PEER Review

PEER Day on Cape Cod

• Discipline and ways of making schools safe are concerns.
• School reform may have started as an idealistic movement, but it widens the gulf for minority children.
• People of color are appointed to committees as “tokens;” they have no decision-making power.
• Linear culture versus a world view of education and teaching; many people of color need to live in both worlds.
• Change, control, power; what school reform is is unclear.
• Inclusion: what role will it have for kids with severe disabilities?
• What interests are being served? Who are the intended beneficiaries?
• Exclusion from “the process” for parents of children with disabilities; it is both exciting and fearful.
• Parents are going to lose what little voice they do have.
• There is a contradiction and a gap between rhetoric and realities (e.g., standards serve to exclude kids.). How do we get parents and educators to make rhetoric equal reality?; equity equal excellence?; diversity part of excellence? “All children” rhetoric but...“we didn’t mean them!”
• Equality, inclusion, justice--stop talking and start walking. How do we reach people who don’t know about these issues and therefore have no voice?
• Reform “hoopla:” means failure for kids with special needs.
• We need leadership in communities and among kids; ownership and shared responsibility; relationships with people.
• A family-centered approach from the beginning works better for most children.
• “Yeah, right!” School reform is too damaging if it’s in the wrong hands.
• Does it include teachers, administrators, etc.? Teachers teach all students--if they are unwilling, weed them out!? We need to ask them, “Do you like children? Do you like doing things that children like to do? Do you believe that all children can learn?”
• Change in the system equals good things for younger students, but not for older students.
• Sense of Urgency predominates: schools are going to change. Result of change: people without a voice get shafted. Parents need to fight the tendency to become resigned and get involved.

The Study Circle Approach was developed to involve community members in studying and addressing issues of public interest. A Study Circle is open to many perspectives; the way in which it operates “gives everyone a home in the conversation and helps the group explore areas of common ground.” Education is one of the central areas of interest for communities, and Study Circles have been used to build coalitions that actively involve the entire community in measures to improve educational opportunities for all of its children.

One outcome of the discussion on education reform among individuals participating in the Experimental Projects Leadership Retreat was that it expanded group perspectives on how to involve all families in school reform activities and efforts. In addition, it created the opportunity to expand ways of using the language of education reform in discussions that will invite all families to participate in those efforts.

Low-cost Refurbished Computers Available!

These refurbished computers are ideal for education, job-skills and vocational training, and independent living needs. RE*PC has personal computers of all types available: IBM, IBM Compatibles (XT’s, 286’s, 386’s and 486’s; also some laptops), Macintosh (Mac Plus’s, SE’s, IIce’s), Apples (II’s, IIc, IIg’s) and many more. Computers are placed on a first-come, first-served basis and specific configurations are subject to availability. They are now offering a 10% cost-recovery discount for cash payment!!

People needing computers qualify if they are 1) disabled, 2) supporting or care-giving for someone with a disability, or 3) currently receiving some form of public assistance and will use the computer for education, job-training or employment purposes. If you fit into one or more of these categories, please call Chris at (612) 378-9796 for additional information.

Cybercolumn

by Carolyn Romano

To help you get started on your journey through cyberspace, here is some general information about the World Wide Web.

Ways to View the Web

• Lynx (UNIX): Text-only Web browser, with only simple formatting and no embedded images or sounds (this makes it very fast and ideal for use over very slow modems). Probably a good bet for a school with hundreds of 2400 baud modems, but not for anyone else.
• Netscape (Macintosh, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, UNIX): About 80% of those on-line use Netscape’s browser. You can pick up a copy by visiting Netscape’s website at http://www.netscape. com. The current release of the software is free for nonprofits and education institutions.
• Commercial Services like America Online, Delphi, and CompuServe all have their own unique browsers.

Basic Concepts and Key Terms:

• World Wide Web, WWW: The on-line collection of documents that are interconnected by hyperlinks, forming a virtual “web” that spans the Internet.
• A Page: Any document on the Web.
• Home Page: The document that provides a starting point or organizational center for any collection of documents.
• Personal Home Page: A document that describes the owner, such as interests, activities, and more. Such a page often has links to other pages of interest.
• HyperText: Any text that contains hyperlinks to other documents.
• HyperLink: A word or phrase that is identifiable from surrounding text. Clicking on such text will bring up the destination document that it is “linked” to. Standard hypertext appears as underlined text, usually in blue .
• HyperText Markup Language, HTML: Documents placed onto the Web are created using HTML, a language which describes the layout, contents, and links of such documents. HTML files are simple text files with embedded style tags.
• HyperText Transport Protocol, HTTP: A network of communications protocol for identifying, sending, and receiving Web documents. This is the string of letters that identifies all websites (http://).
• Browser: Client software for viewing Web documents and navigating hyperlinks to other documents.
• Helper Application: If a browser does not support an embedded image or sound format, it may use a second software package to open and view the embedded file. For example, to hear a sound, you might need to run an additional program besides your browser.
• Uniform Resource Locator, URL: These provide a uniform naming convention to a wide array of Internet services such as Electronic mail, Network News, Gopher, and WWW.

Join PEER’s Listserv

To post a message to the discussion group, send your thoughts to peer@fcsn.org, and your message will be distributed to the rest of the group.

If you have any questions, please contact Carolyn Romano at 617-482-2915 or e-mail cromano@fcsn.org.

Hot Websites

PEER

Websites on Opportunity to Learn Standards:

• inet.ed/gov/CommInvite/oportlrn.html
• www.ed.gov:80/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/sec219.html
• panda.network.org/otlsum.html

Daily Report Card, A summary of news in K-12 education

...on other useful resources

Welcome to the World Wide Web

For Web Beginners

World Wide Web FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

The Grantsmanship Center

Programs, Projects and Publications

Study Circles Resource Center. Study Circles are a democratic small-group discussion in which citizens share their experiences, analyze the problems in their communities, and come up with ideas on how to resolve them. A publication entitled Education: How Can Schools and Communities Work Together to Meet the Challenge? contains suggestions for organizing, leading and participating in study circles on education, and explains how to build coalitions to sponsor large-scale discussion programs involving people from all segments of the community.

For more information, contact: Center on National Education Policy, 1001 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 310, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 822-8405.

The Center provides information and publications to educators and parents to explain recent Federal initiatives concerning education. It is co-sponsored by Phi Delta Kappa and the Institute for Educational Leadership.

Hehir, T. & Latus, T. (1974). Special education at the century’s end: Evolution of theory and practice since 1970 (Rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review.

Gatto, J. T. (1993). The exhausted school: The first national grassroots speakout on the right to school choice (1st ed.). New York: Oxford Village Press.

Villa, R. A. & Thousand, J. S. (Eds.). (1995). Creating an Inclusive School. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Orlich, D. C. (1996). Designing successful grant proposals. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Schmoker, M. (1996). Results: The key to continuous school improvement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Definition of Terms

School Reform: making changes in policies and practices in key areas at the local, state and federal levels to improve the quality of teaching and learning for all students. Some of the key areas include, but are not limited to: school governance, staffing patterns, decision-making practices, instructional methods, parental involvement, assessment, curriculum, staff development, methods for student and school accountability, how a school community operates, scheduling and funding practices.

Content Standards: the knowledge and skills that students should know and be able to demonstrate to attain high levels of competency in specific subject areas. These are typically defined at different grade levels in each subject area and serve as guidelines for what areas schools need to provide students the opportunities to learn.

Performance Standards: the actions that a student must perform to show that learning has taken place or what a student needs to do to provide evidence that s/he can actually use and apply the knowledge and skills s/he has learned.

Letters to the Editor

Here is one response:

Dear Editor,

Looking back over the years that I have advocated not only for my son, but for other children, one of the questions I was told to ask about assessments was “What is the proposed assessment supposed to assess or measure?” In other words, why are we doing this particular assessment, what will we gain by doing it, and will it answer questions we have about the child?

I have found that some assessments did help me to understand how my son learns best and how to teach him. (He is a visual, hands-on learner.) Unfortunately, this information, although noted on his IEP, was not consistently applied by those working with him; other information about Johnny’s learning was also ignored. His teachers tended to focus only on one piece of information--missing other pertinent parts. When Johnny’s strengths and weaknesses, along with his individual learning style, were taken into consideration, he was enthusiastic about school and achieved success. But this didn’t happen often.

Many assessments will tell what a student does not know, but doesn’t explain why! For instance, when my daughter had math assessments done, the evaluator looked at both what she did and didn’t know. It was determined that she was having difficulties because what she didn’t know was a result of missing “pockets” of previously taught information.

I guess what I’m getting at is that if we are going to assess students, we should have a goal in mind, and then use the information we gain. It doesn’t make sense in business to do marketing research, and then ignore the results and do what you want or what is easier. Why should it make sense in education? Assessments can serve a purpose if used with discretion. We need to have goals in mind, make sure the assessments will measure what they are intended to measure and will be valuable, and then use the information we receive...appropriately and consistently!

Send your thoughts and/or quotes about assessment of students with disabilities to Carolyn Romano, PEER Project, Federation for Children with Special Needs, 95 Berkeley Street, Ste. 104, Boston, MA 02116. Fax Carolyn at 617-695-2939 or e-mail her at cromano@fcsn.org. You may also post your thoughts on the PEER Project’s new Listserv (See Join PEER’s Listserv, p. 3). To do so, send comments about assessment in your state to PEER@fcsn.org.

Last updated 6/7/96 URL: http://www.fcsn.org/peer/pr/pr5.htm