The following is a transcription of the podcast, “Standards-Based Individualized Education Program (Audio).”
In this podcast on standards-based IEPs Laura Kaloi, NCLD’s Director of Public Policy, interviews Dr. Margaret McLaughlin, professor in the Department of Special Education and Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Youth at the University of Maryland. Dr. McLaughlin’s research includes investigating the impact of education reform on students with disabilities and on special education programs. In this podcast, she explains the basics of standards-based IEPs and how they differ from traditional IEPs.
Laura Kaloi: Welcome, Dr. McLaughlin. Please give our audience a brief description of what a traditional IEP is designed to do.
Dr. McLaughlin: First of all, I have to say that I’m not sure exactly that there is such a thing as a “traditional” IEP. There are many different versions of the IEP, although certain components of the IEP have been there since the original federal legislation was passed in 1975.
The IEP is an extremely important document. It basically represents the contract between the local school district and the parents regarding the services, specialized education and support that will be provided to an individual student with disabilities to help him benefit from his education.
It’s very important to have the individualized part of the IEP. Traditional IEPs have focused, of course, on assessing the student and what his educational needs are as well as the need for related services and other sorts of support that help him benefit from that education. The IEP also designs individualized education goals that define what the student will be taught, what the student is expected to learn (or be able to do) at the end of one year.
So traditionally we have focused on assessments that are often not linked to the general scope and sequence of the curriculum. For example, we might look at specific skills such as “doing basic computations” or “math problem solving,” and we might have skills that speak to the student’s organization skills or the ability to do phonics. Some of these are basic literacy skills or learning skills that all students need.
But in that process, we have traditionally neglected the larger scope and sequence of the general education curriculum, meaning what is it that we want all first graders, third graders, or fifth graders to know and be able to do in areas such as English, Language Arts, Math, Science, and so forth.
The traditional approach to the IEP was to take that very discrete assessment or assessment data and turn them into goals that often were also very discrete and almost “splinter skills.” Not that they were unimportant, but they [only] addressed pieces of the overall curriculum. The assumption was that the student would learn these specific skills to address these goals through specialized education.
So the larger curriculum was often ignored. Standards-based IEPs turn that [way of] thinking on its head in many ways. First, the standards-based IEPs are clearly referenced to grade-level content curriculum and to the grade-level expectations that we have for all students. That alone is an extremely important concept because, instead of starting from a deficit that says, “Let’s see everything this child can’t do,” it sets forth the goal that this is what every student should be able to learn and be able to perform. Based on that, we can determine that an individual student with a disability may need supports in certain areas, or he may need additional remedial, compensatory, and/or very different instruction in certain other areas.
So I think we start with a different perspective in standards-based IEPs. And because we’re dealing with these broader chunks of the curriculum, pieces of knowledge, we have to look at very different assessment techniques and write very different goals. We also have very different assumptions about what a student will be able to do following [a period of] instruction (e.g., one year, or several weeks].
Laura Kaloi: With today’s increased focus on state-wide academic content standards, many people incorrectly assume that a child’s IEP is automatically linked to his state’s academic standards. Why is it important for parents and educators to understand the difference between the traditional IEP and the need for a standards-based IEP?
Dr. McLaughlin: One of the major things parents need to understand is that at this time the IEP is evolving. The core importance of the IEP as a representation of faith for a given child still remains. And, of course, we know that there are specific components and pieces of an IEP that must be in place such as who has to be involved in developing the IEP.
But beyond that, the federal law — and often states — give very little guidance to local districts about exactly how the goal needs to be formulated and what the format of the IEP [should be]. But this is changing. It’s changing because of some of the IDEA changes that speak to access to the general education curriculum. And, more importantly, both IDEA and Title 1 speak to the need for all students to participate in the assessments and the accountability provisions, and the need to ensure that all students have a fair and real opportunity to learn grade-level curriculum.
Given that, we now need to look at states that are increasingly taking a larger role in looking at how the IEPs are developed, specifically how their goals are aligned with the state standards. State-level IEPs are beginning to emerge. This is still new and it’s evolving, but more states are designing and developing state-wide IEPs. This is to ensure greater consistency across districts in terms of how they are approaching the development of the IEP, particularly the relationship of the goals to the state standards.
I think it’s going to take awhile for special education teachers and other educators to go through the training to understand the intent of these new IEPs. During that transition process, parents are going to see some real changes, but not necessarily everywhere, because many districts have been trying standards-based IEPs for some time. But I think parents are going to start seeing a different perspective on the assessment. Hopefully they’re going to see broader, more meaningful goals that are clearly linked to grade-level, standards-based curriculum. And I hope they’ll see a greater focus and emphasis on the types of programs, supports, services, and accommodations that will be provided to enable children with disabilities to fully access grade-level curriculum.
So it’s important to understand that we’re in a transition phase. We’re not going to see total movements tomorrow. But I think parents are going to experience some different ways of talking about the educational goals for their children.
Laura Kaloi: How prevalent is the change you’re describing?
Dr. McLaughlin: At the local district level, some states have already moved forward with their standards, assessments and accountability [measures]. Starting in the ‘90s we saw a number of districts experimenting with this. Some are much further along than others.
As we moved from the 1997 IDEA amendments that spoke to access to curriculum, participation, and assessments in the No Child Left Behind era, we saw a lot more movement as schools recognized the need to ensure that, if children were going to be held accountable on assessments for performing at certain levels in this curriculum, they needed to have full access to it.
So I think it’s far more prevalent in local district implementation than it has been at the state level. But recently a number of states have started to move toward creating state-wide IEPs. This is a new development, but it is going to become more prevalent.
I think there are a number of reasons for this, not only IDEA and the 2001 NCLB, but also the fact that some states are now thinking about implementing modified achievement standards for the 2% group of students . They have to provide guidance to their IEP teams to ensure that students who maybe held to those [standards] are going to receive instruction in grade-level content. So there are a number of forces pushing states to develop more standardization in their standards-based IEPs.
Laura Kaloi: You have said that moving forward with this approach means addressing how to build a student’s basic skills and knowledge in grade-level content. In order to accomplish this, what do IEP teams need to know before they can develop standards-based IEPs?
Dr. McLaughlin: Historically, we looked at development of IEP goals through a very deficit-based process where we assessed what the child could not do, and developed very small goals. The goals were strongly behavioral in that they stated things like “Child will, given x, do 12 of these,” or “Will do 14 of those at 80% accuracy.” That kind of a goal really doesn’t make sense with a standards-based IEP. So one of the first things I think an IEP team needs to do is revisit their thinking about developing the goal. And they need to start from the premise that all students should be given this opportunity to learn this grade-level content, which includes skills and concepts (which can be very sophisticated).
Within that, they need to look at the full scope of what’s going to be taught in fifth grade or eighth-grade math or social studies or whatever particular content domain is relevant. They need to ask, “In what areas do we need to provide support and access? What accommodations and program modifications do we need to ensure the student has a fair opportunity to learn that?” At the same time, they should ask, “What definite skill deficits does the student have, and where might we want to have some individual goals to address those deficits?”
For example, you could have a student who receives intensive small group instruction several times a week to help build reading fluency or comprehension strategies. You may find that individual goals that speak to organizational skills might essentially get the student to approach his or her learning in a more structured way so that he or she is better able to manage the homework or the day-to-day instruction. You’ll see accommodations for extra time, or perhaps technology to help the student with writing or reading.
All of those things should continue to be part of an IEP. Where I think the difference lies is in the core goals that state what students will be expected to learn in the next six weeks of instruction and in the following six weeks, and so forth. You really need to have people on the IEP team who understand this and who want the student to have full access [to the curriculum].
If that means that students have some direct instruction and support, additional supports from a special educator in or outside of that general education environment, then that’s a discussion for the IEP team to have. But I think it’s where you start thinking about what the child will do, and the assessment is then referenced to that piece of curriculum.
So it’s going to be a big change for some special educators who are used to giving certain types of assessments and have used certain assessment tools for a long time. These are not going to be sufficient to [ensure] what a child understands about a particular construct in math, etc.
For example, last week I was in a school district and sat in on some classes. I was amazed by students with IEPs across the disability spectrum who were engaging in some extremely complex reasoning in math and social studies, in world history-type of classes. These were middle schoolers and high schoolers. Some of these kids have enormous skill deficits in certain areas, but with the support they were getting from general and special education teachers they were really able to understand some very sophisticated concepts.
I think it’s important [for the IEP team] to have a deep understanding of:
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The general education subject matter.
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How the curriculum is going to play out over a given year.
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Assessments that help them understand deeply where the student fits into that curriculum.
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Where the [student’s] gaps are, and where he’s going [to need] support.
Laura Kaloi: In your opinion, what are the main benefits of implementing standards-based IEPs, for students, educators, and parents?
Dr. McLaughlin: I think the main benefit has been the change in expectations and the notion that you start by assuming that the IEP is being developed to give students full access to their grade-level curriculum.
The task for the IEP team is to determine how to do it and in which areas they need to prop up the student and where they need to modify how the program is delivered, etc. So it starts from a whole different frame. I think that is critical.
I think the second piece is providing a common, shared language between general and special educators. I’ve had interviews about this with administrators and with special and general education teachers. A common language helps them understand much better what it is they’re each supposed to do with respect to the student who has an IEP and who might be in their classroom all day or a portion of the day.
We also need to redefine or refine the special education professional’s role, as they work collaboratively in classrooms with their colleagues but also what they do in a highly specialized role, whether it’s a [classroom] environment or using specialized interventions with an individual student. This is still a work in progress, because we’re talking about 30-plus years of practice, and there are many assumptions about what special educators should do. They’re all working towards the same goal, and I think that’s very important.
Laura Kaloi: Dr. McLaughlin, thank you for spending this time with us today.
This transcription was made possible by a grant from the American Legion Child Welfare Foundation.
