Boston College Leading for All: A research report of the ... - CODE

Ontario’s exemplary performance mainly in terms of areform strategy comprising a set of policies that have placed a focus on literacy and numeracy, aswell as high school completion; clearly defined and persistently pursuedmeasurable targets in student achievement; involved major stakeholders in thedevelopment and delivery of the strategy -including the teacher federations with whomthe provincial government establishedconditions of peace and stability; avoided punitive interventions where schoolsshowed evidence of struggling and insteadprovided extensive support systems oftraining, coaching and networking to helpteachers and schools improve achievement;and created data systems to track progress andintervene in real time whenever students orschools appeared to be falling behind.This strategy has been the planned, stated, receivedand recommended (OECD, 2010, 2011; McKinsey &Company, 2010; National Center for Education and theEconomy, 2011; Barber, 2007; Fullan, 2003, 2006,2009; Levin, 2009) theory of change in the province.As OECD (2011) itself acknowledges, in ascomplex a setting as provincial, state or nationaleducation policy, it is difficult – if not impossible – toattribute achievement gains to one particular policy oranother (see also Loveless, 2012). Accordingly, weneed to consider how a wide range of policy strategiesand their interactions may affect student achievementin high performing and rapidly improving countries.This review and report addresses one such aspect ofOntario educational policy.Given Ontario’s performance record and globalprofile, undertaking an independent investigation ofany aspect of educational reform in the province is amatter of importance for the province itself, and alsofor those who are launching or assessing educationalreform efforts across the world. This report is based onan investigation and review of one significantcomponent of Ontario’s overall reform strategy: theimplementation of a major report on special educationthat addressed how to provide better services andsupport for the province’s highly diverse studentpopulation, including but not restricted to those withformally identified needs.Special education policy historyOver the past half-decade, provincial policiesgoverning special educational needs have moved froman era of external enforcement of placements to morelocalized and professional discretion concerning ways tocreate more inclusive environments for all students. Themovement towards greater educational inclusion forstudents with special educational needs began in the1960s with dissatisfaction about reforms in the generaleducation curriculum. Some special educators began toargue “that most children with exceptionalities werebetter served when they stayed with their peers in aregular classroom” (Gidney, 1999, p. 153). Althoughthere were many advocates for mainstreaming,legislation that called for additional services forstudents with special educational needs, particularly‘Bill 82’, was not established until the late 1970s andearly 1980s. At this time, “inclusion was defined as aplacement, not as the provision of programmes andservices within the placement” (Jordan, 2001, p. 353).In the 1990s, the emphasis of educationalreform was redirected from resource inputs tomeasurable outputs in the form of benchmarks andoutcomes in the case of the New Democratic Partygovernment, and standards and high-stakesexaminations in the case of its Progressive Conservativesuccessor. The latter’s policies in particular mandateduniversal achievement, but by standardizing many otheraspects of the curriculum and reducing resourcesavailable to public schools boards, they left teacherswithout the tools to implement these ideas.Education for AllIn 2005, the Ontario Ministry of Educationpublished a report based on the findings andrecommendations of an expert panel that formulatedguiding principles for more fully educating studentswith identified special needs. The visionary newprovincial policy document, Education for All (EfA),sought to “assist teachers in helping all of Ontario’sstudents learn, including those students whose abilitiesmake it difficult for them to achieve their grade levelexpectations” (pp. 4-5). The document set out sevenPage4 | Leading for All