Accountability and the education of the disabled.

Abstract

The No Child Left Behind Act holds schools accountable for the academic proficiency of all students. Its singular goal of academic achievement raises potential ethical issues for students with learning and behavioral disorders whose needs in the social domain are well documented. The narrowing of the general education curriculum has unintended consequences for students with disabilities. With less time available for a curriculum focusing on social development, these students may fail to reach academic potential and be accepted as rightful participants in general education classrooms.

Provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act

With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, children with disabilities were brought into the accountability movement on a new, more defined level. As a provision of this act, all students, including those with disabilities, are tested in grades three through eight in reading and math. Beginning with the 2005-2006 school year, high school students will also be tested in one of the years between grade ten and twelve. Schools are now held accountable for the performance of all students and to insure attention to this outcome, scores are disaggregated by disability, race, ethnicity and poverty level. Scores for students with limited proficiency in English are likewise disaggregated. Schools not demonstrating that children with disabilities and other targeted groups meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two years in a row face increasingly severe consequences including the transfer of students to better performing schools, provision of flee supplemental services such as tutoring, loss of federal funds, and restructuring.

The provision that schools must now demonstrate that students with disabilities are achieving academically according to designated proficiency standards has been controversial. Many districts are concerned that the failure of students with disabilities to meet adequate yearly progress will result in sanctions that include being classified as needing improvement. While professionals in the field of special education hold divergent views regarding the provision that students with disabilities be included in the manner currently defined in the No Child Left Behind Act, many feel that finally those providing services to students with disabilities are being held accountable for the learning outcome of those children receiving special education services. For instance, the Council for Exceptional Children's Division for Learning Disabilities issued a joint statement with the International Dyslexia Association, the Learning Disabilities Association of American and the National Center for Learning Disabilities (2003) supporting the provisions of the NCLB Act as they relate to the inclusion of students with disabilities in the accountability requirements. These organizations believe that the attention this provision provides to the academic achievement of students with learning disabilities will lead to greater academic progress for these students. Indeed, according to a report from the National Center on Educational Outcomes more students with disabilities than ever before are participating in state level standardized testing and more students with disabilities than ever are doing well on these assessments (Ysseldyke, Dennison, and Nelson, 2004).

While these outcomes are noteworthy, what has been overlooked are the social and emotional needs of children with learning, emotional and behavioral disorders and cognitive impairments. The No Child Left Behind Act, like other policies emanating from legislation mandate certain behavior on the part of educators and legitimize, sanction, or prohibit other behaviors. This being so, to some degree policies define practices of teachers and administrators (Osher and Quinn, 2003). Policies may also have unintended consequences (Osher and Quinn, 2003; Allbritten, Mianzer, and Ziegler, 2004). The mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act focus on a single educational outcome and that is academic achievement. With schools striving to meet this mandate and with severe consequences for failing to meet it, a curriculum focusing on social development becomes a low priority. Yet failure to address this curricular domain will interfere with the academic development of students with disabilities and their successful inclusion in the general education classroom.

Following a brief description of the social and emotional needs of students with behavioral disorders, learning disabilities and cognitive impairments is an elaboration on the relationship between social skill development and academic achievement. Finally, the potentially negative ramifications of the No Child Left Behind Act on the education of students with disabilities are explored.

The Social and Emotional Needs of Students

It has long been recognized that students with behavioral and emotional disorders, learning disabilities and cognitive impairments have needs in the realm of social functioning. While there have been minor changes in wording, the definition in PL 94-142, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and its reauthorization, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, continues to be used in establishing eligibility for services for children with emotional disorders. According to this definition:

   The term emotional disturbance means a condition exhibiting one or
   more of the following characteristics over a long period of time
   and to a marked extent, which adversely affects educational
   performance, (a) an inability to learn that cannot be explained
   by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; (b) an inability to
   build or maintain satisfactory relationships with peers and
   teachers; (c) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under
   normal circumstances; (d) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness
   or depression; or (e) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or
   tears associated with personal or school problems. (Federal
   Register, 1977)

It is these identified characteristics that are deemed to be interfering with the child's educational performance. Without intervention these students' academic achievement and long term adjustment will suffer.

The definition of students with learning disabilities focuses on "one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations ..." (Federal Register, 1977). As early as 1981 the Interagency Committee on Learning Disabilities advised that language noting difficulties with the acquisition and use of social skills be added to the federal definition. While this recommended change was not made, it is widely recognized that many students with learning disabilities have social skills deficits. More specifically, according to Bryan, Burstein and Ergul (2004) studies have found that between 38% and 75% of students with learning disabilities have social problems. "The acquisition of social skills by students with learning disabilities has been cited as a problem that is equally significant as the academic and language problems of this group of learners ..." (Anderson, 2000, p.271 ).

Students with cognitive impairments have identified deficits in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior that manifest themselves during the developmental period. One dimension of adaptive behavior is social competence. Without intervention, these deficits in social competence and other areas of adaptive behavior will interfere with learning and development of satisfactory relationships with teachers and peers.

The skills in the social domain have generally been labeled social skills. They encompass such skills as accurately perceiving social situations, working in groups, resolving conflict, waiting a turn, listening, problem solving, initiating a conversation, participating in class discussions, dealing with feelings such as frustration or anger and goal setting (Elias, 2004; Elksnin and Elksinin, 1995). Without a curriculum focusing on these skills and direct instruction on use of the skills, students will not acquire them and use them in the classroom and in their everyday lives (Elksnin and Elksnin, 1995) nor will they transfer appropriately to the workplace or other post-secondary environments. These deficits will continue to affect these individuals as adults across life domains.

Social Skills and Academic Achievement

The meeting of these needs is essential for the development of the academic potential of those students with disabilities who have deficits in the social domain. Lack of social skills has been associated with lower achievement and less time on task (Morris, 2002). Students who lack skills in such areas as asking for help or clarification, initiating conversations, taking another's perspective, providing constructive feedback, or expressing support of other's ideas are unlikely to be effective members of cooperative learning groups (Goodwin, 1999; Gut, 2000). Students who demonstrate lack of social competence and have difficulty building satisfactory social relationships experience diminished school success; yet those that do acquire social skills and competence that result in positive social status have been found to have increased academic success and have access to greater learning options and opportunities (Smith and Gilles, 2003). Negative affect (fear, depression, loneliness) is considered a precursor to poor academic achievement and results in inefficient information processing (Bryan, Burstein, and Ergul, 2004). Students not able to regulate or manage strong feelings such as anger or confusion are at least temporarily impaired in their ability to learn and retain information (Elias, 2004).

"Beyond the way in which students' effort to compensate for learning challenges drains their energy for nuanced social perception and self-controlled interaction, impairments in reading and language skills are directly linked to impaired social-emotional skills." (Elias, 2004, p. 55). For example, students with deficits in social skills are disadvantaged in their studies of literature and social studies as they are asked to examine differing points of view of historical events or characters in literature. Their own deficits in areas such as reading social situations and understanding the social world disadvantage them in applying these skills to making meaning of the social studies and English curricula. Their ability to understand literary or historical characters and their actions and intentions depends in part on their ability to name and recognize feelings: (Elias, 2004). Yet the inability to recognize feelings in themselves and others is common in students with deficits in the social domain.

Unintended Consequences of the NCLB Act

Clearly the meeting of needs in the social domain is closely associated with the most common indicator of school success that at least in this age of accountability is academic achievement. Paradoxically, while the No Child Left Behind Act hold districts accountable for the academic achievement of students with disabilities, their responses in terms of curricular and instructional priorities may actually hinder academic progress negatively impacting both districts and students with disabilities who are unable to reach their potential. Because of the priorities on academic achievement, teachers feel pressured to maximize instructional time concentrating on skills on which these students will be tested. Rather than broadening, the general education curriculum is narrowing, with the focus placed on those curricular areas covered in state level assessments (Mooney, Denny, and Gunter, 2004). As a result, teachers report less time to focus on the acquisition of social skills (Forgan and Gonzalez-DeHass, 2004). At the same time, teachers' tolerance for students whose behavior interferes with their learning and the learning of others is decreasing (Ned, Cessna, Borock, & Bechard, 2003) or likely to decrease (Brigham, Gustashaw, Wiley, and Brigham, 2004).

Equal opportunity for learning likewise may be compromised (Vincent, Homer, and Sugai, 2002). As teachers in general education settings where students with learning and emotional disorders may be included experience the pressure to raise test scores, their willingness and flexibility in collaborating with special education teachers may diminish (Brigham Gustashaw, Wiley, and Brigham, 2004). To do so may be seen as a distraction when they feel the need to cover an increasingly focused curriculum to meet legislative demands.

The academic performance of students with emotional and behavioral disorders has not received the attention that their behavioral performance has; however, a requirement of the 1997 Amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act specifies that a functional assessment of behavior be completed when the behavior of students with disabilities seriously interferes with learning. As a result, special educators are discerning environmental factors in the school setting that may be inadvertently perpetuating certain behavioral responses. More recently recognition has been given to the relationships between students' behavior and academic instruction provided. For varying reasons many of these students with challenging behavior find academic tasks aversive. It may be that the curriculum seems irrelevant to their lives or it may be that they do not see the possibility of successful task completion due to a history of failure or weak academic skills (Chandler and Dalquist, 2001). For these students their behavior allows them to avoid academic tasks. Working successfully with these students will require teachers to adapt new strategies. In this climate of accountability, teachers may be less likely to stray from timelines or modify instructional approaches despite provisions in the student's Individualized Educational Plan (Brigham, Gustashaw, Wiley, and Brigham, 2004). There is a risk that general education teachers will be less welcoming of students with needs in the social domain. In addition, there is a risk that as an unintended consequence of the No Child Left Behind Act, that the regular education classroom will be seen as a less desirable place for students with needs in the social domain to receive their education, thus reversing the movement toward inclusion (Bringham, et al, 2004).

The enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act is ill its early years. Exactly how the priorities of this act will affect the expectations of general education teachers and administrators responsible for the education of students with disabilities is yet to be fully seen. Nor is it fully evident how significant the climate changes in terms of willingness to work with students with disabilities will be. However, preliminary findings suggest the need to monitor the experiences of students with behavioral and learning disabilities as well as those with cognitive impairments in the general education classroom and support general education teachers in meeting their educational needs. It has been suggested that one outcome of the inclusion of students with disabilities in state assessments is a raising of expectations. This in itself is a positive development. It must be accompanied by a commitment to support the education of these students using instructional approaches and specific strategies to foster their academic growth. At the same time, it is essential that needs in the social domain are addressed. General education and special education teachers have a moral responsibility to address the complex needs of these students. Unless this happens, these students will not reach their academic potential and will fail to be accepted as rightful participants in general education classrooms.

In summary, provisions of the NCLB Act hold schools accountable for the academic achievement of all students. The locus on this singular goal of academic achievement and resulting narrowing of the curriculum raises potential ethical concerns for students with disabilities who have documented needs in the social domain. Failure to address these needs through a curriculum focusing on development of social competence will result in limitations on these students" academic growth and put their participation in regular education classes at risk.

References

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Colleen Reardon, Dominican University, IL

Assistant Professor of Education in the School of Education specializing in education of students with disabilities