Begin with the End in
Mind: It’s about Root Causes and Intervention—Not
About Policies or Positions
[CLICK
HERE for the Full Blog Message]
Dear
Colleagues,
Introduction
Over the past year (at least), I have been
writing somewhat independently about a number of issues that I am going to
integrate in today’s Blog message:
Equity, School Safety and Discipline, Disproportionality, and Seclusions
and Restraints.
In some of these past writings, I have
relatedly made numerous statements about how the U.S. Department of Education
(especially) has maintained a failed, decades-long agenda of promoting
frameworks and programs that are not field-tested and that have not produced
sustained results.
Some of these frameworks and programs
include PBIS, MTSS, Restorative Justice, and (coming to a new federally-funded
Technical Assistance Center near you) . . . SEL.
My critiques of the above have been
research-based and outcome-driven, and they have exposed both scientific flaws
and “magical” thinking.
But more important: I have not just critiqued. I have recommended psychoeducationally-sound,
evidence-based, and field-tested alternatives.
In today’s Blog, I want to discuss a new
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report just published. . . but I want to (as
usual) bring the conversation down to what individual schools and districts
need to do with individual students who are “behaving badly.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
New National
Report on School Discipline, Suspensions, Disproportionality, and the
School-to-Prison Pipeline
Last week on July 23, the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights published a 224-page Report,
Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies and
Connections to the School-to-Prison Pipeline For Students of Color with
Disabilities
which detailed extensive analyses of past and present national
survey and incident data, research, and commentary—especially from two panels
of experts who testified before the Commission on December 8, 2017.
While I will briefly summarize
the Report’s stated findings below, most of my discussion will focus on (a) the
importance of reading the two dissenting Commission members’ statements
(at the very end of the Report—starting on Page 177); (b) how some Report
recommendations simply endorse the flawed (as above) approaches long-advocated
by the U.S. Department of Education; and (c) what schools and districts need to
pragmatically understand and do to provide the best services, supports,
strategies, and interventions to students exhibiting significant behavioral
challenges.
Rather than re-publish
the content from all of the past research-based Blog discussions that I have
written in the areas of Equity, School
Safety and Discipline, Disproportionality, and Seclusions and Restraints to
expand on the critical points below. . . at times during this Blog, I will
simply provide links to those Blogs.
But the “theme” here—in digesting the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights Report—is that we need to:
Begin
with the End in Mind.
That is, we need to read the two
Commissioners’ dissenting statements at the end of the Report immediately
after reading the Executive Summary.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A Brief Report Summary
There does not appear to
be any substantive disagreement over the fact that students of color and
students with disabilities are disproportionately sent to the Principal’s
Office and suspended and expelled more than white students.
Indeed, the Commission’s
Executive Summary began as follows:
Nationwide, more than 2.7 million K–12 public school
students received one or more out-of-school suspensions in the 2015–2016
academic year. The use of suspensions increased steadily from the late 1980s
and early 1990s through the 2011–12 school year and then dropped precipitously,
by approximately 20 percent between the 2011–12 and 2013–14 academic years.
Some of the increase through 2011 was the result of teachers and administrators
punishing minor behavioral infractions (e.g., profanity, dress code violations)
that in the past would have landed a student in detention, but later had led to
harsher punishments such as suspensions, expulsions, or even arrests.
Researchers have found that school-level factors, such as a principal’s
perspective on discipline, significantly impact disparities in out-of-school
suspension rates for students of color and students of color with disabilities.
Data also suggest that school discipline policies may not be impacting all
students equally. Moreover, data have consistently shown that the overrepresentation
of students of color in school discipline rates is not due to higher rates of
misbehavior by these students, but instead is driven by structural and systemic
factors that this report will address.
Exclusionary discipline practices place students at
risk for experiencing a wide range of correlated educational, economic, and
social problems, including school avoidance, increased likelihood of dropping
out, and involvement with the juvenile justice system. Additionally, in recent
years, some federal officials and school reform advocates have started
examining how the education system may be systematically failing certain groups
of students (e.g., students of color, students with disabilities, LGBT
students) who are:
Disproportionately
over- or incorrectly categorized in special education, are disciplined more
harshly, including referral to law enforcement for minimal misbehavior, achieve
at lower levels, and eventually drop or are pushed out of school, often into
juvenile justice facilities and prisons—a pattern now commonly referred to as
the School-to-Prison Pipeline.
While one of the
dissenting Commissioners disagrees with the statement above that “the
over-representation of school discipline rates is not due to higher rates of
misbehavior by these students,” the main body of the Report:
- Provides limited student-specific psychoeducational analyses regarding why students demonstrate inappropriate behavior and how they can more consistently demonstrate appropriate behavior; or
- How to link these analyses to specific multi-tiered services, supports, strategies, and/or interventions that will change inappropriate student behavior into appropriate behavior.
In fact, the words
“multi-tiered systems of support” appeared once in the entire 224-page
Report where it stated that, “Georgia H.B.740 require(s) local school systems
to employ multi-tiered systems of supports and reviews prior to suspending or
expelling children up to third grade for five or more days each year.”
Practical District
and School Take-Away I: While I
understand that most educators are not going to read any 224-page
document. . . much less this one, the first Take-Away here is that
educators need to be careful to not accept a “popular press” summary of any
major state or federal policy document, or the “sound bites” that emanate from
those who are not dedicated to describing the nuances of a complex issue and
document.
Related to this point is
the need to understand that policy statements often influence the depth and
breadth of recommended practices.
In addition, it is
important to recognize the practices that are missing in any policy document
(i.e., the psychoeducational analyses and multi-tiered services noted
immediately above), why they are missing, and the implications to students and
staff because of their absence.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Critiquing the
“Interventions” Recommended in the Report
The Federal Advocacy and Misrepresentation of PBIS Continues
In many ways, and given
its federal funding, the Commission’s Report appears to be—inadvertently—a
“walking advertisement” for the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports
(PBIS) framework funded by the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)
since 1997 and developed by the National PBIS Technical Assistance Center.
This is not surprising
as OSEP continues to dominate and unduly influence the national school
discipline narrative (and the information politically received by the
Commission) by ensuring that only the positive aspects of the PBIS framework
are prominently highlighted in federal reports (such as this one). As I have documented in the past, over the
past 15 years or more, when testimony is taken at federal and Congressional
hearings, OSEP ensures that PBIS and its “framers” have a prominent “seat at
the table.”
This influence and
advocacy, indeed, continues to spread a major PBIS misrepresentation—one that, once
again, is institutionalized in this Commission Report.
Specifically, in Chapter
1: School Discipline Policies and their Effects of the Report (Page 84),
the Commission published the following incorrect statement about the Positive
Behavioral
Since 1997, IDEA has explicitly required schools to
consider PBIS methods when considering disciplinary actions for both special
and regular educational settings. Federal legislation urges educators to
consider “positive behavioral interventions, strategies, and supports” and
“positive academic and social learning opportunities” to contend with student behavior
when it “impedes his or her learning or that of others.”
I have continually discussed,
over the years, the fact that the term “positive behavioral interventions and
supports” always appears in IDEA (and ESEA, in fact) in lower case
words, and that the capital-letter PBIS acronym never appears in the
IDEA (or ESEA) legislation.
Thus, as above, IDEA does
not require the PBIS framework or its methods. IDEA requires strategies that are generically
related to positive behavioral supports, and that have been developed by
thousands of educators.
The Problem? The appearance of this statement in the Commission
Report will (again) be interpreted by hundreds of thousands of educators across
the country as a validation of the PBIS framework. And yet, this validation is (and has always
been) on shaky grounds.
Indeed, in Chapter 3:
Evaluation of Federal Government Policies, the Commission Report (Page 142)
states the following:
At the Commission’s briefing, Max Eden, senior fellow
at the Manhattan Institute, argued that the shift from exclusionary discipline
practices that the ED guidance recommended has not had positive effects on
schools. He argued that only a small percentage of schools have rolled out district-supported
and district-funded positive behavioral support programs and there are not rigorous
studies to either confirm or deny their success.
Eden testified that a teacher’s ability to use
suspensions as a disciplinary tool was taken away across the board, and a replacement
tool [i.e., positive behavioral intervention and supports] is given to “ten
percent or fewer schools within that district. And we do not have great studies
on what happens in those schools. [But][a] study in Philadelphia that just came
out a few weeks ago does not paint a nice picture.”
_ _ _ _ _
The Philadelphia study
reaffirms what we have known for over 15 years—based on an independent study of
PBIS commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education itself.
I summarized this study
and other salient PBIS realities in my March 30, 2019 Blog:
The Art of Doubling Down:
How the U.S. Department of Education Creates Grant Programs to Fund
and Validate its Own Frameworks. Call
Congress: The Tainting of RtI, PBIS, MTSS, and SEL
In summary (and
back to where we started), the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ Beyond
Suspensions Report has not only (inadvertently) misrepresented federal law
relative to PBIS, but it has recommended a framework that—since the inception
and federal funding of the National PBIS Technical Assistance in 1997—has not
demonstrated any sustained, large-scale, appreciable success in addressing the
disproportionate disciplinary actions taken against students of color or with
disabilities.
Moreover, the Commission
Report, by not attending to Max Eden’s testimony and data, missed the
opportunity to “set the record straight”— failing to acknowledge the many
research-based interventions (see below) that have helped many school
districts nationally to increase students’ social, emotional, and behavioral
self-management skills, while decreasing student misbehavior when present.
Practical District
and School Take-Away II: I
understand that many districts and schools have been encouraged and/or trained
in the PBIS framework by their state departments of education (remember, I
worked for the Arkansas Department of Education for 13 years). Moreover, I understand that all of us want to
trust that our state department of education colleagues are recommending
effective practices—even while some also feel that there will be consequences
for not acceding to these recommendations.
But, please understand
(because I experienced it first-hand) that many state department of education
staff (a) are feeling the same pressure that you are feeling from them—but they
are feeling it from the U.S. Department of Education; and (b) some of them
either do not know the “deep” research flaws in the PBIS framework, or they do
not want to acknowledge them.
Indeed, some of this
latter group are just being good “foot soldiers”—doing what they are told to
do.
The point is: If your district or school is currently
implementing the PBIS framework, it may be time to evaluate your work—and,
especially, your outcomes—using ten PBIS realities described above. If, based on the objective data that
represent the social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes of all of your
students (including those who are most challenging), you are obtaining
sound, sustained, and successful results. . . then, “keep on keeping on.”
However, if you are not
getting the outcomes that you desire and need—even though you may be frustrated
about the implementation time already lost, it may be time to invest some
quality time to determine why you are not attaining your outcomes.
Don’t “double
down” on your poor outcomes. . .
throwing bad time at already lost time.
Either modify what you are doing. . . or, if you conclude (as suggested
above) that the PBIS framework has fatal flaws, throw it away and find an
evidence-based model that will work.
_ _ _ _ _
For more information on PBIS and its limitations—especially in the context
of multi-tiered systems of support and seclusions and restraints (also
addressed in the Commission’s Report), please read the following recent Blog
messages:
February 16, 2019. Redesigning Multi-Tiered Services
in Schools: Redefining the Tiers and the Difference between Services and
Interventions
_ _ _ _ _
March 2, 2019. Congress Take Note: How to Really
Address the School Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic. The U.S. Department
of Education Keeps Pushing PBIS, but PBIS Ain’t Got Nothing to Give (Part I)
_ _ _ _ _
March 16, 2019. States Take Note: How to Really
Address the School Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic. What State
Departments of Education Need to Learn If Using PBIS to “Solve” This Problem
(Part II)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Restorative (Justice) Practices
The U.S. Civil Rights
Commission Report also spent a lot of time singing the “praises” of restorative
(justice) practice programs. Once again,
this is not surprising as these programs have become more “public,” especially
over the past five-plus years, due to the U.S. Department of Education’s
funding of the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments.
I have analyzed and
discussed the significant limitations of restorative practices in a number of
past Blogs. The most recent one was
published on January 26, 2019:
New Rand Corporation Study Finds Restorative Practices Produce
Mixed and Underwhelming Results: But Some Publications are
“Spinning” the Outcomes and Twisting these Results
Critically, aside from
the fact that this “movement” is based more on personal testimony than objective
science, one of the biggest issues with restorative practices is that (a) they
are literally a collection of practices that have not been integrated,
researched, and field-tested to determine which collection or sequence of
practices actually produce changes in student behavior; and (b) they have
become the foundation of a “cottage industry” where anyone who thinks that they
can “do” restorative practices are establishing home-grown “National Centers”
and professional development programs.
This past June, I
presented at a national invitational conference in Chicago, sponsored by the
Spencer Foundation, on “Reducing Suspensions and Expulsions of Students with
Disabilities: Linking Research, Law, Policy, and Practice.”
At the beginning of the
three-day conference—and as a complete surprise to me, it became immediately
apparent that a conscious “Restorative Practices” under-current was going to
guide the conference. While I “kept my
peace” for the first two days, when we began to formalize the conference’s
recommendations on Day Three, I publicly commented that I hoped that the
recommendations were not going to be unduly influenced by the Restorative
Practices under-current.
At that point, the
conference facilitator asked me what my definition of “restorative practices”
was.
My response was, “Whatever
the restorative practices proponent says that they are.”
_ _ _ _ _
Back to the U.S.
Civil Rights Commission Report: Max
Eden (see the PBIS quote and section above) expressed concerns about both
PBIS and restorative practices in his testimony to the Commission.
For example, Page 89 of
the Report states:
Some critics of reforming discipline policies and
limiting the use of exclusionary discipline argue that methods such as PBIS and
restorative justice may have an adverse effect on the school environment. For
instance, Max Eden, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contends that his
analysis of student surveys from several large school districts suggests that
students have a very low sense of safety while at school. He testified that
truancy in cities like Los Angeles, Oakland, and Philadelphia has risen by 16
percent because students are afraid to come to school. He believes that this is
because violent students are no longer getting suspended, due to the Education Department’s
guidance instructing schools to re-evaluate their usage of exclusionary
discipline. Furthermore, Eden stated
that he was not aware of any district that had administered consistent school
climate surveys and implemented the Education Department’s reforms that had not
experienced “a deterioration in student safety or respect.”
The Report goes on (Pages
141-142) to discuss a situation in the Washington, D.C. Public Schools where
the published “success” of their restorative justice practices were grossly overstated—as
documented by a Washington Post investigation that found (quoting from
the Commission Report). . . that
at least seven of the city’s 18 high schools had
removed disruptive students from schools, but not recorded it as a suspension.
In several cases, students who had been barred from entering the school were
marked as present, others were marked as attending an “in-school activity,” or
absent without an excuse. Dunbar High School had the most underreported suspensions
compared to any other high school in January 2017, according to Washington Post
investigators. In data obtained by reporters, only 7 percent of the days that
students were kept out of school for misbehavior were actually correctly
reported as suspensions.
If this was not damning
enough, the most significant comments on the data-based “efficacy” of
Restorative Practices can be found at the end of the Commission Report (starting
on Page 192) in the comments of Peter N. Kirsanow, one of the two Commissioners
who filed a Dissenting Statement.
By way of background,
Mr. Kirsanow is a lawyer and a Partner with the Cleveland, OH law firm of
Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan, & Arnoff.
According to his U.S. Civil Rights Commission biography, he is a
Republican (if this makes a difference) who “frequently testifies before and
advises members of the U.S. Congress on various civil rights and labor related
issues, appearing most recently before the Senate Judiciary Committee to
support the nominations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Samuel
Alito to the United States Supreme Court.”
In his Dissenting
Statement, Mr. Kirsanow made the following statements (Page 199) about
Restorative Practices:
“Restorative practices, as they are typically called
in a school or community setting, include many specific program types and do
not have one specific definition in the literature; they are broadly seen as a
nonpunitive approach to handling conflict (Fronius et al., 2016).” When we talk
about “restorative justice,” as we see here, we are not talking about a clearly
defined set of practices. We are talking about fuzzy muffles. Telling children
to reflect upon the harm they have caused to others may be effective for
children who are predisposed to empathize with others or to care about
disappointing their teachers. But not all children care about the effects of
their actions on others, or indeed, may be pleased that the harm they caused
had its intended effect.
Kirsanow went on to
describe the concerns publicized in the methodologically-sound Rand Corporation
study of Restorative Practices in the Pittsburgh Public Schools (see the link
above to my Blog message discussing these concerns). He also cited similar concerns regarding the
use of Restorative Practices in (a) the Baltimore City School District (Page
203 of the Commission Report); and (b) Minneapolis (Page 205).
Kirsanow concluded his
dissenting statement by saying:
The best that can be said for “restorative practices”
and reducing suspensions is that in some school districts, students who would
otherwise have been suspended are in school for more days. This is a paltry
return for the price of increased classroom violence and disrupting the
education of students who are there to learn.
[CLICK
HERE for other Kirsanow comments on the Report from his July 25, 2019 National
Review article, “Racial Disparities and School Discipline”]
_ _ _ _ _
Summary. Amazingly, despite the Restorative Practices concerns
documented in the Commission Report (as above), the Commission Report still
recommended the following in Chapter 4: Findings and Recommendations:
Use of positive behavior intervention supports,
restorative justice principles, and similar disciplinary practices that support
alternatives to exclusionary school discipline generally result in improved
student and staff perceptions of school safety, as reflected in school climate
surveys. When teachers receive training and supports to implement these
practices effectively, the use of these alternatives generally result in
effective classroom management. Congress has required consideration of these
supports and principles for students with disabilities since the Individuals
with Disabilities Act (IDEA) reauthorization of 1997.
Quite honestly, from my
perspective and in the face of the research, this recommendation is simply
irresponsible.
But this paragraph also
suggests (once again, as discussed earlier in this Blog) that the consideration
of Restorative Practices appears in and is required by IDEA 1997.
The fact of the matter
is: This is simply not true. In
fact, “restorative practices”—or any variation of this term, does not appear
anywhere in IDEA 1997. . . much less IDEA 2004.
Practical District
and School Take-Away III: As
with my PBIS District and School Take-Away II, it may be time to
evaluate your work—and, especially, your outcomes— if your district or school
is currently implementing a Restorative Practices program. You may also want to assess how much time the
program is taking, and whether you are getting a high “return on investment.”
Relative to this point, a
May 6, 2019 article in The Hechinger Report, “The Promise of
‘Restorative Justice’ Starts to Falter under Rigorous Research,”
describes another Rand Corporation study of restorative justice
implemented in randomly-selected schools in Maine. Supported by the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, and published on-line in the March, 2019 Journal of Youth and
Adolescence, the study:
. . . found no difference in school climate between
middle schools that tried restorative justice and those that didn’t. It didn’t
look at suspension rates or academic outcomes. But the fact that bullying and
other school climate measures didn’t budge is another sign that restorative justice
programs aren’t a slam dunk solution to addressing student misbehavior.
The biggest insight from the Maine study was how hard
it is for schools to implement restorative justice even after days of teacher
training, monthly consultations and visits by coaches. Students’ survey answers
revealed that they didn’t experience very much restorative justice in their
day-to-day classrooms even after two years of effort. Restorative justice
also requires a high degree of student buy-in. Students cannot be forced to
talk about their grievances face-to-face with their classroom enemies. It’s a
voluntary process and not every kid wants to talk.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Differentiating the Data by Type of Disability
If we are ever going to
get closer to a full understanding of the disproportionality problem for
students with disabilities, the data must be disaggregated across the thirteen
different disabilities referenced in the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA).
I have discussed this
recommendation in a number of past Blog messages. The most recent discussion analyzed three
years of state seclusion and restraint data by disability category. . . finding
that students with disabilities directly related to social, emotional,
behavioral, and mental health issues had the highest increasing number of
seclusion and restraint incidents.
I connected these
numbers not just to the challenges faced by these students, but also to the
fact that most districts and schools have not had the training and do not have
the personnel required to implement the multi-tiered services, supports,
strategies, and interventions needed by these students.
_ _ _ _ _
In this same vein, Commissioner
Gail Heriot filed her Dissenting Statement (beginning on Page 177 of the
Commission Report). Currently a
Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, Heriot is a former civil
rights counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a former
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at George Mason University Law School.
According to her U.S.
Civil Rights Commission biography, she is politically an Independent (again, if
this makes a difference) whose “areas of expertise are civil rights, employment
law, product liability, remedies and torts. Her work has appeared in legal
journals like the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review and the Harvard
Journal on Legislation. She also frequently writes for popular newspapers and
magazines, including the Wall Street Journal, the National Review, the Los
Angeles Times and the San Diego Union Tribune.”
In her Dissenting
Statement, Professor Heriot made the following points regarding the
disproportionate discipline experienced by students with disabilities:
Here’s the problem: We are not talking (relative to
disproportionality and student misbehavior) about students who are blind,
wheelchair-bound, or deaf.
As Max Eden testified at our briefing, those students
generally have lower than average discipline rates (though for reasons I cannot
fathom, this significant clarification didn’t make it into the Commission’s findings). Instead, it is students with behavioral disorders who have higher than
average discipline rates.
If that
surprises anyone, it shouldn’t. It is essentially by definition that
students with behavioral disorders engage in misbehavior at school more often
than other students. The diagnostic criteria established under the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (“DSM 5”) for them often includes findings that the individual has engaged in some sort of misbehavior.
For example,
one of the criteria used to diagnose Oppositional Defiant Disorder is “often
actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or
with rules.” Similarly, the diagnostic criteria for attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) note that a person with the disorder “often
interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g. butts into conversations, games, or
activities); may start using other people’s things without asking or receiving
permission; for adolescents or adults, may
intrude into or take over what others are doing.” “Recurrent
behavioral outbursts representing a failure to control aggressive impulses” is
likewise a criterion for diagnosing Intermittent
Explosive Disorder, and the essential feature of Conduct Disorder is “A
repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior
in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate social norms
or rules are violated.”
What the Commission has found is that students who
misbehave a lot get disciplined a lot. That should not be news.
Professor Heriot
concluded her dissenting statement with:
One of my earliest heroes – Daniel Patrick Moynihan –
famously said that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own
facts.” A taxpayer-funded federal commission should be especially careful to
avoid making these kinds of errors. Yet for all the reasons I discuss above, I fear
that the Commission failed to do so with this report. The policymakers we
advise and the public who fund us deserve better.
_ _ _ _ _
Practical District
and School Take-Away IV: Districts
and schools routinely collect student data by differentiating between student
gender, race/culture, socio-economic status, and disability. This differentiation is often required by the
U.S. Department of Education through ESEA or IDEA, or their state department of
education.
Relative to students
with disabilities, while not statutorily required for many outcome measures,
districts and schools need to collect and analyze all of their academic,
behavioral, and other data by differentiating these students by disability. Given the wide variety of service, support,
strategy, and intervention needs of students in the thirteen different
disability areas, these analyses may elucidate critical process and outcome
trends.
Beyond this, the
differentiation between a “discipline problem,” and a “social, emotional, or
behavioral problem” still seems lost on many schools, districts, states, and
the U.S. Department of Education. I have
talked about this differentiation many times before.
Not to over-simplify,
but students who are “discipline problems” most often have the skills to make
“good behavioral choices” in their lives, but choose not to do so. For virtually all of these students, restorative
practices will not work unless they change the “root cause”—the motivation
underlying the antisocial act.
It is assumed that the
“ultimate” goal of restorative practices is to change targeted students’
future interpersonal behavior. Given
this, if restorative practices (e.g., an apology, discussion circle, or
restorative consequence) do not change the motivation underlying a student’s
antisocial behavior, these students will continue to choose to (for
example) bully, taunt, or harass others.
In contrast, students
with social, emotional, or behavioral problems are not motivated to make “bad
behavioral choices,” they most often have not learned, mastered, or cannot (as
opposed to “will not”) apply the specific interpersonal, social
problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, or emotional control and
coping skills that they need.
For some of these
students, these “skill deficits” are compounded by biological/physiological
issues (e.g., attention deficits, hypersensitive emotional activating systems
in the amygdala due to trauma, biochemical imbalances, neurological events)
that require medical or intensive cognitive-behavioral attention.
The point here is
that—after a behavioral upset—a disciplinary action (like an office referral, a
suspension, an expulsion) is not going to change the root cause of these
students’ problems.
Moreover, and similarly,
a restorative practice here will not change future behavior. As I have stated before, “You can motivate a
student out of a skill deficit.”
So. . . what is needed?
In order to discriminate
between a “discipline problem” student and a “social, emotional, behavioral
problem” student (and some individual students have elements of both
problems), schools need to psychoeducationally assess these students. This may start with a threat analysis and/or
move to a psychological assessment.
From here, the
assessment results should be linked to the services, supports, strategies
(including disciplinary strategies), and (medical and clinical) interventions
needed by the student.
But ultimately, if
the goal—after a student demonstrates frequent, unresponsive inappropriate
behaviors, or even one serious behavioral event—is to decrease or eliminate
future events, multi-tiered assessment and intervention approaches are needed.
The problem is
that schools and districts need to have the personnel with the assessment and
intervention expertise and the time to “get the job done.”
And, hence, our last
discussion point.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Where’s the Beef?
The U.S. Civil Rights
Commission Report has 1,080 footnotes.
While I appreciate the extensive research and document review and
analysis, we still need to ask the question:
Does this Report have
a high potential of functionally impacting policy and practice in this country
such that students demonstrate more consistent interpersonal, social
problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional control and
coping skills in their schools . . .
While simultaneously
decreasing or eliminating the disproportionate disciplinary “attention”
received by students of color and with disabilities?
_ _ _ _ _
With all due respect to
the Commission, and based on Chapter 4: Findings and Recommendations,
the answer is, “No.”
While extensive, the
Report largely “admire the problem,” while making recommendations for
interventions (e.g., PBIS and restorative practices) that have already had the
time and money to help solve this multi-faceted problem.
But these interventions,
especially in the words of the two dissenting Commissioners, have failed.
They do not need a
make-over. We (educators across the
country) need to take-over.
And the “take-over”
needs to embody one of the points made earlier in this Blog. . . that the main
body of the Commission Report:
- Provides limited student-specific psychoeducational analyses regarding why students demonstrate inappropriate behavior and how they can more consistently demonstrate appropriate behavior; or
- How to link these analyses to specific multi-tiered services, supports, strategies, and/or interventions that will change inappropriate student behavior into appropriate behavior.
Critically, while more
is needed, we do have specific research-based assessment and intervention practices
(NOT programs) to help schools answer the question (immediately above)
that the Commission did not answer.
Practical District
and School Take-Away V: In order
to facilitate the “take-over” discussed above, districts and schools need to
look at their current “molecular” assessment and intervention practices.
Specifically, are they
assessing students with social, emotional, and behavioral issues to determine
the “root causes,” or to label and place these students?
And, are they linking
their root cause assessments to high-probability-of-success interventions,
or do they believe that a setting (e.g., an alternative program or special
education classroom) or a person (a social worker or psychologist) is
the intervention?
To provide examples of
the molecular assessment and intervention needed, go the end of my last Blog
message:
Revisiting the School Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic: The
Federal Government Says It's Worse than Thought. While
the Numbers are Important, We Need to Focus on the Reasons and Solutions
[CLICK
HERE for the Full Blog Message]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
Before summarizing, we need to recognize the
broader social-political context of equity and privilege, race and history, and
socio-economic status and funding that education “lives” within. This is not just about individual students,
or even groups of students, who are or are perceived to be behaving badly. There is a complex, multi-faceted ecology
acting here.
But part of that context does get
played out in how different schools are funded. . . as well as their
differential levels of resources, staff experience, staff stability, and
community support and involvement.
Indeed, we must recognize the interdependent correlation between these
factors and student engagement, behavior, and achievement.
This issue was recently quantified in a February,
2019 report from EdBuild, a non-profit organization that analyzes school
funding issues.
[CLICK
HERE for Report]
The EdBuild Report publicized the significant funding gaps that approximately
12.8 million of our nation’s students experience because they are enrolled in
“racially concentrated” districts with student bodies where 75% of the students
are non-white.
More specifically, the
Report stated that racially concentrated non-white districts receive, on
average, only $11,682 of funding per student each year, while racially
concentrated white districts receive $13,908 per student each year. As 27% of our nation’s students live in
racially concentrated non-white districts, and 26% of our nation’s students
live in racially concentrated white districts, this translates to a $23 billion
funding gap per year that favors white over non-white districts. . .
despite them serving approximately the same number of students.
And so, if more funds
are needed to facilitate and fund the “take-over” recommended above, here is a
good place to start.
I have discussed the
issue of equity in two recent Blogs that I hope will be of interest if you
missed them:
April 27, 2019. Solving Student Crises in the
Context of School Inequity: The Case for “Core-Plus District Funding”
(Part I). When Schools Struggle with Struggling Students: “We
Didn’t Start the Fire”
[CLICK
HERE for Blog Message]
_ _ _ _ _
May 20, 2019. The Journey toward Real School
Equity: Students’ Needs Should Drive Student Services … and Funding (Part
II). The Beginning of the Next School Year Starts Now: The “Get-Go
Process”
[CLICK
HERE for Blog Message]
_ _ _ _ _
Meanwhile, while
prompted by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission’s recent report (Beyond
Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies and Connections to the
School-to-Prison Pipeline For Students of Color with Disabilities), and especially
by the Dissenting Statements of two of its eight Commissioners, the following
district and school recommendations were generated:
Practical District
and School Take-Away I. Educators
need to be careful to not accept a “popular press” summary of any major state
or federal policy document, or the “sound bites” that emanate from those who
are not dedicated to describing the nuances of a complex issue and document.
Educators need to
understand that policy statements often influence the depth and breadth of
recommended practices. Thus, they
need to read, for themselves, policy reports in areas that may directly
influence their work as practitioners.
In completing this reading,
it is important to recognize the practices that are missing in any policy
document, why they are missing, and the implications to students and staff
because of their absence.
_ _ _ _ _
Practical District
and School Take-Away II. For districts
or schools that are currently implementing the PBIS framework, it may be time
to evaluate your work—and, especially, your outcomes—using ten PBIS realities
described in this Blog. If, based on the
objective data that represent the social, emotional, and behavioral
outcomes of all of your students (including those who are most
challenging), you are obtaining sound, sustained, and successful results. . .
then, “keep on keeping on.”
However, if you are not
getting the outcomes that you desire and need—even though you may be frustrated
about the implementation time already lost, it may be time to invest some
quality time to determine why you are not attaining your outcomes, and change
course are necessary.
_ _ _ _ _
Practical District
and School Take-Away III. Similarly,
for districts and schools that are currently implementing restorative (justice)
practices, it may be time to evaluate your work—and, especially, your outcomes
as in Take-Away II above. Here, you may
also want to assess how much time the program or practices are taking, and
whether you are getting a high “return on investment.”
_ _ _ _ _
Practical District
and School Take-Away IV.
Districts and schools need to collect and analyze all of their
academic, behavioral, and other data for students with disabilities by differentiating
these students by their disability area.
Given the wide variety of service, support, strategy, and intervention
needs of students in the thirteen different disability areas, these analyses
may elucidate critical process and outcome trends.
Beyond this, districts
and schools need to differentiate between students who are “discipline problems,”
and those who have a “social, emotional, or behavioral problem.”
In order to discriminate
between these two types of students, districts and schools need to
psychoeducationally assess these students, and then link the assessment results
to the strategic or intensive multi-tiered services, supports, strategies
(including disciplinary strategies), and (medical and clinical) interventions
needed by the student.
_ _ _ _ _
Practical District
and School Take-Away V. In order
to facilitate the “take-over” discussed above, districts and schools need to
look at their current “molecular” assessment and intervention practices.
Specifically, are they
assessing students with social, emotional, and behavioral issues to determine
the “root causes,” or to label and place these students?
And, are they linking
their root cause assessments to high-probability-of-success interventions,
or do they believe that a setting (e.g., an alternative program or special
education classroom) or a person (a social worker or psychologist) is
the intervention?
To this end, we provided
examples of the molecular assessments and interventions needed.
_ _ _ _ _
Despite the
complexity of this problem, we need to stop “admiring the problem,” and get
down to the molecular assessments and interventions that actually are
available. . . but are being masked by recommendations of frameworks and
programs that have not objectively or empirically demonstrated their efficacy.
While policy
sometimes drives practice, there are no educational policies in this country
that require specific frameworks or programs (as long as you truly read,
understand, and know the law).
Let’s “begin with
the end in mind.” Relative to the U.S.
Civil Rights Commission Report, that means: Let’s begin with the Dissenting
Statements and work backwards.
For our students,
that means: Let’s look at our students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving,
conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional control and coping skills. .
. and work backwards.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts
and comments. I am always available to
provide a free hour of telephone consultation to those who want to discuss
their own students, school, or district needs.
Feel free to contact me at any time if there is anything that I can do
to support your work. . . now, and as you enter this new school year.
Best,
Howie
