By Igor Stravinsky (anonymous Canadian high school teacher)
Special Education Reform in the Peel District School Board
Ever obsessed with race, the PDSB is determined to stamp out any evidence of inferior achievement by black students (as a group) even if that means poorer overall educational opportunities for everyone.
In my previous post, I outlined the board’s overall educational philosophy, briefly described the role of special education programs, and explained why the board sees these programs as racist. I ended by explaining the board’s justification for canceling the Vocational Level 2 program.
This program had been geared to meet the needs of kids whose level of knowledge and skills was too low for them to be successful at the former applied stream of study. It goes without saying that these kids are way out of their depth in the new de-streamed (academic level) courses.
This time around, I will be diving more deeply into the board’s reasons for gutting special education. Will the changes they’re making better serve the students of Peel and result in an improvement in terms of overall academic achievement?
Rationale for Specific Changes
“...students who identify as Black, African and Caribbean have faced disproportionate disciplinary actions, as do students with Special Education needs, by way of modified day, suspensions, and expulsions…”
This statement heralds the subsequent list of changes the board is implementing. The implication is that black kids especially, and kids with special education needs generally, are targets of disciplinary action. The reality is that these kids much more frequently engage in behaviors that require discipline. In fact, the discrepancy between the discipline-triggering behaviors of kids in these groups and kids in other groups is far greater than it appears. That is because, for years, administrators have been under intense pressure not to discipline such students through detentions, suspensions, etc., but rather address discipline problems using non-punitive methods such as restorative justice. That is all fine, if it works. But the evidence is that as traditional discipline has eased, behavioral issues have become more frequent and more severe.
Why do kids in Spec. Ed. programs misbehave more frequently? The basic answer is that many of them are frustrated and do not like school, other than the social aspects of it. This makes perfect sense. They are forced to attend school, and they are reminded daily that they are not very good at it. Many of these kids don’t want to be there! It is only natural that they would act out.
There is no immediate, easy solution to this dilemma. These kids can lead productive lives. The challenge for the Special Education teacher is to help them attain the skills they will need to to find their place in society given their abilities and limitations. This is in fact what all kids must do, which is why the teen years can be challenging for anyone.
“... In addition, students who face significant learning challenges are often placed in programs outside of their local community, which may impact their connection to their neighborhood…”
Students who are achieving well below grade level need courses designed to meet them at their level, not curriculum which present them with tasks well beyond what they are capable of. Even the Ministry of Education states as much:
“All students learn best when instruction, resources, and the learning environment are well suited to their particular strengths, interests, needs, and stage of readiness [my emphasis].” (Learning For All, 2013).
In order to provide these students a variety of courses that meet the above criteria, there need to be enough students at their level in the school. If you have 200 such students in a school of 1500, the course offerings will be very limited. But if you put 1000 such students together, you can offer a wide range of courses beyond the mandatory math, English, and Science, such as Arts and Technology courses.
This may entail attending school farther from home, but this is exactly the same compromise students who take regional programs such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate make. The board’s plan to pull all the special education kids back to their home schools will result in limited and inappropriate course assignments leading to greater frustration and behavior problems, not to mention, of course, little learning.
“...segregation by grouping students of like identity is not equitable access to an education that is rooted and based on respect for the full breadth of human diversity, which includes physical and intellectual ability…”
This statement seems to say that struggling academically, in whatever way, is a form of “identity” that by putting these students in appropriate classes rather than mixing them in with kids who are functioning at a much higher academic level is denying all the students “the full breadth of human diversity”. If that makes sense to you, you are understanding something I am not.
“..., it is imperative that we dismantle and reconstruct the response to students who have found themselves excluded from the mainstream classroom curriculum and community…”
Whether it was the former applied level courses or special education (vocational level) courses, the board always describes these program choices, made freely by students and their parents, as an “exclusion”. This goes right back to the PDSB review which talks about students being “streamed out” of academic courses. No student was ever forced into any course or program. Based on an In School Review Committee meeting recommendation, students may have been offered a place in a vocational level program, but in the end, the choice is the student’s, along with the parents. As a teacher, I would often see a number of students making the change from applied level to vocational level after the first semester of grade 9. These were kids who declined Vocational level 2 and instead registered in applied level courses. Finding it too onerous, and having not earned credits, they made the change.
Students are often told “you can do anything!”, but of course, that is a lie. Kids are not stupid and know BS when they hear it. Don’t insult them. A more honest statement would be “you can try to do anything- and you’ll never know what you can do unless you try!” Not all of us can be astronauts, rock stars, or elite athletes, and that is okay! We do not need to be those things to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives.
“...[the board] aims to promote inclusive education, as well as to understand, identify, and eliminate the biases, barriers, and power dynamics that limit our students’ prospects for learning, growing, and fully contributing to society.”
So we are to believe that a disproportionate number of black students are forced into special education programs based on
teacher and administrator biases against black kids: If the ISRCs are usually biased, then you would see large numbers of black kids overachieving in the vocational classes. Finding them too easy, they would be earning high marks with little effort. That is not happening.
barriers: As explained above, there are no barriers to entry into any level of course, except for the prerequisite, which in grade 9 means you graduated from elementary school, period.
power dynamics: So the biased ISRCs place barriers to higher level courses in front of black kids because they have all the power. Based on what I just explained, does that make sense?
The false narrative that a disproportionate number of black kids end up in special education programs due to systemic racism is very harmful in many ways, the worst of which is that no effort is being made to root out the true cause of the observed performance gaps between students, which are not based on race, but rather on socio-economic circumstances.
There can be no doubt that racism exists in Canada, but there is not a single stitch of evidence that there is a correlation between that and scholastic aptitude/outcomes. Anti-Semitism is probably the most pervasive form of discrimination in Canada. It is indeed sad that Jewish people should be subjected to this in 21st century Canada, and action needs to be taken against it, but it is clear that it does not impact Jewish success in school. Asians, also subjected to much racism and discrimination, have responded by exceeding whites in just about every metric of success in the country.
The harm being done by the PDSB in gutting special education programs and program level options generally is severe. The catastrophic outcomes will not become evident for a number of years when kids who have received a degraded education move out of the school system and into post-secondary studies and the workforce.
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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Parents Voice Concern over Lifted PDSB Supervision
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I wonder how long it will take to recognize this doesn't help Spec Ed kids, it will make them truant and then not graduate at all. I'm glad Ontario is considering moving toward an apprenticeship and trades stream in Gr. 11 and 12. That might save some of these kids and help them find much valued employment. Then, this will be seen as streaming so you can't win.
All the woke school boards do is mess everything up. Disgraceful.