‘No Child Left Behind’ hurting deaf kids?
By Tara Sullivan
The Baytown Sun
Published December 16, 2008
Megan Marsh looks like any other 16-year-old girl playing with the
family cat while text messaging her friends.
Her stepfather Clint Osowski smiled when asked what Megan likes to
do: “She sends about 2,000 text messages each week,” he laughed.
The conversation backtracked a moment as Megan set the cat aside and
asked her stepfather what he had just said – though she’s sitting
right next to him.
“I said you’re much better at text messaging than me,” Osowski
signed.
Megan was born completely deaf. She lacks the auditory part of the
inner ear – the cochlea – so even with cutting-edge technology,
there is little hope that she’ll ever be able to hear.
Though she’s never heard her own voice, Megan is in all other
respects a “normal” teenager. She’s a tech-savvy, trendy teen
who loves animals and history, and thinks about life after high
school.
But she’s struggling through high school at Robert E. Lee and her
parents are at their wit’s end trying to do something about it.
Looking over her report cards, her passing marks are little indication
of the trials Megan endures each day.
“If you look at her progress reports it’s a whole different
story,” Osowski said, pulling out the latest six-weeks report.
She’s passing the classes taken with certified deaf education
instructors, but she lags behind in the few “hearing classes”
she’s enrolled. Yet some how, Megan manages to pass each class with
little understanding of the material. The Osowski’s feel Megan’s
being shepherded through an education system that is failing to
educate her.
It was around the time she entered junior high school that Megan’s
struggle began: a plight that coincided with the district’s
“mainstreaming” of deaf education students, a provision of the
“No Child Left Behind Act.”
Texas State Director of Special Education Kathy Clayton and Director
of Deaf Services division of Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) Brent Pitt said Megan’s placement in mainstream classes
stems from a provision of NCLB, which requires that the “most
qualified” instructor teach special education students. “Most
qualified” is defined as a bachelor’s degree or higher and at
least 27 credit hours in the subject being taught.
“There is no law that says a child must take physics in a
mainstream classroom,” Pitt said. “The district may well be saying
they don’t have a deaf specialist qualified to teach physics.”
Whereas both Megan and her parents would like to see her in special
deaf education classes, she’s being placed into “mainstream”
courses where a “most qualified” deaf education specialist is not
available.
“You’ve got these deaf kids in a hearing class because the
physics instructor is ‘highly qualified,’ though he’s had no
experience working with deaf students,” Osowski said. “I’ve had
teachers tell me they’d love to be able to reach Megan, they just
don’t know. That doesn’t sound like ‘most qualified’ to me. In
her other classes, she’s had teachers who are deaf. They understand
what she’s going through and can actually reach her.”
The Osowski’s believe Megan’s grades are a major player in this
road toward educational failure.
Instead of ensuring that Megan understands her class work, the
Osowski’s believe Megan’s teachers are passing her out of pity –
perhaps just to grant her a diploma, regardless of her understanding
of any high school material. As the semesters go by, Megan is
shepherded into higher and higher level courses. Concurrently, she is
falling farther behind any hope of understanding what she’s being
taught.
Holding up a progress report and report card, Osowski shook the paper
angrily.
“She’ll be failing in her progress report than when report cards
come along she’s magically passing,” he said. “One time she
brought home a 100 in physics – you can’t tell me this child who
is struggling in math earned a 100 in physics.”
In order to be accepted into a college, children with disabilities
must be able to demonstrate a 7th grade education level – something
the Osowski’s are worried their daughter may not be able to show if
her current education track stands.
Clayton confirmed that there is no law that special education
students are arbitrarily passed, as doing so would hurt the child’s
education in the long run.
“We are a state where every student with a disability or not can
receive a diploma,” she said. “The diplomas all look the same, but
when you look into the student’s academic achievement record
that’s when you see they were in special education. In order to get
a diploma in the way this young lady’s family may want, in order to
be considered for college, there are mandated courses she must
take.”
But the Osowski’s argue that if Megan doesn’t understand her
coursework, there is no hope for college anyhow. Further, they’re
concerned that with only a basic understanding of math and reading,
she’ll have trouble functioning in an adult world.
The Osowski’s said they’ve been told they have no options in
their daughter’s education. Clayton confirmed there is exception to
the NCLB “most qualified” instructor rule, though she said
students who are unable to be in regular education classes can take
special ed courses, though this will hurt their chances of getting
into college.
Because of this mandate, the Osowski’s have dubbed NCLB the
“Every Deaf Child Left Behind” Act.
Former GCCISD teacher DeeAnn Thigpen – now a member of Rep. Ted
Poe’s staff – said she remembers well the problems and pressures
facing teachers working within the current special education
requirements of NCLB.
“I guess it was just an unspoken rule that you’d never fail a
special education child,” she said. “If you ask teachers, no one
will admit to that, but it was understood.”
Just as other special education students had done before her, Megan
enrolled in the GCCISD program by the age of three. Her parents
believed the head start would be helpful, ensuring that Megan wasn’t
a leg behind the others just because she couldn’t hear.
For a time, they were right. But at some point, Megan’s reading and
math levels flat-lined. Because the two subjects are so crucial to
everyday adult life, the Osowski’s tried their best to supplement
Megan’s education at home. But neither parent is a teacher, and
moreover, neither is a deaf education specialist. As the years
progressed, Megan has continued to fall behind.
She muses over becoming a veterinarian one day, but the road to
realizing that dream looks rocky. Megan’s parents don’t want her
to fail, but the constant struggle in classes she can’t comprehend
is driving Megan to hate school altogether.
“If my daughter could quit school today, she would because she
feels stupid,” Anna Osowski said. “It’s not her fault – this
system has failed her.”
At the Dec. 8 GCCISD Board of Trustees meeting, the Osowski applauded
for high-achieving students alongside other parents in attendance.
At their Baytown home, the only award Megan’s brought home – a
red ribbon for her artwork submission to the Houston Livestock Show
and Rodeo – hangs framed in the hallway.
Clint Osowski sighed as his wife leaned forward and spoke.
“Do you know how much it pains us that our daughter will never be
up there, walking across that board room floor accepting an award for
her achievements?”
Though the Osowski’s realize the system in which their daughter is
trapped is largely out of their control, they hope that by bringing
the issue to light, they’ll be able to help other deaf students.
Source: http://baytownsun.com/story.lasso?ewcd=a0dd41cdfe13144b
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