Nearly half of third graders who failed reading test are special-ed students
May 20, 2014
By ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
A disproportionate number of the third-graders who scored in the lowest achievement level on Oklahoma’s third-grade reading test are special education students, and many of their parents and teachers are now questioning the appropriateness of the exam.
Of the 7,970 students statewide who scored unsatisfactory on the test, 3,736 students — 46.8 percent — have a disability that meets federal requirements for them to receive an Individualized Education Program, or IEP. Of all 8,081 third-graders on an IEP, 46.2 percent scored in the unsatisfactory range.
A change in state law taking effect this year requires that all unsatisfactory third-graders be held back in the third grade unless they meet one of six narrow exemption categories.
Another 17.5 percent of special education third-graders scored in the limited knowledge range, which is also considered below grade level, but retention is not mandatory for them.
Compounding the new high stakes for the test this year was the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s elimination of alternate tests for all but the most profoundly disabled students.
Shelly Bollinger, who has had guardianship of her granddaughter since she was born with cerebral palsy, said the state test only confirmed what she and the girl’s doctors and teachers already knew.
“She is right in the middle. She does not have a low-enough score for her IQ and she has never been held back before, so she does not qualify for an exemption,” Bollinger said of Hayley Bollinger, who attends Angus Valley Elementary School in Sand Springs.
“By taking this test, it doesn’t change the fact that we have a child who has brain damage. Holding her back is not helping her; it’s discouraging her.”
Bollinger said her granddaughter strives to do her best and to participate in the same kinds of activities as her nondisabled peers, including sports and fundraising walks and runs. She is also fully aware of the consequences of her most recent test score.
“She said, ‘I’m losing my best friend because she’s moving on without me,’ “ Shelly Bollinger said. “This is a child who has had to work really hard to have a friend who doesn’t make fun of her for how she walks.
“We can’t be the only ones sitting in the middle. There’s no place for us to be in the situation except on the losing end.”
Bollinger said she has contacted state policymakers and attended parent meetings to learn as much as she can about legislation that could restore some say in the matter to parents and teachers.
Without it, she has been told her only alternatives to retention are to send Hayley to private school or to home school her.
“If she is going to be held back, I need funding. I need staff,” Bollinger said.
“I need whatever it takes to make this next year as useful as possible. Because if nothing is different and they don’t have the funds to pay for an extra (paraprofessional) or assistant in the classroom, it won’t make any difference.
We won’t gain any new ground.
“We just don’t have a whole lot of say-so in what direction to take. That’s difficult as a parent — you just kind of hit a brick wall.”
At Wright Elementary School in Tulsa, teachers in one of the largest deaf-education programs in any Oklahoma public school say nearly every one of their third-graders is now in a Catch-22.
All 10 deaf third-graders scored unsatisfactory, and only two or three of them may qualify for an exemption.
The deaf students are learning American Sign Language as their primary language and English as a second language.
But the state test is rooted in “phonological awareness,” or awareness of the sound structure of words, the teachers say.
Teachers Olivia Burns and Kendra Stine began communicating their concerns about the appropriateness of the state test for their deaf students when the law was changed in 2011 to make the results high stakes, but they received no response.
“We take these students’ lack of success personally,” Burns said. “It’s a frustrating situation when we feel like our students were set up for failure.
“There are assessments out there. There is a specific assessment that is normed for hearing-impaired students. We have gone so far as to say, ‘Is this a test we can get approved?’ But we haven’t gotten a word back.”
A significant portion of Wright’s deaf students arrived at school with no formal language skills whatsoever because they either use gestures at home or had unsuccessful attempts at correcting their hearing loss with aids and medical procedures, Buns said.
And Burns and Stine said that while all of their students are behind in the third grade, the proficiency rates of deaf students in Tulsa’s secondary-school program at Edison Preparatory School are proof that they get caught up in time to graduate at or better than average.
“By no means do we think deaf students or deaf adults cannot read,” Burns said, adding she hoped that people who don’t understand the students don’t decide their abilities “based on a test that isn’t appropriate.”
“A question we have asked ourselves and that we have raised is: “Is this discrimination? Not just for deaf kids but for special ed kids across the board. One size doesn’t fit all.”
One area parent has already put his concerns in a formal complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Henry Herring, whose 8-year-old daughter, Natallie Herring, attends Bailey Elementary School in Owasso, said he has taken fliers with his daughter’s photo and story to the Capitol but received no response from state education officials.
Natallie has an eye disorder called convergence insufficiency, which causes her eyes not to follow the same track. She reads about four times slower than average because her eyes pick up letters or words from other lines of text on the page.
Herring refused to allow her to be tested because she was not going to be allowed the modifications called for in her Individualized Education Program, so now
Natallie is subject to retention.
“To us, the pressure of making her take a test she was not equipped to take would be something like taking a sprinter who has trained and tying their legs and saying, go ahead and run the race anyway,” he said. “We felt like we would be setting her up for morale failure.”
Herring said other reading testing has revealed that Natallie is making significant progress: Her reading level is considered in the high second-grade or early third-grade level.
“Yet you’ve got a bunch of lawmakers and superintendent saying this is how it needs to be,” he said. “You can’t put them in a box and say this is the way it’s going to work.
“We really don’t have an option other than public school. A free and appropriate education is what everybody is supposed to have a right to, and we don’t feel that it’s appropriate.”
Andrea Eger 918-581-8470
SOURCE:
Additional information:
Third grade reading test results, by the numbers
* Of 48,691 Oklahoma third-graders, 1,120 scored advanced on the reading test, 32,531 scored proficient, 7,070 scored limited knowledge and 7,970 scored unsatisfactory.
* Of the 7,970 students who scored unsatisfactory, 3,736 students, or 46.8, percent have a disability that meets federal requirements for them to receive an Individualized Education Program, or IEP.
* Of those 3,736 special education students, 599 are also learning English as a second language.
Source: Oklahoma State Department of Education
Exemptions from third-grade retention law
* English-language learners with less than two years of English instruction who are found to be “limited-English proficient”
* Disabled students who are assessed with the Oklahoma Alternate Assessment Program
* Students who pass a state-approved alternative standardized reading test
* Students who can prove they read and write on grade level using a teacher-developed portfolio of their classwork
* Disabled students with documented proof of intensive reading remediation for more than two years, and who were previously held back one year or were in a transitional grade
* Students who have received intensive remediation in reading for more than two years and who already have been retained in a previous grade for two years
Source: Oklahoma State Department of Education