If by 'REFORMS', we mean "SAVE MONEY", then yes, it's clearly articulated in all our schools. Principals are being handed stipulations that essentially tell them to cease to offer services to students except under the most general of ways... all as a means to saving funds that were originally being set aside for students who need supports in order to succeed.

If by reforms, we are going to blanket the system with a notion that everyone learns the same way, and that 'differentiating learning and teaching' is a meaningless task, then yes, our schools send that message for sure!

Our students, whoever they are, and whatever their gifts and struggles (both), they deserve better than these vacuous 'reforms'... because the 'reforms' = 'save $$ no matter what'.

Inclusive programming with differentiated programming.
That is what our students need, and any good teacher knows this.
Differentiated programming means allowing good qualified individuals to be present in schools, teachers and teams of staff who actually understand the ways in which students learn and work differently. Tests for everyone written by billionaire for profit organizations (Hello,Pearson! hello, J.Klein!) are detrimental to the education across the school populations, but they SPECIFICALLY harm the struggling students and those with needs for smaller classrooms and differentiated instruction.

Reforms, you say? I venture that it is MOST DEFINITELY not about "reform' at all, but a massive preempting of our public school system by corporate and politically motivated individuals who have one goal ONLY : save the $$ from public schools, cut the funds for students across the board, and push all the funding and better schools to the private sector, for private gain and profit.

I am all for inclusionary but what happens when you have a classroom with
-30 students
-1 teacher
-1 to 3 ADD children in classroom or motor sensory children
The entire education experience is destroyed for all the children in the class. If you do not address the class size problem adding children with special needs furthers burdens the teachers and takes away from every child's education. This already happens at my son's school. Also in low income communities parents with children with disabilities are usually overwhelmed and do not know how to handle their special needs child. Many verbally and or physcally abuse them to control them. These children have very aggressive at school. Many of these children are major problems in the class and at the schools, it is 100% the case at my son's school. I say all ths because I have a child with special needs and I opted out of a CTT class because it basically groups every problem child into large class sizes where even 2 teachers does not support an adequate rate of learning. It is very hard for me to support moving all of these children into already large class sizes with no special support to teachers. This is especially a problem in communities of color where children and schools are not getting the support from parents at home and at school.

Some additional facts left out of the above:

1 -- the DOE did release a power point to reporters and the PEP that showed NO significant gain in either achievement or attendance for students with disabilities in Phase I of the program. 2 -- Despite the bland assurances of Suransky at yesterday's hearings that schools will be provided with any additional funding they need to make inclusion work-- and Rodriguez saying that many of these students do indeed need small classes to be successful, the sternly worded directive to principals mandate that they must create inclusion classes up to contractual maximum of 25 kids in K, and 32 in grades 1-5, with no exceptions and no capping below these levels. This will badly undercut any expected gains from the initiative, or any ability for teachers to "differentiate instruction" which are DOE's buzzwords of the day, repeated over and over at yesterday's hearings. For more on this, and links to these docs, see our parent blog here: http://goo.gl/rpiW9

These "reforms" must be delayed.

On Tuesday, June 12, The New York City Parents Union and special education advocates joined members of the City Council, United Federation of Teachers, Council of Supervisors & Administrators, Local 372-DC37 and Local 1181 in demanding the Department of Education delay the roll out of their special education reforms until they release all information and data on Phase 1. Parents and advocates have requested information on Phase 1 ranging from basic questions to more complex, with no answers from the New York City Department of Education (DOE). No one outside of the DOE has any data or idea of how Phase 1 has worked so far. The DOE refuses to release a thorough review of Phase 1 to parents, advocates and the media. To make matters worse, the two DOE officials responsible for the special education reforms are both leaving the DOE.

Both general education and special education parents have not been informed of the roll out of the special education reforms. General and Special Education teachers have not been properly trained and most teachers like parents are completely unaware of the impact the reforms will have in classrooms.

Below are links to videos of parents, advocates and elected officials sounding the alarm and urging the DOE to delay the reforms and show us the data.

Council member, Honorable Robert Jackson, Chair of the Education Committee

Honorable Lisa B. Donlan, President, Community Education Council District 1

Council member, Honorable Danny Dromm

Honorable Noah Gotbaum, Community Education Council District 3

Honorable Jo Anne Simon, Esq.

Council member, Honorable Charles Barron

Honorable Cheryl Glover, on behalf of Honorable Shino Tanikawa, President of Community Education Council District 2

Carmen Alavarez, Vice President of Special Education, United Federation of Teachers

Randy Herman, Vice President of Special Education, Council of Supervisors & Administrators

Council member, Honorable Leroy Comrie

Council member, Honorable Steve Levin

Mona Davids, President, NYC Parents Union

One way to preserve special education services while reducing costs is to reconsider homework policy. In my experience, there are large numbers of students who function well in school but cannot complete their assignments at home. These students get undue pressure for problems that are out of their control and often respond by displaying behavioral problems. If we revised our homework policies by placing true time limits on the homework session and modifying penalties so they were not so harsh, we would see a reduction in behavioral problems and a lightening of the load on special education services, freeing up more resources for children in true need. Kenneth Goldberg, Ph.D. author of The Homework Trap. www.thehomeworktrap.com.

We work with parents who are navigating this complex system all the time. And want everyone to know that the DOE's official plan is to implement reform for students primarily in "transition" grades, such as Kindergarten, 6th, and 9th.

Check out the following link to our testimony from yesterday’s hearing: http://resourcesnyc.org/rcsn-...

Let's harness the intelligence and resources of Science Alumni to "privatize" so as to continue to provide outstanding public education at Science. Our heritage of accomplishment, e.g. more Nobel Prize recipients than any other secondary school in the nation, does not exempt us from the fiscal reality of public priorities, that has led to the deterioration of public education. The best public institutions survive and thrive via "privatization". An organized effort is mandatory.

Public Education has never been what we can call "outstanding" nor was it ever meant to be. Why not stop all these games about NO child left... and making common some core of knowledge and admit that like almost all other commodities in our culture education is for sale... if you are lucky enough to afford an education that counts you'll get one. Other wise you'll have to do the foot work or fight through the red tape of a system, a classroom a culture and community that values the dollar above all!