It is a little chilly out here. Hey, everyone. It's Tim Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education. And I'm stepping outside in my backyard, crunching some leaves, taking a break from sitting at a computer. But the main reason I am out here is to tell you about our bonus episode for this week. For this bonus episode, I wanted to share a podcast episode that I recently listened to you from Tony Barton and her podcast school disrupted. It's called I've had it, Tony's take on? Do we need to disrupt general education to improve learning for all? It's a fantastic episode. It is about 20 minutes, so it is not too long for you to check it out. Take a listen. And let me or Tony know what you think. Tony and I had a great discussion when I asked her if it was okay for us to publish this as a bonus episode. And I think you're really going to like what she has to say. Also for the whole month of November in the early part of December, we are going to have some excellent episodes. So we will be back in your podcast feed next week. Thanks for listening and enjoy school disrupted. I'm going back in
welcome to this week's episode of school disrupted. The title of this podcast is school disrupted for a reason. I want to have conversations that push people's thinking and that help people know what change to enact. Unfortunately, in some of the conversations I've had so far, people were still afraid to say the thing that needed to be said. So I'm gonna say them here in this series called I've had it Tony's takeaways. Here I will loudly share the hard truths that were under the surface of my conversations from previous interviews, and highlight the most essential takeaways. This podcast is intended to feel like a slap in the face. But I'm also going to give you concrete things that you can do to be a part of the solution. Because while we know people are working really hard, and in many places, we've made a lot of progress. We have not made enough progress. This series is inspired by the I've had it podcast. So thank you to the ladies who host that show. And go ahead and grab your pen and paper and get ready to take notes. So today's I've had an episode is titled, Tony's truths, my takeaways from the episode, why do we need to disrupt general education to improve learning for all? I want to start us off with this thought. If we fixed the general education classrooms, we would not need special education. That quote are some wise words from a woman by the name of Marty MC naqt, who recently received an award for being an educational visionary, particularly for her work in special education. I heard those words from her at an award ceremony that I attended earlier this year. And they really, really stuck with me. And I've come to this place where I really think that those are words that I would literally die on the cross for. I want to tell a story about some work that I did last year and work that I were I was coaching a general education content teacher who was a first year teacher who had a 45 minute instructional period that included a student with autism, that he did not know how to support but I want to tell the story because it is illuminating. Of it illuminates really why this question why do we need to disrupt general education so that not just students with specific needs are supported, but so that all students are supported. One thing that I found out to be true about this teacher is that not only was he a new teacher that did not know and understand how to support students with disabilities, but he also wasn't expected to effectively support them. And he also received no coaching around supporting them or frankly the other students in the classroom. And so this particular student with autism was the victim of a system that was not done designed to support him. And so some of those things that I just talked about are elements of the design of the system. And so not only did this teacher not understand the student's disability or how to support him, but the teacher, but also the structure of the academic period did not allow enough time for the teacher to support this another student's and the way that they needed 45 minutes is not enough to incorporate small group instruction into your class period, which is what that student and what other students in that class needed. There were also no systems in place for this teacher to receive planning support, to be able to effectively plan for that kiddo. And the only reason why that teacher had any clue on what to do is because I was supporting that teacher. And I honestly, I even had this conversation with a teacher and I said, if that students mom knew that much of that kid's time was spent doing coloring pages or busy work, they would sue the school. And so this brings me to the first hard truth that I want to name for us today. And that is that schools are claiming to be inclusive, without creating the system's to support students in an inclusive environment. And there are a lot of reasons for this. One of those reasons is that I believe not I believe, but I know there are no accountability systems, and there's no accountability at multiple levels from the teacher level all the way up to the school leader. And no one is regularly having the conversation with educators in the classroom or even with school leaders, if you're a principal manager and leaders that you coach, and simply asking the question, Are the kids alright? That's one of the things that I've heard quite a bit in the past several years when we're thinking about kids in school is this question of, or even the statement of the kids are not alright. And asking that question, Are the kids alright? Well, the kids in that class, were not alright. That kid was not alright. Number two, educators don't know what to do because teacher and leader prep is not across the board, preparing them on how do I design a school or a classroom that supports difference in the classroom or a notion that you'll hear me talk about and you'll, you'll hear me, you will hear me call it learner variability. And then thirdly, we have a teacher crisis. We have a really, really big teacher crisis. And we're putting new teachers in classrooms that lack skills latched, lack, education related to teaching in any way, and in some cases, like education at all. And that's not working because those teachers aren't being supported. Those teachers are, in many cases just serving as placeholders or babysitters. And in terms of this particular teacher, there was enough time for the team at the school to put systems in place to support that teacher, such as time built into the schedule where that teacher is CO planning with the Special Education Team and or the instructional coach every single week. And that should have been built into the schedule, but it wasn't because we're okay with students with a disability, floundering and failing in our schools. And that has normalized. There is a study that the Brookings Institution did, where they talked about how schools with very high quality general education programs can boost achievement for students with disabilities period. And they talked about how it is critical to strengthen the general education supports as a part of setting high academic expectations for students with disabilities. But again, this is a blurb that just existed in the study. But we are not seeing schools across the board do the work of making this happen.
And so that brings me to hard truth. Number two,
and that is students with disabilities can access and reach grade level standards if they have the appropriate support. And what is currently happening is that the supports we are providing are insufficient, at best because they are not going far enough to address what is happening in the regular classroom with the general education teacher. And so the first key takeaway that I want to pull out that was in this episode was special education alone is not enough to mitigate the impact of a disability on a student's academic progress. We talked about a report that really goes into great detail about this, particularly when we're talking about student Kids with behavioral means it's even, they're actually even much worse off in the classroom. And so to respond to this, in addition to providing high quality, special education services, we have to reimagine our approach to general education. And so one way that we can think about doing that is thinking about how we assign and utilize teachers. And if we do that, in a way where teachers strengths are aligned with student's needs, we can really create a different experience for students in the classroom. So for example, there's a school that I've had the opportunity to work with and visit many, many times. And it's Bushwick Elementary School in New York City. And 2019, they were recognized as a Blue Ribbon School, and specifically, they were recognized for their work and serving high needs populations. And so what they did was, they reorganized their teaching staff so that their best literacy teacher was actually shifted from the general education classroom, to be the intervention teacher supporting both special education students and other students who needed a reading intervention. This was not an easy conversation with this teacher who needed to make that shift. But that leadership team was committed to their students who had significant needs, and knew that this was going to be best for those students. And so that is really in stark contrast to the typical model where we see students in special education, receiving reading supports from a special education teacher who is typically not highly qualified or expert. And when I say not highly qualified, I don't mean that they're not a highly highly qualified special education teacher, I specifically mean that they are not expert in literacy or expert in math. Many I've heard many people try to argue with me and like make the argument that why would I put my best to literacy teacher with just such a small percentage of students when I can leverage her skills with a larger percentage of students. And so my response to that is well, what you can do is you can create a model where you're teachers who are not necessarily experts are receiving targeted coaching and support to build their expertise, while they are working with students who need a lower level of support as opposed to the inverse. So if you're going to do that, you need to create a system where you're building people's skills. There is a program called the next education workforce at Arizona State University. And they're doing some really great work with working with schools to help them rethink how they're using educators, and assigning them so that their strengths are leveraged and used strategically. So I encourage you to go to their website and look up the work that they're doing, because they're doing some really progressive work and thinking about using teachers in a smarter way, not just for the benefit of the students, but also to support this crisis that we have in terms of educator burnout, and educator shortages. So let's now jump into key takeaway number two. One of the other key takeaways from this episode was that reimagining general education also means rethinking educator preparation at all levels, and rethinking not just leadership prep. So if you're getting a master's in educational leadership, but also leadership, professional development and professional learning, schools spend across the board of millions of dollars on professional development for teachers and for school leaders. But specifically, there are many programs that I have had the opportunity to work with, that support school leaders and some of those programs that people are familiar with our new leaders for new schools is one that is a program where educators can transition into school leadership, and they go through a couple of years where they're learning how to become a school leader. And then they are typically placed into sort of like an internship, so to speak, or a residency in a school and then they become a school principal, usually in very high need schools. There is another program b s formerly building excellent schools, where teachers with as little as two years of teaching experience can apply to enter into this program where they have the opportunity to open a charter school. And again, typically opening schools and some of the highest needs areas. And there are also there's also a professional learning program through an organization called Relay Graduate School of Education where I had the pleasure of working for the past seven or so years and Those programs all support leaders in some kind of a way, whether it's training and placing leaders into existing schools, whether it's training and placing leaders, and setting them up to open a new school, or whether it is simply a professional development program. And none of those programs that I just named, are inclusive or equity centered by design. And again, when I say equity centered, I'm not talking just about equity in terms of race and culture. But I'm also talking about equity in terms of disability. Again, in my last step further, a couple of episodes ago, I really push us to think about, you can't be talking about anti racism if you're not also talking about anti ableism. And we know across the field that those and other programs are not, we're not designed with anti ableism at the center, and many of them not even with anti racism at the center, but we're placing them in the highest needs areas that need folks who are really committed to those two things. And so, those type of programs are not going to be equity centered until they integrate inclusive practices into the entirety of their programmatic design, and not treat special education content as a one off, or as an optional training session. Here's an example. I founded the Inclusive Schools Leadership Institute at relay Graduate School of Education on the Leadership Programs team that hosted the are housed the national principals fellowship, the National principals, supervisor fellowship, and another program called the leverage Leadership Institute, along with some other local masters and principals certification
programs. And
the first the second year that I found into that program, the Inclusive Schools Leadership Institute, the National principles and principles supervisory program, decided to incorporate a series of electives that leaders in those programs could sign up for, in addition to their core training, content, and that was as class called inclusive school culture. And that was their only session out of a year long program, where they learned about inclusive practices and what it means to actually what the definition of an inclusive school is, and what the criteria and indicators for that are. It was a one a four hour class that was optional. And I'll never forget that during that session, one of the leaders of one of the most well known chartered networks, came up to me and said, Why am I just now? So there were some case studies that I shared in that school and during that session, and one of the case studies was actually about a school and the network that that leader worked in. And he came up to me and he said, number one, why is this the first time that I'm ever hearing about the work that is happening at a school and my network, and it is profoundly excellent work that I should be learning from and modeling my leadership practices after? And he also said, Why is this class optional? And why isn't everyone in this entire program required to take this
class? And I didn't have an answer for him. And that's not okay.
And so, bad class now has become a required session. But that only happened after the no excuses. Charter schools had sort of a come to Jesus about equity. And so something happened to push them towards integrating that one session into their program. But again, it's still only one class, and there is still a ton of work to be done. It has to be integrated into all of the content that we put in front of leaders. Otherwise, they're going to continue to see inclusive practices as an add on or as optional, because we're designing our programs like that, like they are. And here's the thing. And what we know to be especially true, now and today is that leaders and teachers are really feeling burnt out and they are leaving the profession in droves, unlike what we have seen and a really, really, really long time. And so they don't have the capacity or the interest in signing up for an extra program or an extra learning experience after they've already participated in some other program. We when why should they? If we were inclusive on the front end, then we wouldn't have to be inclusive on the back end.
Well, I'm going to leave it here.
Today we sort of unpacked and unearth two hard hitting truths. One, we must start at the beginning of the educators journey and integrate a focus on inclusivity at the educator at the core of educator development programs, both on the leader side and the teacher side. And secondly, we will never truly improve special education if we don't reimagine general education. Thank you for listening. As always, I push you to remember, we must embrace disruption and rethink design because if it doesn't work for none, it works for none. Thank you for listening. Please make sure to follow and subscribe to this podcast on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts
