CEIC's 20/20 Analysis Identifies Special Needs Students

Coordinated Services for Children: Problems of Organization and Implementation

Integrated Services Center Links School, Family, and Community

Each day in our nation's schools, students with special learning needs are pulled from their classrooms and placed in any one of dozens of government subsidized categorical programs. But CEIC researchers have discovered that categorical programs are not always effective and often leave behind many students who are in need of special attention. How can schools better serve high-achieving and low-achieving student?

The 20/20 plan, a system developed by CEIC researchers, suggests that schools analyze the educational achievements of students in the top and bottom 20% of their classes in the performance of the most important skills and subject matter. In doing so, schools can better organize intensive, individualized instruction for these students - whose learning progress under ordinary circumstances is marginal. The 20/20 plan focuses on the individual differences among students and emphasizes the appropriate adaptation of school programs for exceptionally talented students and students with special learning needs. In addition, the plan is a reliable and accountable alternative to what is often referred to as the "second system" of education, which includes dozens of categorical programs such as Chapter 1 (for economically disadvantaged students), educable mentally retarded (EMR), learning disabled (LD), and emotionally disturbed (ED). Such categories are often based on presumed causes of school problems. But, in fact, the presumed causes bear little relation to the instructional approaches found useful in serving the students.

Case studies

CEIC researchers are encouraged by the support of administrators who have implemented the 20?20 analysis in two elementary schools in the second largest school district in the country (see related article on page 6). Both schools feature majority/minority populations residing in low-income sections of the city. Based on state and local norms, both schools have continually fallen into the bottom quartile on the annual achievement tests administered to grades one through six in every comparison. The schools offer an array of categorical programs, including special education, bilingual education, Chapter 1, gifted education, migrant education, and immigrant education.

The 20/20 analysis

The first step in the 20/20 analysis was to select a dimension of learning to be analyzed. Reading was chosen since large numbers of inner-city school children experience difficulty with reading and because poor reading ability is a main reason students are referred for assessment and placement in special education.

Researchers examined the reading scores for all students in each school who completed the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS), a standardized achievement test administered to all students in grades one through six, and computed the schoolwide percentile distribution. They then calculated the high 20% and low 20% scorers in each grade level and for the schools as a whole.

Next, researchers identified the schoolwide percentile distribution by comparing it with national norms and calculated the percentile cutoffs of the high 20% group and low 20% group for each grade level.

All students in the "high 20" and "low 20" percentile groups were listed by name. As a secondary check, each of the students' teachers was asked to verify the accuracy of the lists. In both schools, teachers confirmed the test results more than 80% of the time. Using the established 20/20 groups, researchers reached these and other startling conclusions:

As a result of the 20/20 analysis in A and B, both schools have launched a noncategorical reading and language instruction improvement program that will move categorical teachers and aides into the classrooms to team up with regular teachers. All instructors will focus on reading, with special emphasis on students in the top and bottom 20th percentiles.

In addition, the schools will provide inservice training for staff, coordinate school staff and programs across all categories with regular school programs, work to increase parental involvement, and collaborate with the local university to improve school programs and with local social services organizations to coordinate services.

And most importantly, the schools will work closely with school system leaders at regional, central office, and state levels to secure understanding and support for policy and administration adaptations that may be required. It is clear that schools may need to waive certain regulations that have caused disjointed programs.

o In school A, 71% of the students currently enrolled in special education programs were identified by the 20/20 analysis simply by their membership in the low 20 group. No special examination by a school psychologist or others was required. In school B, 92% of special education students were identified by the same simple process.

o In school A, 89 students (68%) who scored at or below the 6th percentile in reading were not rolled in special education or any programs that offered highly intensive reading instruction. The figure was 62% for School B.

o In school A, 98% of the students in the low 20 group were eligible for Chapter 1 services. The figure for school B was 92%.

o Only 15% of high 20 students in school A were officially designated as "gifted" because of district eligibility criteria and the low incentive/priority for identification. Schools receive $70 annually for each gifted student.

o In school A, 51% of gifted students were not included in the high 20 group because of low reading achievement. The figure was 64% in school B.

Policy implications

Current categorical methods of identifying exceptional students are not always reliable, and students are not always reliable, and students in the margins are being left behind. Narrowly defined categories, combined with the enormous problems of their management, coordination, and efficiency, disturb many special educators and have spurred education reform. CEIC's 20/20 analysis findings appear to indicate that new policies, funding practice, and programs are necessary if we are to serve all children well.

One major policy consideration we propose is for schools to offer the following guarantee to parents: whenever a child falls into a low or high 20 group in rate of progress on basic school subjects, parents will be informed and asked to join with the school staff to plan for adaptations both in school and in daily life that may improve the child's learning progress. A plan similar to an Individualized Education Plan would be created cooperatively by teachers and parents. It would be essential to also permit parents and teachers to nominate other children for individualized help. However, no student would be labeled and categorized in traditional ways, and resources now distributed across many categorical programs could be redistributed.

The field of special education has shown a remarkable ability to "remake" itself over the years to accommodate emerging needs and priorities. Now we believe there is a need for special educators to help transform the discipline into one that concentrates on outcome- oriented data in shaping educational programs. The 20/20 analysis is one simple starting point in this critical metamorphosis.

In today's mood of crisis in American education, impatient business leaders and education reformers applaud the "Noah Principle" applied to education by Louis Gerstner, the chief executive officer of R.J.R. Nabisco: "No more prizes for predicting rain. Prizes only for building arks."

To assist modern-day Noahs, CEIC researchers are exploring the largely uncharted waters that ventures in coordinated services for children must navigate. In some states, efforts toward service coordination have remained state-level initiatives, with interagency councils working systematically to blend programmatic initiatives for the individual stat's health and human services departments. For example, in Delaware, the state's initiative includes encouraging the parallel formation of local interagency councils to extend service coordination vertically from state to locality. In New York's Community Schools Program, state initiatives have encouraged local service coordination.

But state and local governments are not always the chief players in service coordination. Some service coordination has been locally initiated, with little or no state-level participation. Foundations, professional and business associations, and universities have also been extremely active in this area. The Kellogg Foundation, for example, provided a major, multi-year grant to the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois to support the University's partnership with four inner-city schools in a merger of educational, health, parent education, and family and community support services. The scope of service coordination varies as widely as its administrative base. One of the early national, multi-site initiatives, Cities in Schools, Inc., focuses on a comprehensive approach to dropout prevention through coordinated health, education, and social services for inner-city adolescents. similarly, James Comer's model of inner-city schooling works toward school improvement by linking the classroom, health services, guidance, parent participation, and family assistance. Less comprehensive initiatives have focused on work training and employment, drug prevention, parent education, and school-based health clinics.

Implementation: What it takes

Heath and McLaughlin (1987) argue that a vital conceptual step forward in school-improvement strategy came during the 1980s when parents were encouraged to become "extensions of the school's business - supporters of homework, monitors of activities, and reinforcers of school values." They argue further, however, that "bringing family and school together" in this day of distressed schools and families is unlikely to lead to effective education, for the problems are simply beyond the resources of these two fundamental institutions. One must now look for help beyond both family and school toward the resources of the larger community environment.

In suggesting such "new strategies," Heath and McLaughlin acknowledge that " a changed governance structure" must be at the heart of "coordinated partnership efforts." But beginning such an inter- agency "networking" initiative is fraught with implementation obstacles, including: undependable funding from outside the school system; the problems of space, facilities management, and differing personnel/salary policies; the negotiation of new roles and relationships between educators and other client-service personnel; the need to nurture effective leadership and ensure careful planning; the challenge of connecting professional preparation programs and professional procedures; and the tough issues of communication, confidentiality, and information retrieval. It is not surprising that a number of handbooks and guidelines have been produced for those implementing collaborative services projects. While short on specifics and detail, the handbooks do provide some general guidelines and an "avoid-these-pitfalls" model of program implementation, which includes warnings to: obtain widespread administrative commitment before implementation; plan carefully; identify a project leader; bring all stakeholders fully into the project; clarify participating agency agreements and roles; train all staff; include mechanisms to link services effectively with child/family needs; and maintain open communication.

Evaluating Coordinated Efforts

To date, despite widespread interest, there have been few in-depth evaluations of coordinated service experiments. What careful evaluation exists shows a history of experimentation colliding with problems of institutional deficiencies, professional training differences, resource constraints, communication gaps, authority and "turf" issues, and legal and leadership problems. Stake's (1986) examination of the initial years of the Cities in Schools effort provides an assessment of early coordinated services experimentation. The 1981 American Institute of Research (AIR) evaluation found little evidence that Cities in Schools had been successful in integrating services, in measurably impacting youth, or in overcoming discrepancies between the rhetoric and reality of program operation. Stake's commentary discusses the problems involved in adapting quantitative evaluation methods to a service- integration process; difficulties in breaking evaluation away from the "politics" of program funding, leadership, implementation, and review; and difficulties in finding hard evidence of "results" in an effort requiring long-term program development.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation's "New Futures" grants to Dayton, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Savannah, Georgia were studied in 1991 by the University of Wisconsin's Center for the Study of Social Policy (Wehlage et al., 1991). This midstream evaluation concluded that the collaborated services interventions "have not fundamentally changed the way schools work or addressed the root causes of school failure" (Cohen, 1991). There was, however, evidence of an improved capacity to share information about, and to track the progress of, students across organizational boundaries.

Coordinated services and institutional realities

Coordination is affected by the kinds of institutions involved. A competitive institution is a collection of diverse individual and group interests which coalesce through exchange and negotiation. A collaborative institution, on the other hand, is a collection of persons pursuing goals within a context of shared values. Individuals and groups coalesce around a common institutional history, a shared obligation, and a sense of community.

The literature on collaboration from organizational theory highlights three key issues of competition vs. collaboration. First, the literature attests to the wide diversity of interests, powers, perspectives, preferences, and groupings within the individual school. Second, schools are small polities of teachers, students administrators, service workers, and parents in either real or potential conflict. Third, the internal organization of the school is in many ways more a coalition of interests than it is a collegium.

This is not to say that collaboration is missing or even in short supply in the individual school. As in any organization, the maintenance of schedules, complementary activities, work products, and amicable workplace relationships depends upon extraordinary day-to-day cooperation. Nevertheless, both scholars' and practitioners' definitions of an outstanding school quite often describe settings where collaboration is well, and almost unexpectedly, above the norm.

Eric Trist (1977) observes, however, that a competitive-style bureaucracy is the "prevailing organizational form" in our society. From internal "ladders" of managerial position and career opportunity to battles for territory and resources between organizations, the competitive organization is the societal norm. To ask for collaboration under such structures "stands in contradistinction to the psychopolitical pressures on individuals and component groups." Trist goes on to note that conflict between competition and collaboration "is endemic, despite efforts, however well intentioned and often partially successful, to reduce it." The school is not an institution in which control is shared with ease. There is a built-in tendency in the culture of the school to jealously guard both the object and the process of control.

A second and related fallout is that when control must be shared, it is fragmented and role-specialized rather than interdependent. Typically, guidance counselors advise students in near isolation from teachers; troublesome pupils are "sent" from the classroom to the school office; certain pupils are "pulled" from the classroom for specialist help in reading or speech therapy; the extra-curriculum exists as a separate program for which teachers receive added pay; and professional specialists, from nurses to librarians, are allocated their own "turf" in the school where their independent control is honored.

Baglow (1990) concludes that each institutional partner in collaboration must feel, through shared communication, that its separate control interests are not ignored. To meet this need, coordination projects typically use a multidisciplinary team or an interagency coordination committee (Skaff, 1988). However, Rosenheck (1985) suggest, based on research into collaboration between psychiatrists and police officers, that something as institutionally defining as a formal "liaison structure" may be necessary. A sense of territory or "turf" and its attendant problem of control are at the heart of many efforts to understand the interplay of incentive systems and contributed professional effort in education.

Barbara Gray (1985, 1991) suggests a "stakeholders" approach to the problem of territorialism. Collaborating stakeholders need to perceive that their activities are truly interdependent. An examination of "stakeholders" and exchanges of incentives in the coordination of children's services at the school site raises several issues. fist, it is not always clear just who the stakeholders are and , for that matter, what the "stakes" are in service coordination experiments. Although classroom teachers are obvious candidates, they may perceive few benefits from involvement in coordinated services because of their tradition of "isolated autonomy" and their sense of already being overburdened with responsibilities. Second, parents are clearly stakeholders but are seldom offered incentives beyond a chance to "participate" in program services. Third, stakeholder confusion is evident in most coordinated services efforts in that state governments, foundations, Mayors' offices, and universities not only have been the key "interveners" and fundraisers, but also bring their own stakeholder interests to otherwise "natural" organizational settings.

Most coordination ventures to date have not addressed administration issues adequately, but many of the ongoing projects provide important insights into the problems of managing coordinated services. four key categories of unresolved issues on the "institutional" side of service coordination include: the institution and its connections, the professionalization of service coordination, the support threshold, and governance issues.

The institution and its Connections

The pursuit of a renewed sense of "connection" between home and school is undergirded by assumptions ranging from coordinated services as investments in children, to new perspectives on school-community ecologies, to mutually reinforcing pathways of development for children. But what are effective connections in coordinated children's services, and how are such connections established? One strategy is to assume a "competitive" organizational model and its environment in which connections develop out of shared incentives and negotiative approach to joint authority. Each potential connector is a stakeholder with a set of interests and a special agenda of his or her own. collaboration can be seen as " the unfolding of a negotiative order" in which a "previously unconnected set of stakeholders" is newly organized to pursue a common agenda (Gray, 1991).

While the competitive approach finds connections evolving out of the negotiations toward collaboration, a "collaborative" approach sees connecting as the first step before collaboration. Incentives and resources may be far less important than establishing trust, opening up decision-making and governance, building attitudinal bridges, establishing shared rituals and traditions, finding symbolic connections, and widening the sense of community in the organization.

The professionalization of service coordination

The collaboration of professionals in children's services settings is heavily constrained by a separation of training and certification systems (Cunningham, 1990; Kirst, 1991). Professional separation within the school also flows from an elaborate division of labor and professional identities. Schools also tend to have an informal hierarchy of professionals, with teachers claiming ascendancy over and undervaluing social workers, nurses, child-protection workers, community relations representatives, recreation specialists, librarians, and other professionals.

Practical suggestions for creating greater interprofessional collaboration in schools include: (a) structural changes to facilities that break down barriers between professionals; (b) continued experimentation with the professionally shared governance reforms already under way in many school district settings; (c) additional legal mandates not unlike the "staffing" provisions in special education, under which a team of professionals must share gatekeeping responsibilities; (d) formal agreements between child service professionals, where control, information sharing, pooled resources, roles, and conflict-resolution procedures are all carefully specified; and/or (e) an infusion of new managerial roles in schools emphasizing medication skills and coordinative leadership, roles already defined in some projects as "facilitators," "site directors," or "case-management specialists."

The support threshold: Coordinated services costs

It is tempting to assume that service coordination will produce some savings due to more timely targeting of services, reduced service duplication, and greater payoff per dollar of intervention. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that cost reductions will accrue. Indeed, children's service coordination appears--at least during its early years of experimentation--to be more expensive than service fragmentation. But costliness may be a short-term product inherent in any restructuring effort.

Stakeholder negotiations take time and leadership. New technologies, such as computerized case management, can be costly. An additional layer of start-up management has often been necessary, and the incentives needed to wean project participants, from professionals to parens, away from "old ways" can be heavy at the front end of any innovation. Such "transaction costs" may or may not be long-term features of program implementation. Beyond these financial considerations, risk and stewardship issues appear to have been neglected in the project report literature but may be critical to understanding service coordination in school settings.

Risks in coordinated children's services include the fallout of lost confidentiality and challenged professional autonomy, school- community conflict, professional-to-professional disputes, and a potential for litigation that tends to accompany new ventures. Projects to date appear to vary in their provisions for stewardship; many projects lack designated stewards, inside-the school project directors, outside-appointed project directors, liaison-committee chairpersons, and added-on principal duties.

Governance issues

Despite a warning by Heath and McLaughlin that "a changed governance structure" should be at the heart of collaboration, fundamental questions of governance remain unresolved. Perhaps the most important practical suggestion is offered by Useem (1991), who observes that whatever the organizational/governance structure established for collaboration, all "have different strengths and weaknesses and each has its time and place where it can be effective; but all can be vulnerable in a given time period. " "In the end," she notes, "organizational configurations matter less than the kind of political and public support that has been developed and

Editor's note: CEIC's 20/20 analysis was major stimulus behind the implementation of Murchison Street Elementary School's Integrated Services Center. How schools can better serve the diverse needs of all children is the primary question addressed by 20/20 analysis. After its administration at Murchison, the school obtained a clearer picture of the extent of the academic and related services needs of its students. The Integrated Services Center is rising to the challenge of meeting those needs.

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The Murchison Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, in partnership with the California State University at Los Angeles (CSULA), has established an innovative multiservice center to help manage the problems of inner-city students and their families. The family Services Center uses an integrated, client-centered approach to coordinate school, community, and family resources. By streamlining school and community services, and by inviting parents to become more involved in the education of their children, Murchison is working to improve student learning and inner-city family life.

Located in East Los Angeles, a low-income section of the city where many families do not speak English, Murchison is among the lowest achieving elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (SAUSD). Many families live below the poverty line, lack adequate health care, suffer from poor nutrition, and live in substandard housing, located in crime and drug-infested neighborhoods.

Through the CSULA partnership, which is supported by a Department of Education grant, Murchison is striving to modify curriculum, introduce more effective teaching strategies, and integrate the delivery of services by linking them to resources within the community through the Family Services Center.

Creating a hub for coordinated services

Murchison's Integrated Services Center is designed like a wheel, with the Family Services Center, the primary agency, at the "hub." Students and families are referred to the Center by teachers, school counselor, psychologist, and nurse. On-site services such as counseling and health care are available at this central location. Resource and referral services are also available to parents who ordinarily must navigate alone through a patchwork of disjointed service providers and programs.

The "spokes" extending from the Family Services Center are staff members who help connect school resources with those of the community, such as agencies providing health, mental health, social welfare, and juvenile justice services. By collaborating with other agencies, the Center is better able to meet the specific needs of students and their families.

As the Family Services Center grows, school counselors, a school nurse, and a number of agency workers specifically assigned to the Center will review cases, develop family service plans, and assign each "client" to a case manager. The goals of the case manager will be to assess the needs of the family, provide direct services when appropriate, refer the family to service unavailable at the Center, follow up on referrals, monitor outcomes, and provide or assist with transportation needs. Case managers will also be part of the school study team and report client progress directly to the teacher or school staff member who made the initial referral.

Making parents a part of the process

The designers of the Family Services Center, which is modeled after the successful New Beginnings Program in San Diego, believe that parental involvement in the education of their children is key to successful service coordination. At Murchison, a Parent Center, linked to the Family Services Center, provides this critical link between parents, the school, and numerous outside service providers.

To encourage informal meetings between parents and teachers, weekly discussion groups called platicas or "Parent Talks" are conducted in both English and Spanish with parents, teachers, a CSULA faculty member, and a parent coordinator. Topics are suggested by parents and have included children talking back, problems with a divorced spouse, communication in the family, self-esteem, and sexual abuse. Through these meetings, and other weekly and monthly gatherings, parents help develop instructional materials for the classroom and sponsor activities such as a monthly parent newsletter and a Family Sports Day.

A new parent-to-parent mentor program will soon be launched to train parent mentors to assist new immigrant families and other parents who find their life situations especially stressful and complex. Mentors will regularly meet with a CSULA faculty member and the Parent Center coordinator to review cases and receive guidance.

The critical community link

One tool that has been particularly useful in assessing parents' needs and in developing subsequent community agency linkages is a parent survey. Parents ranked dental care, immunization, and vision care as the most needed health services, and family counseling and drug and alcohol counseling as mental health service priorities. Job training and English as a Second Language (ESL) classes were the most requested adult education programs.

Matching available resources to parents' most pressing needs is a primary goal of the Family Services Center. Since nearly 80% of the students who attend Murchison Street Elementary School live in Ramona Gardens, a neighborhood public housing project, Murchison teamed up with the Ramona Gardens Community Service Center (RGCSC), a community agency providing a variety of services to residents. Some services are now jointly sponsored by Ramona Gardens and the Center and are housed in the Murchison Street School, including a homework and tutoring club, a mentor program that includes the "Keeper of the Dream" speakers program, and adult education classes that include ESL, Vocation ESL, GED, and job training. A Department of Public Social Services representative from Ramona Gardens regularly attends the meetings at the Parent Center to answer parents' questions about obtaining services.

The Center is also collaborating with the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services and Public Social Services of Los Angeles. Staff from the Department of Children's Services act as case managers working with referred families to prevent out-of-home placement. Probation Department liaisons have the authority to help solve a variety of problems impacting Family Services Center clients. The Probation Department also provides counseling, recreation, and parent effectiveness training directly to "high-risk" students and families. The Family Services Center has also cultivated a working relationship with La Cada and Behavior Health Services, two local nonprofit agencies that provide educational and treatment services for substance and alcohol abuse. La Cada provides a drug prevention program for 4th and 5th graders at Murchison, and Behavioral Health Services will soon establish an A1-A-Teen class. Murchison also works directly with social workers from the Latino Family Preservation Project and the University of Southern California Dental School, which provides preventive dental education and care to students and parents.

Social work interns and counseling trainees from CSULA will also lend valuable expertise to the Center as they train in its collaborative environment. Several students will be assigned to the Family Services Center beginning in the Fall of 1992 to assist in developing comprehensive family service plans with CSULA faculty and Center staff. They will also provide families with short-term counseling.

With the Family Services Center as a unifying force, the Murchison Street Elementary School is successfully coordinating school and community resources. Working systematically with community organizations, agencies, health care providers, and CSULA staff, Murchison is developing a comprehensive approach to evaluating and meeting the critical needs of students and their families.