“Mississippi focuses on teaching reading well, spends less on special ed. That works better than labeling lots of kids as disabled because they can’t read well,” notes Joanne Jacobs.
As Jacobs explains in a blog post,
Schools are diagnosing more students with disabilities and spending more of the school budget on special education…But research shows huge inconsistencies from state to state. Furthermore, there is no evidence that spending more on special education leads to better outcomes for students…
What works? Providing good literacy instruction.
For example, “Mississippi, where recent, dramatic gains in literacy have been credited to a 10-year push by state officials to ensure evidence-based reading instruction” spends less on special education than almost any other state, 8 percent of the education budget, she writes. Yet it’s one of the best in the nation for reading scores for student with disabilities. “By contrast, Connecticut spends nearly 22 percent of its education budget on special education but has middle-of-the-pack reading performance among students with disabilities.”
Teach reading well and fewer students will receive a “learning disability” diagnosis.
“From state to state, diagnoses are wildly inconsistent, raising questions about the subjectivity of how students are funneled into special ed”…In some states, one in five students receives services; in others it’s 13 percent or fewer….States also vary wildly in how many special education staffers schools employ, with Ohio and Idaho having less than 20 per 200 students. Hawaii, New York and New Hampshire have three times as many. Yet Hawaii significantly underperforms national averages.
Blue states underperform in other ways as well. New York spends three times as much per student as Utah and Idaho, but students in those states do better on math, science, and reading than students in New York.
Progressive school-discipline fads are also harming learning. “Black, Hispanic kids are learning less at charters that dropped ‘no excuses’” rules against misbehavior in the name of “anti-racism,” notes Jacobs. Charter schools that relaxed discipline rules in the name of “anti-racism” saw student achievement fall sharply, reports Vince Bielski of Real Clear Investigations.
KIPP, the biggest charter network in the country with 275 schools, “buckled under the pressure from progressive staffers, alums, and advocates to drop their No Excuses practices,” reports Bielski. In 2020, co-founder David Levin apologized in a public letter for discipline practices that supposedly “perpetuated white supremacy and anti-Blackness.” KIPP dropped its longtime slogan — “Work Hard, Be Nice” — because critics said it bolstered “a myth that hard work leads to success even in the face of racism.”
The consequences were bad, notes Jacobs. “KIPP DC had been an ‘academic powerhouse,’ outperforming district-run schools in math and English.” But “last year, KIPP DC trailed far behind the district, with only 13% proficiency in math and 18% in English.”
Achievement First, a network of 41 schools in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, had previously “outperformed the public schools in their three states by double-digit margins” back in 2019, writes Bielski. “But then the network adopted an anti-racist agenda, and decided test scores would be a lower priority than social and emotional learning. Scores plunged,” notes Jacobs:
Network leaders replaced the discipline system with “restorative justice” practices, a former senior leader said. “Students can basically do whatever they want, and nothing really happens to them,” said the source, who resigned because he opposed the changes. “The less experienced teachers have seen their classrooms descend into chaos.”
