4. Monitoring of Isaac’s progress did not seem to be consistent or based on data due to the turnover of school personnel. A lot of crucial information seemed to be missing in his records because of this change in the school district’s student population, such as his psychologist having left the district (A Consequence of Testing ALL Students). Isaac’s records did contain his academic grades, such as Bs and Cs in his special education classes and an F in physical education “for refusing to dress out” (A Consequence of Testing ALL Students). His records described his behavioral problem as “frequent fights, cursing in class, and disrespectful behavior toward authority figures,” which was why he was referred for special education (A Consequence of Testing ALL Students). …show more content…
How were Isaac’s social skills at lunchtime and recess in elementary and middle school? How does Isaac behave while at job training? What kinds of ‘disrespectful behavior’ were being exhibited? I find it unfair to penalize Isaac’s behavior and place him in special education when the observer failed to explicitly describe Isaac’s disrespectful behavior in observable and measureable terms. Without observable and measurable statements of the behavior, there is no way to measure the behavior, identify alternative replacement behavior, and/or evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program for the behavior problem (Smith, Lesson 7). Most importantly, failure to provided observable and measurable statements of the problem behavior makes it difficult to monitor the behavior objectively because of the cultural nature of behavior (Harry & Klingner,