How Public Input Shapes the Clerc Center's Priorities:

Identifying Critical Needs in Transition from School
to Postsecondary Education and Employment

By Judith M. LeNard, M.Ed.

Background

All of the Clerc Center's sources of input, especially the National Dialogue and the questionnaires, contributed to a clearer understanding of the important issues and needs in the transition of deaf and hard of hearing youth from high school to postsecondary life. There emerged a sense of urgency at the individual level and, at the same time, a sense of the complexity of the systems involved in both problems and solutions. Danek and Busby's discussion of environmental issues provides a useful description of the complexity of transition as needs and solutions move from system to individual and back again.

Environmental factors provide context for a successful school to work transition for deaf and hard of hearing youth. Environmental issues are those legislative, economic, attitudinal, and evaluative factors that impact on the effectiveness of transition programs in schools and adult service programs for deaf and hard of hearing students. Environments can be both immediate and distant. Family, school, peer group, adult programs, and workplace are inevitably imbedded in, and influenced by, conditions and events in the broader societal and cultural context. (Danek & Busby, 1999, p. 24)

The competitive global nature of the marketplace is one of the primary systems that make transition so complex. The demands of the marketplace result in employers expecting ever more skills from the people they hire, which in turn spurs specific legislation affecting educational systems and other service providers. New legislation has had a dramatic effect on transition programming in the schools. In the introduction to their most recent book, Beyond High School: Transition from School to Work (1998), Frank Rusch and Janis Chadsey wrote:

In 1992, we edited Transition from School to Adult Life: Models, Linkages, and Policy. This earlier text was a compilation of chapters that represented the 'state-of-the-art' at the time. . . . But much has changed since the publication of this earlier volume. In particular, new legislation has emerged that promises to reshape secondary education as we know it today. (p. xxiii)

Most familiar to educators of deaf and hard of hearing youth is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Public Law (PL) 105-17. This law is best known among special educators and parents as the law that introduced the Individualized Education Program (IEP) for students with disabilities. It brought the parent and guardian into educational planning as a partner with educators. Reauthorizations of IDEA have steadily increased and clarified the role of transition planning for students with disabilities. The most significant change in IDEA relating to transition is the 1990 reauthorization:

Traditionally, the IEP had been designated as a planning document for a maximum period of one year, focusing on annual goals that were broken into short-term objectives. With the addition of the transition services requirements in the IEP, planning for youth with disabilities took on a longer time period, with goals spanning several years. For the first time, therefore, educators at the high school level were being asked to orient their planning towards students' lives after secondary school, including statements of needed transition services, agency responsibilities, and linkages to services within other agencies. (Rusch & Chadsey, 1998, p. 65)

Other legislation passed in the mid-1990s "…reinforced the intent of the transition requirements under IDEA and were inclusive of all youth preparing for graduation and employment, or postsecondary training" (Rusch & Chadsey, 1998, p. 69). This legislation included the Job Training Reform Act of 1993 (PL 102-367); the National Service Trust Act of 1994 (PL 103-82); the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of 1994 (PL 103-239); and the Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994.

As a result of all this legislation, changes are expected in educational programs that directly affect students and their families. Employers and community representatives are now stakeholders in transition planning for secondary education outcomes. Students, including students with disabilities, will be exposed to work-based learning and curriculum changes that promote connecting school and work. For deaf and hard of hearing students, the link between school and adult service providers, specifically Vocational Rehabilitation programs, should be developed at 14, a much younger age than the usual practice of making the contact at age 17 or 18. The change that will have the most impact on the individual deaf or hard of hearing student is the expectation that each student will be an active participant in the process of developing his or her own IEP. Ideally, this shifts the role of advocacy from family to student. It is against this backdrop—dramatic changes in transition-related legislation and a rapidly changing economy demanding flexible and skilled workers—that the Clerc Center analyzed the public input on transition.

Analyzing the Results

The public input process on transition allowed the Clerc Center to hear vivid and authentic voices on the critical issues. The richness of the information gathered through open-ended questions and the National Dialogue more than made up for the challenge of interpreting the diverse responses. Multiple responses were given to single questions. Needs and solutions were often expressed as two sides of the same coin. For example, one respondent might state that the greatest need is that students don't know how to act appropriately in the workplace; another might suggest that the greatest need is giving students opportunities to learn appropriate job behaviors.

While respondents with differing perspectives expressed a variety of needs, the needs and suggestions for change mentioned most often were remarkably consistent from all sources of input. The needs identified in the following section on results have been selected in terms of frequency of response of an idea or a cluster of related ideas, as expressed by the broadest representation of constituents. The needs have also been organized by the level of intervention required to change the situation. For example, some unmet needs require system-wide changes; others lend themselves to change at the individual level.

An Ideal Solution

From all sources of input, the most compelling recommendation for transition programming is to start early and be comprehensive. The following is typical of a frequent response from participants in the National Dialogue: "I just cannot emphasize too heavily about starting early enough." From the Priority Feedback Project, one of the most frequent responses was, "Introduce the world of work early (elementary) and keep talking about it." Many respondents to the experience-based questionnaire answered the question about "key characteristics of effective programs" by advocating a developmentally based, infused curriculum. One response expanded the idea of what such a curriculum would include:

The adoption of the developmental approach to career preparation in residential and day schools for deaf and hard of hearing students: 1) blends academic learning with work-force preparation, and 2) provides age-appropriate information and activities related to work throughout school years. . .. All students, hearing and deaf, would benefit from this curriculum.

The most compelling response came from the National Dialogue: six of the 11 participants listed a kindergarten through twelfth grade developmental curriculum that relates school to work as one of the two most critical needs. Ideally, this would be based on a career education model such as that described by Danek and Busby under Premise 3:

This is a preventive, educational model that provides for student development, age-appropriate skills, and informed choice rather then clinical or intervention-based assistance. Most importantly, it serves not as an ancillary focus, but as an integral part of the overall school curriculum. This model also encourages extensive collaboration among teachers and counselors, thus integrating classroom concepts with developmental issues, including career and work-based learning. (1997, p. 7; 1999, p. 11)

In any program, implementing a process this long-term and complex is challenging, and in most public programs it would involve massive changes at the state or district level. As already mentioned, a number of legislative and curriculum efforts are underway to move in this direction. Unfortunately, these changes are neither consistent nor comprehensive. One respondent to Danek and Busby's paper stated it succinctly: "System-wide change is not a new idea but one that is very difficult to carry out." Meanwhile, a long-term, kindergarten through twelfth grade comprehensive developmental program will come too late for many deaf and hard of hearing students already in junior and senior high school. This is one of the sources of urgency frequently cited in the National Dialogue and from many respondents.

Critical Needs

Some of the major categories of needs and suggestions that follow are components or related parts of the comprehensive ideal curriculum. These smaller components, while not as effective by themselves as systemic change would be, offer the advantage that some can be implemented by an individual or group of individuals and can be advantageous for students still in school who have not had the benefit of early and comprehensive career education.

Work-based Learning. The cluster of learning experiences related to job skills and job readiness was mentioned twice as often as any other area of concern in the questionnaires and Priority Feedback Project, and was rated as a first or second critical need by three participants of the National Dialogue. Many comments from every source of input cited the need for appropriate job behavior, opportunities for work-based learning, work exploration, and work experience including volunteer and paid work, prior to graduation from high school. This statement from a National Dialogue participant exemplifies statements about the need for work-based learning:

Unless they [deaf and hard of hearing youth] have opportunities for work-based learning, unless their curriculum integrates work-based learning with what they have learned in the classroom, and unless they have actually had paid work experiences, they will not be able to make the choices about what careers they want to pursue. They will not learn about what work expectations employers have. They will not be able to see the relevance between what they are learning in the classroom and what the real world requires.

Another respondent wrote, "Sadly the schools do not prepare students with real skills for the real world." A counselor said, "The greatest challenge is JOB READINESS, not in terms of job skills, but an understanding of appropriate job-related behavior—i.e., punctuality, social skills, rules of the workplace. Many of my clients have limited awareness of job culture at all and it is difficult to learn these skills."

One school-wide solution to this problem is to expose all students, including those on an academic track, to work and work-based learning. The School-to-Work Act of 1994 advocates work-based learning.

The intent is for the workplace to be an environment in which youth will not only learn job-specific tasks for entry-level positions, but also acquire work-related skills including positive work habits, social and communication skills, and general knowledge of business operations. (Rusch & Chadsey, 1998, p. 54)

In a review of research on educational practices and outcomes, Phelps and Hanley-Maxwell (1997) found that certain educational practices are associated with positive learning outcomes for youth with disabilities. Further, they found that these educational practices and outcomes appear to align with at least two of the proposed components of reform in the national school-to-work movement: (a) integrating academic and vocational learning, and (b) providing expanded opportunities for work experience.

One of the reasons exposure to work and work-based learning is difficult to implement for all students is the long-held tradition that work experience and transition skills are only for students in vocational programs, not academic studies. For situations where there is no system-wide structure in place to provide the needed job readiness skills and real work experiences, respondents suggested job clubs, mentors, partnerships with employers, and volunteer opportunities as helpful strategies that could be carried out by a transition team or set up by an individual.

Goal Setting. The single phrase most frequently used in the experience-based questionnaires was "realistic goals." Many respondents were frustrated because students did not have, or were unable to set, realistic goals. A whole set of skills underpins the ability to plan, set, and attain appropriate goals. Responsibility, promptness, problem solving, and seeking help were noted in the National Dialogue as some of those basic skills. One respondent noted, "Most deaf students do not have easy access to the incidental learning so necessary for work, leisure, and good health." Knowledge is empowering. Without access to the kind of information that comes to hearing students incidentally by overhearing conversations, announcements, television, and radio, deaf students exhibit gaps in knowledge and experience that must be explicitly addressed.

A second dynamic is equally harmful: deaf and hard of hearing students are often not given the same responsibilities and choices as their hearing peers. A number of respondents suggested providing students with more choices and opportunities to be independent at home and at school. The roots of dependency go deep. Problems in adolescence often stem from a younger age when the child with a hearing loss is encouraged to be dependent and passive. One respondent wrote, "I would change the system of promoting dependence and develop a process of teaching students decision-making skills, taking responsibility for their actions, and how to learn from mistakes." A climate of choice and responsibility is most effective in the early years, but pays dividends to the student at all ages. The ability to act independently and responsibly, and to make good choices, is empowering.

Self-advocacy. Responses from all sources of input agreed that self-advocacy skills are an everyday tool of survival for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Much of the need for self-advocacy arises from the complexity of the systems deaf or hard of hearing adolescents encounter when they leave high school to become independent young adults. One respondent's remark captures the concern of many: "Deaf and hard of hearing students have many more agencies which they must deal with for transition than hearing peers do." As adults, deaf and hard of hearing individuals are often required to advocate for themselves to gain access to services and programs easily available to persons without a hearing loss. Knowing their rights and learning to advocate for their needs in school and in the workplace are basic transition requirements for deaf and hard of hearing youth. A quote from one of the parents who responded to the experience-based questionnaire emphasizes the need for self-advocacy skills in early postsecondary life: "Self-advocacy skills are so important. My daughter has such skills, but she got lost in the shuffle and didn't advocate the first couple of terms in college. When she started speaking out, the whole experience improved."

Like decision-making and goal-setting skills, self-advocacy skills do not just appear fully developed. Knowledge of rights is not the only requirement for self-advocacy. People have to develop the self-confidence to make their needs known and to assert their rights. Ideally, this ability to make choices and be independent is nourished over time throughout life. In their paper, Danek and Busby quote Don Schutt, a well-known transition expert, on self-advocacy:

Student self-determination and self-advocacy should be the primary focus of transition services and the career development curriculum. These skills must be taught and supported by the school and parents from the earliest years. Schools must position students to live personally meaningful lives, [and] K-12 [should offer a] developmental progression of experiences that enhances decision-making skills and life options and provides opportunities to enrich and expand life experiences and challenges. (D. Schutt, personal communication, January, 1998) (Danek & Busby, 1999, p. 9)

Students cannot make independent decisions, take responsibility for their actions, or advocate for themselves unless they feel empowered by their environment to do so. Although the ideal is to develop the basic skills that underlie both goal setting and self-advocacy from an early age, providing deaf and hard of hearing youth with opportunities for choice, responsibility, and independent decision-making at any age will enhance their skills for setting realistic goals and empower them to advocate for their own needs.

Parents and Family. Even though adolescence brings challenges to many families, families retain an important role in their children's lives. One participant in the National Dialogue made a strong case for the power of parents to affect changes, not only in their children, but also in systems that impact on their children. This respondent's remark represents the feelings of the many individuals who mentioned the need for parent involvement: "If you want a smooth transition, empower the family."

This same theme—the importance of strong parental involvement—was a central topic in the Clerc Center's earlier work on how to involve all families in their children's educational program and how families can help their deaf and hard of hearing children become full participants in family life. Partnerships with parents increase the power of education for a deaf or hard of hearing child.

The Clerc Center also learned that many parents and guardians of deaf and hard of hearing children do not get sufficient information about the options for their children; this situation is often worse in the adolescent years when transition issues are most important. IDEA states that students should be active participants in their own IEPs and learn to take control of their own transition plans. This is one of the most critical tasks for a deaf or hard of hearing adolescent as responsibility for assuming the role of advocate begins to shift from the parent or guardian to the adolescent.

Adolescence is a difficult time for many children and their parents, but the difficulty compounds in families with deaf and hard of hearing adolescents. "Alienation of deaf youth from parents can be exacerbated by distances from the school and communication barriers" (Danek & Busby, 1999, p. 17). One respondent said, "With parents who often cannot communicate effectively, work values are often not passed on from family to deaf child." High school is also a time when the school-family relationship is often weaker than at earlier ages. This is reflected in comments from parents that they have insufficient information about transition during this time. For all these reasons, the shift in responsibility for advocacy to the adolescent as described in IDEA is a normal, developmental task of adolescence, and one that is of heightened importance for deaf and hard of hearing youth and their families. In addition, schools and family may not always share the same goals for the adolescent, and that can create a sensitive situation that can place the adolescent in the middle of a conflict between school and family if transition planning is not handled carefully.

Literacy. Although the need to develop literacy skills was not specifically mentioned as often as other points, no discussion of the transition needs of deaf and hard of hearing adolescents is complete without mentioning this underlying problem. It is widely recognized that many deaf and hard of hearing students have poor skills in reading and writing. In commenting about the effects of low literacy skills, one respondent notes:

The issue of language! The low (on average) reading and writing skills of deaf students is the real disability, not the actual hearing loss itself. Poor English skills affect all aspects of one's life: communication, employment, interaction, school, etc. Students may 'get by' for years in elementary/secondary school, then face a reality shock in college where they can no longer get by.

While some deaf and hard of hearing students exhibit literacy skills at or above grade level, the average achievement levels in reading comprehension for deaf and hard of hearing students are well below grade level. Information collected in 1996 by the Gallaudet Research Institute on the achievement levels in reading comprehension showed that the average 18-year-old profoundly deaf student in the survey was reading between third- and fourth-grade levels. Students with severe hearing loss averaged about a fourth-grade reading level. Students with less than severe hearing loss averaged just under a fifth-grade reading level. These results decline further when minority status is examined (Allen and Schoem, 1997). The issue of literacy skills appears time and again, regardless of the question. In the words of one participant in the National Dialogue, "We have to face the facts of the statistics." Literacy and family involvement underlie many of the issues involved in improving transition skills; any transition project that the Clerc Center undertakes must be aware of literacy and family involvement issues.

Special Needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Youth. With increasing numbers of deaf and hard of hearing youth in mainstream settings, transition programming for these students is being planned and implemented by educators who may not have special training in deaf education. Individuals who work with deaf and hard of hearing students hold a variety of views on the transition needs of these students. For example, depending on the training and experience of respondents, there were widely differing views about the question, "Do you think the transition needs of deaf and hard of hearing students differ from those of students with no hearing loss?"

All of the respondents with specialized training felt that deaf and hard of hearing students had special needs different from hearing students, even though the principles of transition and the developmental needs of the students are the same. Two responses typical of this perspective are:

Yes. There are many aspects of career development that affect deaf students uniquely. . .. These issues need to be considered and addressed in a transition program designed for deaf people.

. . . additional factors to take into consideration [are] isolation from the social world of the workplace, a stronger need to be assertive and self-advocate to get a job or advance, cultural pressures to accept SSI [Supplemental Security Income] or low-paying jobs in some cases, and more limited awareness, often, of different kinds of jobs or job opportunities.

There was a small number of respondents without specialized training who answered the question about the needs of deaf and hard of hearing youth in this way:

No, the need for the information is the same for all students and their parents. In the case of deaf or hard of hearing students, only the modality of presentation is different.

As this response and frequent comments from all sources of input indicate, professionals without specialized training are often not fully informed about the needs of deaf and hard of hearing youth. This lack of information creates problems for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Staff with Specialized Training and Deaf Role Models. If deaf and hard of hearing youth bring special needs in transition, who should provide the needed curricula and services? The communication needs of deaf and hard of hearing youth are sometimes explicitly stated, but often only implied. As noted in the previous section, some respondents assume that all that is needed for these deaf and hard of hearing students is an interpreter. But this quote from one respondent reveals another perspective:

I went through school alone without deaf support services. Isn't that wonderful? They do not see the other invisible disabilities of my ego in this bitty box, while everyone is applauding and giving scholarships and recognition, for not needing deaf services. That is an additional psychological pressure, and well-intended accolades from parents and people who do not realize that, you know, there is withering inside.

There is a need in all settings for teachers, counselors, transition specialists, and adult service providers who are trained to understand and work with deaf and hard of hearing youth. This is a serious need in many mainstream settings. One National Dialogue participant reported that the five school districts she represents asked her to come to the Dialogue and tell participants that: "We are going to need something pretty high up [to change]. The curriculum is packed, so we need some mandate to trickle down—to give the administrators who do not know anything about deafness a mandate, to give us time to pull in the specialists to teach the kids."

Mentioned just as often as the need for trained staff was the need for deaf role models. These comments are typical: "The students need role models also, they don't know what deaf people can do . . .." "EXPOSURE to successful, adult, deaf professionals!" "[Deaf staff in schools provide] exposure to a variety of deaf people who have experience addressing a range of issues the deaf student will encounter." Clearly, many people feel that deaf individuals can provide the mentoring and connections to the Deaf community that deaf adolescents need. The Deaf community was mentioned several times as a source of job placements.

At the National Dialogue, and in several of the questionnaire responses, the issue of specially trained staff was often linked to the need for more funding to hire additional trained staff. Staffing issues and funding to hire more trained and deaf staff are policy decisions, but providing opportunities for students to meet deaf adults and link with the Deaf community can be accomplished by a motivated teacher, counselor, or parent.

Transition Planning and the Individualized Education Program (IEP). As noted in the earlier section on legislation, the IEP is a primary mechanism for involving parents or guardians and students in transition planning at school. Surprisingly, there was only one comment from all sources of input that identified the IEP as an important tool in transition programming for students. The experience-based questionnaire asked respondents how transition planning was handled within IEP meetings they had attended. The responses were mixed, ranging from totally ineffective IEP experiences to totally satisfactory ones. The majority of responses indicated some problems at the meeting or in the follow-up.

Summary of the Public Input Results. The classroom needs to become more relevant to the real world. All deaf and hard of hearing students need exposure to jobs, the workplace, and deaf role models. They need more opportunities to make their own choices and to be held accountable. Parents need more information about ways to be involved with their sons' and daughters' transitions. All these transition-programming issues require improved communication and cooperation among stakeholders, especially the student and his or her family. All deaf and hard of hearing students—whether in a residential school, a day program, or a mainstream setting—have unique transition needs that must be recognized by all the individuals and agencies helping them. Specialized training in working with deaf and hard of hearing students and deaf adults is needed in all settings.

Many of the transition problems and solutions discussed in this paper require curriculum changes at state or district levels, public policy changes, or more funding to hire trained deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing staff. These issues need long-term solutions. Advocacy for curriculum, policy, and funding changes by parents, the Deaf community, and others can be effective. Some needs identified were at the school or classroom level, and some can be changed at the individual level.

Go to Part IV: Putting Public Input to Work

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