Back at it!
First update - a positive development for CPS librarians. After a very long and stressful negotiation period, the recently signed CTU contract added language promising to increase the number of librarians at CPS schools! 🎉 I will be writing more about this soon….
Today’s topic: paraprofessionals in CPS. I’d like to discuss this topic because while it may seem to diverge from libraries, there are many through lines. The recent news about the change in paraprofessionals is a staffing topic, which mirrors the librarians issue. It also matches a systems issue: CPS continues to place all blame at the feet of the union fighting for it’s workers and ignores an ideological, system wide change that should have taken place long ago. This is a complex topic, especially for folks who aren’t steeped in education policy and disability rights issues, but I’m going to make an attempt to open up this conversation.
In a recent letter to families, Joshua Long, the chief of the Office for Students with Disabilities in Chicago Public Schools, shares the news that the number of paraprofessionals allocated to cluster classrooms will be reduced for the coming year, from 2 down to 1.
He shares the reasoning for the change, clarifying that 1. it is NOT (bold!) due to budget issues, 2. it will allow staff to shift from over-resourced schools to under-resourced schools, and 3. because “the past practice of overstaffing special education classrooms was not in the best interest of children with disabilities. In fact, research shows that having too many adults in the room can actually foster less independence, lower expectations for students, and lead to social isolation”.
This change was further discussed by Long in statements to Sarah Karp, writing for WBEZ. Karp writes that Long “also points to research by University of Vermont emeritus professor of special education Michael Giangreco that found aides can thwart students. [Giangreco] has talked about how paraprofessional support can sometimes inadvertently reduce student independence and reduce their ability to interact with same-age peers,” [Long] said.
While staffing is clearly a difficult issue that requires creative solutions, especially in light of the current political situation (‘nuff said, sister), I must take issue with Long’s framing of Giangreco’s research.
In both his letter and his statements Long is using Giangreco’s research to justify removing paraprofessionals from cluster classrooms, which are self contained special education classrooms. Long specifically states that “CPS erred on the side of over-resourcing our cluster classrooms (those settings serving only students with disabilities) by allocating one teacher and two paraprofessionals per classroom,”.
By citing Giangreco’s research, Long is trying to use an apples vs. oranges argument to justify reducing paraprofessional staff. He is also trying to frame this as a solution for equity and quality of instruction problems, but in reality it is solely a solution to staffing problems.
The research that is alluded to in the email and discussed in more detail in the WBEZ article is from Professor Giangreco’s body of work in which he discusses the experience of disabled students within inclusion classrooms. Inclusion classrooms are exactly that - classrooms that include both special education and non special education students. Another way to put this is they include both disabled and non disabled students. Professor Giangreco is an advocate of inclusion and has long been associated with the UVM Center on Disability & Community Inclusion.
Mr. Long is using this research to justify reducing staff in cluster classrooms. Cluster classrooms are not inclusion classrooms, in fact they are the opposite of inclusion classrooms: they are separate classrooms. Professor Giangreco’s research does not address the issue of paraprofessionals in cluster or self contained classrooms. In fact, a list of Professor Giangreco’s research shows that he almost exclusively discusses issues of inclusive education and how to improve its implementation.
While using paraprofessionals in cluster classrooms may have both positive and negative results and there may be an argument for reducing their numbers there, this research does not justify it. Just as simply adding a paraprofessional to an inclusion classroom does not improve instruction, simply removing a paraprofessional from a cluster classroom, or even alternately an inclusion classroom, will not improve instruction nor solve the problems of less independence, lower expectations, and social isolation. It will only solve the problem of too many or too few paraprofessionals in the eyes of management. Isolated changes in staffing are not solutions to system issues.
In fact in his study “Perspectives of students with intellectual disabilities about their experiences with paraprofessional support”, Giangreco and his co-authors specifically conclude that “by raising these concerns we are not suggesting a return to segregated classes, nor are we suggesting that the responsibility for these problems be laid at the feet of the paraprofessionals. Rather, we are suggesting that, as a field, we need to be proactive in addressing our service delivery models and practices that, in essence, continue to communicate messages to students with disabilities that they don’t belong,”.
I think there is a lot that can be contemplated as to how to improve disabled students' experiences, how to bolster their independence and learning and reduce stigmatization. I have lots of thoughts about what is wrong with the special education delivery model in CPS and what could be done differently, but that is a topic for another post. Issues of special education delivery are complicated, complex endeavors that take time to address. It is not as simple as changing a staffing formula. Professor Giangreco does have some really good suggestions about how to implement inclusion with more fidelity, the first of which would be to listen to CPS students themselves.