLE: Graduation Rate Tops 80 Percent
State-by-State Data
Education Week - Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2015
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