Unequal: Dyslexia in Utah, Colorado, and Kansas

States (and even districts within states) vary wildly in how they identify and remediate children who have difficulty learning how to read.  Practice and legislative updates follow.

Utah

On October 16, 2006, KCPW interviewed

 Dr. Kathleen Brown, director of the University of Utah Reading Clinic, says Utah is "a black hole" for dyslexics, because the state does not provide training for educators on how to spot the disability and effectively remediate it.

Things are looking up for some students in Utah.  The Provo Daily Herald reports that the Provo School District has adopted the Wilson Reading System as an intervention for struggling readers.  This is good news because Wilson is an evidence-based program, and the district didn't insist on some "teacher-made"  program.

Colorado

The picture for dyslexic students in Colorado has been poor, with a few bright spots.   

School District 60, in Pueblo, used a Lindamood Bell program district-wide, with good results.  However, in Durango, the R-9 district has been charged with not doing enough to help struggling readers.  Overall, the picture is rather poor:

"I cannot honestly tell you of one school or district where if you were to use the word dyslexia, you would get much of an informed or positive answer," said Elenn Steinberg, present of the Rocky Mountain branch of the International Dyslexia Association, and the parent of a child with dyslexia.

Schools contend that the most severe cases of dyslexia require clinical help that public schools can't afford.

"We don't diagnose; we're not medical professionals," said Alex Sanchez, a spokesman for Denver Public Schools.

That common reply from school districts is "a dodge," said Meredith Puls, who has taught hundreds of dyslexic children to read over a 20-year career at Children's Hospital.

"Yes, it's a medical diagnosis. ... It's a diagnosis of a reading disability," she said. "One of the fundamental things schools do is teach kids to read."

Schools say they are not well- equipped to help the significantly dyslexic child. Reading instruction must be intense, highly systematic and prolonged, and usually one-on-one for up to 90 minutes at a time, experts said.

Ed Steinberg, a former special education teacher who heads the Colorado Department of Education's special education unit, said parents have a right to expect a good education for their children, and teachers and schools who fail to teach children to read aren't meeting that obligation.

"We find very few school districts that provide the professional development teachers need to properly teach reading," he said.

Organized parents pressured Colorado State Rep. Mike Merrifield to write HB 1223. (Download ColoHouseBill1223.pdf )

a bill that would require the Colorado Department of Education to assist school districts with training in recognizing and dealing with dyslexia.

The measure has its initial hearing Thursday in the House Education Committee. Merrifield is the chairman. It would be the first major effort by the Legislature to deal with the learning disability.

Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, acknowledges the bill is not as farreaching as he wished. He removed some proposed mandates, such as ones that would require college teacher-certification programs to teach material specifically related to dyslexia.

But the bill would be a major step toward equipping districts to identify dyslexics and increasing awareness about the disability, activists said.

“It’s not nearly enough, and of course it’s not as much as the parents wanted,” Patricia Reitwiesner said. “But it is a start. And it gives us a wonderful opportunity to talk about dyslexia.”

The Education Committee passed the bill unanimously.  Stand by for details.

Kansas

As I reported earlier, the Kansas school systems' approach to dyslexia is shameful.  Kansas parents, too, have organized.  One group, Kansas Coalition for Dyslexia Legislation (KCDL), is chaired by Terry Sader, a professor at Butler County Community College.  The organization was able to persuade Rep. Jason Watkins, R-Wichita, to sponsor  House Bill 2778, (Download Kansas House Bill2778.pdf) which was heard by the Education Committee on February 14, 2008.

The wrinkle here is that Kansas's Education Commissioner, Alexa Posny, doesn't think legislation is needed or necessary.  As John Wills Lloyd  wrote in December,  it is rather a surprising opinion coming from the former Director of the US Office of Special Education Programs

Reduced to its basic form, Ms. Posny has just argued that she does not think IDEA works.

Like Professor Lloyd,

 

Comments

[Ofer]

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8) Repeat the process till Ghotit states that it is done and has no more recommendations to provide.
9) Press Edit Text to enter Edit mode so that you can copy th

[Mel]

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