To hear some teachers talk you'd think they were running covert operations in their classrooms. They go to extreme lengths to keep the content of their tests in Top Secret status and practically go undercover to seek out would-be cheaters on test day. But, with the arrival of the Common Core State Standards it is time to reconsider a method of operating that is more about the culture of school than a best practice for teaching.

"It should be clear to every student, parent and teacher what the standards of success are in every school" (corestandards.org/the-standards).

If students are truly informed about exactly what they are supposed to be learning, then how is it even possible for test content to be a mystery?

I know a teacher who bragged about his tough tests. He loved to generate test questions from obscure locations like footnotes and picture captions. He cackled gleefully as he posted students' scores on a bell curve and then dramatically hacked the curve into sections that would correspond to letter grades. His motivation for testing was to divide the class into winners and losers.

There are still times when it is necessary to rank students. For example, any time students are seeking admission to a program a ranking test will be necessary to decide who gets in and who does not. In the right context these tests are both appropriate and meaningful to their task.

The average classroom assessment, however, is not a ranking test. Instead, the purpose of classroom assessments is to measure the degree to which students have mastered a stated set of skills or concepts. Those skills and concepts are clearly stated in the Common Core State Standards at corestandards.org. One purpose for a common set of academic standards is so that every student and parent can know what students will be learning in school. Pssst…the cat's out of the bag, everyone already knows what's on the test. Continue reading »

This post is the third in my series on using the Common Core State Standards to write high-quality, measurable IEP Annual Goals and Short-Term Objectives.

The Third Question

Yes, but using the CCSS Strands or Domains to write the Annual Goals and Short-Term Objectives makes them so… (insert horrified expression) …BIG! I was taught that Objectives had to be SMALL in order to be measurable.

Ah, and now we have arrived at the real crux of the issue. This belief is so embedded in our methods we aren't even aware that it is a fallacy. Yet, saying that all Short-Term Objectives must be small in order to be measurable is as erroneous as saying that all farms have red barns. This practice is so institutionalized, though, that it is as hard to picture an IEP without small Objectives as it is to dismiss the image of the quaint red barns we saw in our early childhood readers.

So, let's journey back in time to understand the falsehood that has become part of the bedrock of special education culture. When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act became law in 1975, schools were suddenly charged with serving children who had not even been allowed inside their doors. And why hadn't these children been coming to school? It was because they looked and acted differently. Most of them had clear physical impairments which made people think of a hospital, or a "home", but not a school. And so, what model would the schools use to serve these children? A medical model. Continue reading »

If you have read my blog post, Overcoming Flaws in Standards-Based IEP Forms, on utilizing the upper levels of the standards hierarchy (strands or domains) for Standards-Based IEP Annual Goals and Short-Term Objectives, then some questions may have popped into your mind. Note: I will now refer solely to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to answer questions since these are the standards to which we are transitioning.

The First Question

Can you really list Standards codes in a Short-Term Objective--will everyone know what you mean?

The best analogy I've found for describing how educational standards will improve the efficiency and efficacy of a special education teacher is a recipe. Prior to Standards-Based IEPs, most IEP Objectives were written to "cook up" one teacher's favorite "recipe" for instruction. He or she wrote them intending to use the curriculum purchased by his/her school district plus his/her own teacher-made materials and a few personal methods. Most IEP Objectives essentially said something like, "make Aunt Edna's lasagna". Unfortunately, nobody outside of that one teacher knew Aunt Edna or how she made her lasagna. In a nutshell, basing Annual Goals and Short-Term Objectives on the Common Core State Standards clarifies the precise "ingredients in the recipe" for every single teacher in the United States because now every IEP's "ingredients" can be found at www.corestandards.org.

Follow Up to the First Question

But what about the parents? I cannot expect them to know the Standards. Continue reading »

The intention of the Standards-Based IEP is to connect the academic programming for special education students to that of their general education peers as much as possible. Yet, in some cases, the very forms created for this kind of IEP may appear to be putting up obstacles rather than assisting us.

Let's look at how the sample IEP form put out by the Michigan Department of Education committee on Standards-Based IEPs, as well as software such as EasyIEP by PCG Education, ask us to utilize the standards when writing an IEP. And, let's look at how Michigan's Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCE) and High School Content Expectations (HSCE), as well as the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), are drawn from when writing IEP Annual Goals and Short-Term Objectives.

Michigan Department of Education Standards-Based IEP Sample Form
The example form from the MDE's committee on Standards-Based IEPs begins with some new fields added to the top of the Goals Page. First, the authors of the IEP are asked to list the instructional area (e.g. a strand such as Reading). Second, the authors choose the "Michigan Content Expectations upon which this goal will be based". The Content Expectations (CEs) are the lowest level in the hierarchy of the standards; these are the one-sentence statements of what a student should know and be able to do. So, it appears that the first two lines of the form ask the authors to jump from the highest level (strand) to the lowest level (content expectations).  

To continue working through the form, the authors next input baseline data, followed by the Annual Goal and the Short-Term Objectives/Benchmarks. While these components are familiar to any practiced IEP-writer, their placement after the Content Expectations is confusing. Continue reading »