Arne’s proof. Marcy’s proof.

This morning NPR reports, “Under the new guidelines, Duncan says he’ll require proof that these (Special Needs) kids aren’t just being served but are actually making academic progress.”

During the 2011-2012 school year – my final year of teaching – I was on evaluation. In our district tenured teachers were formally evaluated by the principal every two years.

The process would usually involve several meetings and a classroom observation.

For many years my school had a large number of Special Needs students – particularly students with autism – and we struggled to successfully apply best practices, including inclusive classroom settings for every student.

It was always my belief that even those students who were identified on the far end of the autism spectrum should be included with typical students in the art room. With the help and support of great paraprofessionals, that is what we did.

The idea of being evaluated by the principal in the final year of my teaching seemed silly. It was a fluke of the calendar.

But as union president I had witnessed awful principals give poor evaluations to retiring veteran teachers just so they could claim they were not giving every teacher a high rating. And I had also seen the devastated look on many of these teachers’ faces who took this stuff seriously, believing that after a life-time of teaching, they were now considered less than adequate.

I, on the other hand, was more skeptical of the process. So when Marcy, my principal, asked me to fill out a sheet on what my professional goals for the year were, I told her that I had none. “I’m a good teacher. I will be a good teacher this year. I am retiring at the end of this year.” 

She asked me to tell her what my goal for the lesson was that she was going to observe.

I told her, “Why don’t we meet afterwards, and you see if you can tell me what my goal was?”

At the appointed time, Marcy walked into my room with pen and a legal-sized note pad and sat on a stool in the corner.

It was a class of fifth graders and we were exploring perspective. I was demonstrating the tricks of using one-point perspective to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface.

This class – like most of my classes – had a student with autism. In this case Jimmy was on the extreme end of the autism spectrum. He was not verbal and would often appear inattentive, shaking his hands or staring out the window. But we – the paraprofessional and I – knew that Jimmy was hearing me, understood at some level and with problematic motor skills, Jimmy would attempt to do the work. Or some work.

Marcy missed all that.

Worse, Marcy was unaware that she was missing it.

In her post-observation write-up she said that Jimmy was not engaged.

I was appalled. I refused to sign the write-up and wrote a response which I insisted be placed in my personnel file.

“You cannot tell whether Jimmy is engaged or not engaged simply by a one-time observation,” I wrote. “You clearly have very little knowledge of autism, although you were a special education administrator for many years.”

I also pointed out that whether a child has autism or is a typical student, engagement is not binary. A student is not in or out. There are degrees of engagement with a project. This is no less true for Special Needs students.

The Obama administration said Tuesday that the vast majority of the 6.5 million students with disabilities in U.S. schools today are not receiving a quality education, and that it will hold states accountable for demonstrating that those students are making progress.

A major shift in Special Needs accountability.

It must be demonstrated that the students are making progress.

One can only shudder at what Arne has in mind.