Teacher Learning and Special Education for English Learners With Disabilities: A Critical Policy-as-Practice Analysis

• In Event: Dismantling Educational Structures That Create Barriers for Students With Disabilities

Abstract

Purpose. The paper embeds state, federal education policy within the experiences of classroom teachers certified for exceptional education who teach English learners with disabilities (ELsWDs).
Perspective. We bridge sociocultural research and policy studies by connecting macro and micro-level practices in order to focus on “what happens when policy is formulated and what happens when it gets appropriated” by teachers. (Levinson et al., 2009, p. 780).
Students eligible for special education services and ELsWDs school experiences are embedded in formal federal and state policies, but their experiences are strongly guided by teachers’ decisions in minute-by-minute classroom decisions. There are on-going contradictions teachers must resolve, or leave unresolved. School and classroom practices are at an edge of policy in its particularity, through decisions district office, campus administrators, and classroom-level teachers make for curriculum, instructional design as implementation decisions. Focusing on this policy-practice edge, we leverage theories from teacher learning (TL), the learning-and-practice literature (Borko, 2004; Rogoff, 2003; Wenger, 1999; Whitcomb, et al, 2009).
Calls to educate minoritized students are a challenge to systems that struggle with other contradictions of public education. We are inspired by the late Tom Skrtic’s (1991) observation that special education is a field subject to more fluidity than most in education. Rather than see the education of SWDs and ELs at the edge of the system, we see the practices involving them as central to explaining policy-practice edges.
Methods, Data Sources. We leverage an IRB-approved classroom-observation, microethnogaphic study and semi-structured interviews of one special education teacher (SET) to identify key differences between assumptions about TL embedded in state policy, and how TL is expressed in practice. Location: Charter school technically classified as a public school in a Southwestern US State with persistent teacher shortages, including SETs, and a bilingual education ban.
Results. We centered classroom-level policy making and instructional teaching practices of one veteran SET and the instructional contexts surrounding Tier 3 interventions for reading comprehension with a small group of fifth grade students. First, we examined the SET’s understanding of federal, state, language, disabilities policies to map how these understandings influenced planning practices and individualized education. Next, we, identified how the SET considers, acted within her role as a teacher-practitioner, policy decision-maker regarding: a. literacy intervention language use, and b. Preparation, facilitation of annual review meetings with culturally and linguistically diverse students and parents to create inclusive practice beyond district guidelines , and 2. How the SET incorporated learning standards into reading comprehension intervention with integrated language and disability supports. Last, we examined the SETs experiences in professional development (PD) during one academic year informed her pedagogy-as-policy practices.
Significance. A key difference between instrumental education policy research approaches and critical special education policy research is how researchers contextualize TL. We center short-term immediacy, context-based ways a SET seeks PD, to contexutalize SETs as policy implementers. This study highlights an often overlooked, misunderstood policy edge: the policy-practices and teaching practices of SETs working with ELsWDs by examining critical policy-practice inflection points spanning TL and special education for diverse learners.

Author

• Sarah Marie Salinas, Minnesota State University - Mankato
  Presenting Author