Rationale
My role as a special educator is constantly changing. Because of increased expectations
established by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, it has become necessary to
make changes both in content and delivery of instruction. As our district has moved
towards a more inclusionary model for students, both special and general education
teachers have scrambled to redefine their roles. One result of NCLB is that special
educators can only teach within content areas that they are highly qualified to teach,
instead of being responsible for teaching and developing content across multiple
curriculum areas.
As a highly qualified intervention math instructor, I spend the majority of my school day
working in mathematics classrooms with licensed 7-12 general education teachers.
During the 2007-2008 school year, part of my assignment was to work with Elisa for two
periods a day. Elisa was a relatively new teacher to the building, so we met briefly
before school began to get to know one another. We decided that for the first few weeks
I would observe her teaching style and classroom procedures, then gradually take on a
more active role in the classroom.
During the first few weeks of school, I felt as if the students didn’t consider me to be a
“real” teacher. Even though I made an effort to talk with students and assist in the
classroom, some seemed confused by my presence and even wondered out loud whether I
was an aide. I consider myself well-versed in the math content and have numerous
strategies and interventions that I can bring to the classroom. Having Elisa provide the
majority of instruction was easy for me, but in order for the students to recognize me as
an instructor in the classroom I simply had to teach. As our roles in the classroom
adjusted to meet the needs of our students, Elisa and I began to wonder how changes to
our instructional delivery would affect student learning. Could co-teaching really make a
critical difference for classes loaded with at-risk students? Would students in the
inclusive classrooms demonstrate test performance that was equal to or better than that of
students in Elisa’s other math classes?
Context
Baldwin Road Junior High currently serves 450 students in grades seven and eight. We
have a high percentage of ethnic minorities (45%) and economically disadvantaged
students (41%). Our building has not met our AYP (adequate yearly progress) goals for
the previous two years, specifically due to the test performance of our special needs
population. Last year, 45.5% of the current seventh grade students with disabilities
scored at or above the proficiency level on the Ohio Grade 6 Math Achievement Test,
compared to a passage rate of 87.3% for non-disabled students. We are in our second
year of “School Improvement.” If we do not continue to increase the passage rates on
achievement tests, we will be labeled a low-performing school and will face sanctions
imposed by the Ohio Department of Education.