Research

That Matters

Low Tolerance, High Expectations

the children left behind

Although they represent about only one percent of the overall student population, students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) can command a good percentage of a teacher’s — and principal’s — attention. Some of the “troubled kids” act out, some mumble to themselves, some never say a word. They may be hyperactive, depressed, schizophrenic.

Their tolerance is minimal. Even though about a third have IQs over 100, they typically perform poorly in all academic subjects. Out in the real world, as adults, they struggle. “EBD kids’ adult outcomes are the worst, partly because they don’t get along with people very well,” says UW professor Richard Neel, who researches standards-based mathematics education for students with EBD.
EBD research in academics is a relatively young field. The math investigations are still in their infancy. “Math research is twenty years behind reading research for children with disabilities, and work on academics with children with EBD is behind other areas,” says Neel.

One reason for this is preconceptions: “Nobody thought they could do the math,” says the UW researcher.

Can they? It’s a complex but critical question as educators — who have long concentrated classroom efforts on getting students with EBD under control — are tasked with new academic demands.

Historically about half of students with EBD don’t graduate, yet new federal laws mandate they be provided a comprehensive academic program. All students, including the special education students who represent about 12 percent of Washington State’s school population, are to be brought up to standards in all subjects and undergo assessments that verify their grasp of those subjects.
For students with EBD who have traditionally been taught the most basic of “the basics,” it means being tested on the kinds of mathematical understanding that in many cases they haven’t been taught. “It’s a cookie-cutter notion — that everyone is going to be an academically competent kid and demonstrate their competence in the same way,” says Neel.

Most students with EBD don’t like tests. They may wad them up and toss them. Faced with the WASL, which demands that they not only come up with answers but explain them, many students with EBD freak, blow up, then bomb — even if they’re given extra time and extra help. “The WASL makes them feel stupid, and they don’t like that,” says Neel.

Much of the recent educational legislation is designed to not make these students feel stupid, to respect the dignity and educability of each child. Under this mantle falls the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires that special populations, if possible, be mainstreamed into general education classes.
Can students with EBD be integrated? Should they? Neel can argue either side: “There is an assumption that these kids can be adequately served in general education classes, but the evidence is overwhelming that some can’t. All are capable of learning; some, however, are just not capable of learning the way other students learn.”

At this point only about one-third of students with EBD have been mainstreamed across the country.

Most are still in special education classes where the teaching of mathematics concentrates on highly structured lessons, constant feedback, short assignments, individual seatwork, and lots of correct answers and positive reinforcement. It’s the kind of controlled situations that help keep behavior in check. “Before the No Child Left Behind Act, the focus was more on controlling their behaviors and improving their social skills. Less attention was paid to academic progress,” says Neel.

These special education classrooms differ markedly from the inquiry-based classrooms advocated by math reformists, classrooms where students work in groups, tackle open-ended real-life problems and projects, argue mathematical ideas and explain their conclusions — reasoning processes tested in WASL items that require students explain their thinking. This means that many students with EBD face a dramatic mismatch between the math instruction they receive and the state tests they must take.

Further complicating their situation is the fact that most special education teachers have not been trained in math reform curricula, and don’t know how to teach complex inquiry methods. Nor do many believe these methods belong in a classroom of students with EBD. “Special educators and researchers in the field of EBD do not recognize the changing nature of the goals of mathematics education in the 21st century,” reports a 2006 investigation by Neel and Washington State University professor Hal Jackson.

The investigation, which looks at three Pacific Northwest school districts, showed that conceptually oriented instruction was essentially absent in six out of eight special education classrooms under study.

Where do the special education teachers begin making the sweeping changes needed to implement inquiry-based math in their tightly controlled classrooms? Will change set off students with EBD, who often function best with routine? Or can special education teachers — as well as general education teachers — help students with emotional and behavioral problems gradually learn to self-monitor their behavior, grasp complex directions, cooperate with their peers and articulate complex mathematical ideas?

It’s an immense task, complicated by a number of factors. One is the difficulty in recruiting special education teachers in the first place. Recruiting special-ed teachers with sophisticated math skills is even more daunting.
Another factor is that, at a time when professional development in the field is critical, funds for special education are drying up as the government turns its attention to general education reform.

Despite the problematic picture, business-as-usual for students with EBD is no longer an option. Nor, argues Neel, should it be.

“If you get a child to behave in a classroom where everything is structured, where he gets constant feedback and has no frustration, where the workload is trivial and inconsequential, you might show progress. But it is false progress, because it has little to do with the real world.”

First step, he says, is to teach students with EBD operational social skills. “If you’re going to prepare kids to engage in an inquiry-based curriculum, you have to expose them to the structure of that classroom and the social interactions necessary to operate in that room. Otherwise, they flounder and fail.”

For many students with EBD, this could be the best education they’ll get in school — real social skills that prepare them to operate in the outside world, socially and academically.

“We now have No Child Left Behind academically,” says Neel. “How about No Child Left Behind socially?”

For more information on Neel’s observations of classrooms see:
Jackson, H. G., & Neel, R. S. (2006). Observing mathematics:
Do students with EBD have access to standards-based mathematics instruction? Education and Treatment of Children, 29, 593-614.