LaTEACH
LaTEACH Members made a difference!
SEAP Heard LaTEACH's Voice
December 20, 2013

 
Congratulations LaTEACH members!  
 
Yesterday, purple-clad LaTEACH members shared with the Special Education Advisory Panel (SEAP) that holding back children with disabilities because of performance on a standardized test is often detrimental and retention is not an effective intervention.  
 
What did SEAP recommend?
SEAP recommended that the Department of Education and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) adopt the policy that all students with disabilities would have promotion decisions at fourth and eighth grades be based on individualized criteria established by their IEP teams.
Additional Information

The initial proposal SEAP considered was for the policy change to only be applied to students eligible under Louisiana Alternate Assessment 2 (LAA2) but SEAP members questioned many things about excluding the rest of the students with disabilities from this policy.

 

Discussion was whether to expand the recommendation to include all students, regardless of whether a student has a disability label, but in the end the approved recommendation was for all students with disabilities.  

 

Considering there is no evidence to suggest that retention is an effective intervention and students who are retained tend to drop out more than students of the same achievement levels who have been promoted, the question that needs to be answered is:

 

Why does Louisiana require school systems to use an ineffective approach (i.e., retention as an intervention) for any student?

 

SEAP members discussed the need to maintain high expectations and ensure students are provided with instruction that enables them to access the academic curriculum.  

 

SEAP lost a quorum and did not consider a proposal for all students to have the opportunity to graduate high school and provide feedback on guidance on testing/accountability of high school students not pursuing a high school diploma.

Any questions?
If there are any questions about the information in this alert, contact LaTEACH at:
contact pic 
Phone: 1-800-450-8108
Phone: 1-800-894-6558
Website: www.lateach.org

LaTEACH is an initiative of the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council.