Thread by @QuestionPDX

THREAD: #Oregon's failing curriculum policies have taken an astounding amount of resources away from #Disabled students, if this report is correct:

oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2023/04/13/sch…

2/ Comparing the numbers in this report with the total student numbers reported to the public & to the feds is particularly alarming, because the report shows that a full 20% of the unqualified teachers are working in special ed, whereas....

3/ ...special ed students account for only 0.8% of Oregon's total student population. Granted, they should have a higher teacher-student ratio. But not a higher unqualified teacher ratio.

4/ For the numbers we compare the report's pie chart: 131 unqualified emergency special ed teachers in 2021 vs 524 unqualified emergency teachers in general ed, for a total of 655, of which the 131 in special ed represent 20%...

5/ ....to total student numbers obtained from two sources--the first an Oregon Dept of Ed report on the total number of special ed students in the state for 2021, being 6,845...

oregon.gov/ode/reports-an…

6/ ....and a second being a KTZI news report reflecting total Oregon student population for that same time period...

7/ Using the KTZI total of 560,917, that brings the percentage of special ed students for that time period to 1.2% (6,845/560,917 x 100)...

8/ Note that the KTZI article reflects a 3.7% drop in overall enrollment for 2021, the ODE reports reflect almost double that--a 6% drop--in special ed students over the same period (from 7258 in 2020 to 6845 in 2021)...

9/ The ODE numbers also reflect a 33% drop in the total of special ed students in the five-year period from 2016 to 2021; it would be interesting to know if that's worse than the total student drop in that period, but I'd have to dig to find those totals...

10/ ...Point being that it looks like disabled students are being lost more rapidly than non-disabled students, yet Oregon is failing to retain enough qualified teachers even to handle their rapidly falling numbers...

11/ ...This is consistent with my own family's experience, as our disabled child lost much of her support during her last two years of school in #Portland; and experienced abusive treatment at the hands of those who were left after COVID.

#Oregon is failing disabled students.

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