Of the board members present - several had “interest” in Charters (one was a director of a charter school, one was on a board for example). They should have recused themselves from voting (I think only one did), but the others did not. As board members are appointed, we have the Governator’s Charter friendly folks making decisions without a grasp of what IDEA and FAPE are really about. Many charters in LAUSD don’t realize that they must accept special needs children so have made a conscience effort to enroll only enough to “look” compliant.

I’ve collected data for several years on the type of disability and service offered by our LAUSD charters and the numbers are staggering in the Specific Learning Disability (SLD) and Speech and Language Impairment (SLI) category. Very, very few Deaf. Autism, Vision Impaired, Mentally Retarded. The numbers don’t lie, but no one wants to look at the numbers. No wonder Charters have better test scores…they don’t have the kids that bring them down.

The California Charter School Association is the machine behind attempts to loosen all the special education laws and requirements for Charter Schools (LAUSD is under a Federal Consent Decree and the local charters want to get out from under it). They charge $5 per student for general membership and have formed a Joint Powers Agreement to provide ‘quality’ special education services and then charges an additional $5 per student for a charter school to be involved with their new “service model”. They are a lobbying machine and parents of special needs children cannot compete with these people. They’ve created a business that sucks public education dollars from our public schools and special education programs for the more moderate to severe kids that are not accepted in their Charter schools. It’s a mess.

I feel that the decision yesterday by the board was flawed and should be investigated because several members have obvious conflicts of interest.

On another note, the NYCDOE has steadfastly refused to release evaluations and any data re the impact, if any, of their “custom” Wilson program. Knowing the NYCDOE, which is data-rich and actual knowledge-poor, if they’re not releasing the Wilson data it’s because it’s very bad. All I know is one teaching fellow I spoke with, who had been made into a special ed. teacher and given the NYCDOE’s Wilson training. She happens to be an extremely intelligent and perceptive - and caring - woman, btw. I asked her what she thought of the NYCDOE’s Wilson training and her response was both immediate and succinct: “absolutely useless.” Perhaps charters have found a better way to use this training, if that’s what they’ve received?

The second funniest thing I read today. Klein freed school from bureaucratic control didn’t he? So I see no difference.

Dee, correct me if I’m wrong but Lindamood Bell falls under the Orton-Gillingham umbrella. I believe a great deal of the charters are using Orton-Gillingham programs for all of their students in early childhood, explaining some of the success on state assessments.

Charters are free to adopt their own curricula, and build them over time, and direct training resources where they will be most effective: the type of ongoing support you describe, rather than the one-off nonsense promulgated in the past by districts. That’s one of the advantages of being a charter - you just don’t have to pay attention to the swaying winds of fashion when it comes to curriculum. You can do what works.

How many graduate schools of education thoroughly train any of their students in even one research-validated program of reading instruction - that is, validated as effective for kids with disabilities? So far, I’ve been able to find exactly one, and I’ve been looking for nearly 20 years. When it comes to ELLs, same old-same old.

The Pueblo 60 Colorado district implemented an interesting project some years ago. It adopted Lindamood Bell as the primary reading instruction program for all students, not just for kids with disabilities. LB is validated as highly effective for kids with professionally-diagnosed reading disabilities such as dyslexia, and to a lesser extent, for kids whom schools generally “classify” as learning disabled. The LB folks had to do a lot of training and lots more supervision in Pueblo - no one day specials. It worked for all NCLB sub-groups. Pueblo 60 described itself as a large urban district with many kids who were black, Hispanic, poor, ELL, etc.

How many American graduate schools of education thoroughly train their students - any of them - in Lindamood Bell? So far, I haven’t been able to find even one. If any of you know of one, I’d be delighted to hear of it. The problems I hear about re Lindamood are that it’s hard to learn, very structured, counter-intuitive and not fun for teachers to do. I would hope this wasn’t another set of reasons why it hasn’t been adopted more widely, but … who knows? I do know that the NYC DOE often “evaluates” programs it adopts by determining how happy teachers feel about using them.

“With the students they have enrolled…”

Yessiree, right there at the top of page 14 of 14, le grande disclaimerdre.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-356-SF-Education-Examiner~y2010m1d2-Mysterious-procharter-study-supposedly-to-be-announced-Jan-5

CREDO has strong connections to the charter movement. check this article out from the local media in San Fran. for more info……this article tells you everything one needs to know about this group and their affiliations..

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-356-SF-Education-Examiner~y2010m1d2-Mysterious-procharter-study-supposedly-to-be-announced-Jan-5