DO SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENTS REALLY NEED TO HAVE GRADES?

While I was out snow blowing today I had time to think about lots of things while walking behind that dreaded beast. Today I thought about why do we grade Special Education students who are in a Resource Room and are being provided “Specialized Instruction” in a subject directly in accordance with their IEP.

We are required to measure their progress for the Specialized Instruction they are receiving and rate it on their IEP, that at the same time giving a grade in that subject, we are in my opinion duplicating our efforts. I also believe that many Special Education student’s grades are sometimes inflated and do not reflect their actual progress towards achieving their IEP goals. Then when the IEP goals are actually rated, they do not always seem to correspond with the class grades the child has been receiving – to the surprise of the parent and student.

As a former parent of a Special Education student, I knew that the grades my child was receiving did not mean the same thing as a student in regular education classes. I was much more concerned about her progress on the goals that the PET developed for the IEP.

Now that I am a Special Education teacher and I have been doing this for a while (this is my 8th year), if I was made to grade my students using the same grade scales and expectations as the regular education classroom, most of my student’s grades would be receiving very low grades, usually not passing (that is why they are with me). Therefore, I and I believe many other Special Educators grade based more on effort in the classroom, more than actual accomplishments in the classroom. If we are using a true standards based grading is being used and a student has been evaluated to be at a 4th grade level, I should grade that student based on the Elementary Learning Results, not the Middle School Learning Results. In truth how many Special Educators or Regular Educators grade our students that way? I don’t believe that too many do.

So what do my grades actually mean academically to a Special Education student and their families – hopefully not that much. Most understand that the grades received in a Resource Room are not equitable to a regular education of the same grade level. The important thing to a Special Education student and their family should be focused on the progress they are making on their IEP goals. Unfortunately, in reality the IEP goals are not afforded the same weight or importance by many teachers, administrators, students or parents that grades are, when the reverse should be true.

I strongly believe that giving grades for Specialized Instruction takes the focus away from the progress or lack of progress a student is making towards their IEP goals.

I can guess a few reasons for grading special education students, but disagree with them.

1. Every student needs a GPA. After all they might become Valedictorian – it has happened to the consternation of those schools.
2. All students need to know how they compare to each other. Needless competition.
3. It wouldn’t be fair for the regular education students if special education students don’t get graded. Who our special education students don’t compete well with anyways.
4. All students need to be graded.

If you have other reasons why special education students need to be graded in their Specialized Instruction areas, please comment to let me know why you think Special Education students in a Resource Room setting should receive a grade for subjects they receive “specialized instruction”.

You notice that I have not discussed grading in inclusive/differentiated or where EdTech support is provided in the regular education classrooms, to me that is a completely different post.

So I ask again, why do we attempt to grade a student who is in the Resource Room and has IEP goals that relate to that class? Shouldn’t the IEP Goals progress be their grade for those classes. To me this double evaluation process is simply adding more insult to their disability and is not helpful in identifying whether they are or are not making progress towards their IEP goals.

I also think this would also help re-focus many Special Education teachers and Administrators on the student’s IEP goals rather than what they receive on the report card, which really doesn’t matter. Maybe then more people would look at what a student’s IEP goals actually are more than once a quarter or once a year when they rate all the active quarters at the end of the the year for the student (don’t say it doesn’t happen – it does).

So I ask again “why do we grade Special Education students who are in a Resource Room and are being provided “Specialized Instruction” in a subject directly in accordance with their IEP”.

If you have the answer please let me know, because I don’t understand it.