School System Strategy Planning

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(No Transcript)
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28 July 2007David HugginsAssistant Director
Student Services
School System Strategy Planning An Evidence Based
Approach to Enhance the Role of School Psychology
Catholic Education Office Archdiocese of Melbourne
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OVERVIEW

• International Policy Perspectives on Inclusion
• Universal and/or Targeted Intervention
• Links between Research / Training and Policy
• Challenges to the existing service system
• Strategic Response / The Early Years Evidence Base

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CURRENT CONTEXT
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Victorian Catholic School Sector 5th Largest in
Australia
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INCLUSION A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH IN EDUCATION
Inclusive education means that
schools should accommodate all children
regardless of their physical, intellectual,
social, emotional, linguistic or other
conditions. This should include disabled and
gifted children, street and working children,
children from remote or nomadic populations,
children from linguistic, ethnic or cultural
minorities and children from other disadvantaged
or marginalised areas or groups. (The
Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on
Special Needs Education, paragraph 3)
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EDUCATION THROUGH THE INCLUSION LENS

• Seeing education through the inclusion lens
  implies a shift from seeing the child as a
  problem to seeing the education system as the
  problem that can be solved through inclusive
  approaches

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THE OECD SCHOOLING SCENARIOS
Schooling for Tomorrow What Schools for the
Future?, OECD
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INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FUNDINGINTERNATIONAL
PERSPECTIVE

• Inclusive education is concerned with providing
  appropriate responses to the broad spectrum of
  learning needs in formal and non-formal
  educational settings. Rather than being a
  marginal theme on how some learners can be
  integrated in the mainstream education, inclusive
  education is an approach that looks into how to
  transform education systems in order to respond
  to the diversity of learners.
• It aims to enable both teachers and learners to
  feel comfortable with diversity and to see it as
  a challenge and enrichment in the learning
  environment, rather than a problem.

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INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FUNDINGINTERNATIONAL
PERSPECTIVE (continued)

• The study Financing of Special Needs Education
  (Meijer, 1999) shows that countries where there
  is a direct input funding model for special
  schools (more learners in special schools more
  funds) report that this financing model, may lead
  to less inclusion, more labelling and rising
  costs. Learner-bound budgeting also seems to have
  some clear disadvantages.
• The study concludes that the countries having the
  most attractive funding option in support of
  inclusive education are countries with a strongly
  decentralized system where budgets for supporting
  learners with special needs are delegated to
  local institutions (municipalities, districts,
  school clusters), and funds are based on total
  enrolment and other such indicators.

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UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS OF INCLUSION
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HOW INCLUSION RELATES TO EDUCATION FOR ALL

• The Salamanca Statement on Principles, Policy
  and Practice in Special Needs Education (UNESCO
  1994) provides a framework for thinking about how
  to move policy and practice forward. Indeed, this
  Statement, and the accompanying Framework for
  Action, is arguably the most significant
  international document that has ever appeared in
  special education.
• It argues that regular schools with an inclusive
  orientation are the most effective means of
  combating discriminatory attitudes, building an
  inclusive society and achieving education for
  all.
• The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action
  (1994) asserts thatRegular schools with
  inclusive orientation are the most effective
  means of combating discrimination, creating
  welcoming communities, building an inclusive
  society and achieving education for all.
  (Salamanca Statement, Art. 2)

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QUESTION SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

• Where does School Psychology fit in the Continuum
  of Inclusion?
• Has School Psychology moved from the Inclusion
  lens of seeing the child as a problem to the
  systemic response of responding to the education
  system as a problem?

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UNIVERSAL / OR TARGETED SUPPORT
Tertiary Prevention Specialized Systems for
Students with High-Risk Behaviour/Need
Primary Prevention School - / Classroom-Wide
Systems for All Students, Staff, Settings
5
80 of Students
15
Secondary Prevention Group Systems for Students
with At-Risk Education performance /behaviour
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CATHOLIC EDUCATIONTOTAL NUMBER OF ELIGIBLE
STUDENTS 1993-2006
5 - 6
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FORECAST SPECIAL NEEDS REFERRALS
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THE CHALLENGE OF THE EXISTING SERVICE SYSTEM

• Demand greater than services available
• Families have complex needs - no single service
  is capable of meeting the complex needs of many
  families
• Some families have difficulty accessing services
• Socio-economic gradient of access
• Episodic contact and many families isolated
• Focus on treatment rather than prevention/early
  intervention - cannot respond promptly to
  emerging child and family needs
• Funding based on contacts rather than outcomes
• Fragmented service delivery
• Different sectors (health, education, welfare)
• Different funding streams
• Different cultures
• Lack of co-ordination

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CURRENT STRATEGIES INSUFFICIENT

• It is recognised that current strategies and
  programmes have largely been insufficient or
  inappropriate with regard to needs of children
  and youth who are vulnerable to marginalisation
  and exclusion.
• Where programmes targeting various marginalized
  and excluded groups do exist, they have
  functioned outside the mainstream special
  programmes, specialized institutions, and
  specialist educators.
• Notwithstanding the best intentions, too often
  the result has been exclusion second-rate
  educational opportunities that do not guarantee
  the possibility to continue studies, or
  differentiation becoming a form of
  discrimination, leaving children with various
  needs outside the mainstream of school life and
  later, as adults, outside community social and
  cultural life in general (UNESCO, 1999a).

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CURRENT STRATEGIES INSUFFICIENT (continued)

• The urgency to address the needs of learners who
  are vulnerable to marginalisation and exclusion
  through responsive educational opportunities was
  also pointed out in the Dakar World Education
  Forum in April 2000
• The key challenge is to ensure that the broad
  vision of Education for All as an inclusive
  concept is reflected in national government and
  funding agency policies.
• Education for All must take account of the
  need of the poor and the most disadvantaged,
  including working children, remote rural dwellers
  and nomads, and ethnic and linguistic minorities,
  children, young people and adults affected by
  conflict, HIV/AIDS, hunger and poor health and
  those with special learning needs (Expanded
  commentary on the Dakar Framework for Action,
  paragraph 19)

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UNIVERSAL / OR TARGETED SUPPORT
Tertiary Prevention Specialized Systems for
Students with High-Risk Behaviour/Need
Primary Prevention School - / Classroom-Wide
Systems for All Students, Staff, Settings
5
80 of Students
15
Secondary Prevention Group Systems for Students
with At-Risk Education performance /behaviour
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QUESTION SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

• Where does School Psychology fit in the
  Primary/Secondary/Tertiary Paradigm of Support?

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THE CHALLENGE OF TRAINING EDUCATION PERSONNEL

• There are a number of challenges in teacher
  education facing systems moving towards inclusive
  education.
• Generally, the level of specialists and their
  training is relatively high, in contexts where
  they are available, but the level of mainstream
  teachers is not.
• A factor that affects both pre- and in-service
  training in teacher training colleges is teacher
  educators lack of experience and skills for
  working in inclusive settings. Furthermore,
  teacher education is often seen as being mainly
  about developing knowledge and skills, whereas
  the question of attitudes and values is
  considered as less important.

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BUILDING TEACHER INTERVENTION SKILLS

• Design long-term training plans that take into
  account all the actors involved and the
  different models needed to meet different
  needs Implement training activities directed
  to both mainstream teachers and specialists so
  that they share the same approach and are
  enabled to work in partnership Include the
  relationship between theory and practice and
  opportunities or reflection in all training
  actions Start from the needs felt by the
  teachers themselves Direct training to the
  school as a whole whilst retaining an array of
  strategies and models to achieve different
  objectives and address different
  needs Promote self-development, creating
  opportunities for networking amongst teachers,
  schools and communities and Encourage teachers
  themselves to develop new teaching materials
  (UNESCO, 2001c).

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NEED TO STRENGTHEN AND REFOCUS EXISTING SERVICE
SYSTEM

• Strengthen capacity of existing services rather
  than invent new ones
• Improve co-ordination at individual and system
  level - encourage partnerships between services
  between professionals and between professionals
  and parents
• Need flexibility - different models in different
  settings
• Outcomes focus
• Needs to be owned at local community level -
  greater responsibility and accountability

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• There is almost no opportunity for teachers to
  engage in continuous and sustained learning about
  their practice in the settings in which they
  actually work, observing and being observed by
  their colleagues in their own classrooms and
  classrooms of other teachers in other schools
  confronting similar problems
• Fullan - 2006

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INVESTING IN CHANGEUNIVERSITY SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS
CATHOLIC EDUCATION CASE STUDY
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RATES OF RETURN TO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INVESTMENT
ACROSS ALL AGES
8
Pre-school Programs
6
School
Return Per Invested
4
R
Job Training
2
Pre-School
School
Post School
Pedro Carneiro, James Heckman, Human Capital
Policy, 2003
0
6
18
Age
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CUMULATIVE COST AND SAVINGS
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Intervention effects and costs of
social-emotional mental health problems over time
(Bricker)
High
Cost
Intervention effectiveness
Low
Time
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WHAT WE KNOW FROM RESEARCH START EARLY
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As children move from year 3 to year 5, the
disparity among those meeting literacy standards
grows
100
Socio-
90
economic
80
Status
The Widening Gap
70
High
60
Low
50
Proportion Meeting Standard ()
40
30
20
10
0
Year 3
Year 5
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QUESTION SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

• Has the linkages been made in models of school
  psychology between research, professional
  learning and impacts upon policy and decision
  making and resource allocation?

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CHALLENGES FOR SCHOOLS
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CATHOLIC EDUCATION CONTEXT30,000 REFERRALS LATER
10 YEAR HISTORY
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EARLY YEARS STRATEGY

• There will never be sufficient resources
• Prevention is more cost effective than treatment
• Children in trouble in early school years will
  not get better spontaneously - ie will not grow
  out of it
• Literacy is but one aim of a childs school
  experience
• Problems of school age children transcend the
  expertise of any one discipline
• Schools must be part of the community in which
  they are located - cannot exist in isolation
• To improve outcomes, schools need to become
  connected with early childhood services

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Vocabulary Growth - First 3 Years
Vocabulary
High SES
1200
Middle SES
600
Low SES
0
12
16
20
24
28
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Age - Months
B Hart T Risley Meaningful Differences in
Everyday Experiences of Young American Children
1995
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THEMES EARLY YEARS INTERVENTION

• Literacy is multi-dimensional
• Many children begin school already in trouble and
  on a poor developmental trajectory
• Childs developmental trajectory becomes more
  difficult to change with passage of time
• Challenges and opportunities for schools
• Partnerships between schools and early childhood
  communities essential

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ABILITY GAPS OPEN EARLY IN LIFE

• Ability gaps between advantaged and other
  children open up early before schooling begins.
  Conventional school based policies start too late
  to completely remedy early deficits, although
  they can do some good. Children who start ahead
  keep accelerating past their peers, widening the
  gapEarly advantages accumulate, so do early
  disadvantagesThe best way to improve the
  schools is to improve the early environments of
  the children sent to them.
• (Heckman J. Masterov DV, 2005)

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QUESTION SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

• Does the early years evidence provide
  opportunities for school psychology to play a
  pivotal role in the literacy/numeracy performance
  profile of school sectors?

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• Most schools probably still exist as isolated
  islands of practice
• Elmore 2006a

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• Schools need the outside to get the job done.
  These external forces, however, do not come in
  helpful packages they are an amalgam of complex
  and uncoordinated phenomena. The work of the
  school is to figure out how to make its
  relationship with them a productive one
• Fullan - 2000