In the report from the Professional Personnel Development Workgroup and in your reaction to it at the Feb. 12 hearing, there is an implied assumption that knowledge of, and sensitivity to, diversity is essential to being effective teachers; that includes pre-school, adult teachers and professors.

To be effective, all such teachers also should have knowledge of, and sensitivity to, disabilities, including invisible disabilities, such as Learning Disabilities (LD). Without proper identification of, and accommodations for these disabilities children AND ADULTS are prevented from achieving academic/vocational goals.

Recommendations:

A. Information about disabilities should be included in curricula for teacher preparation and in "in-house training" for teachers already on the job.

B. Increase the supply of school nurses and counselors, giving a priority to Low Performing Schools. Teachers need help so that students with disabilities, such as hearing loss, ADD or LD, will not be misdiagnosed as "slow" or as having behavior problems. There is also a shortage of special ed. resource teachers.

C. Provide in-house training on disabilities and their accommodations for teachers in adult and vocational schools operated under the K- 12 systems. These teachers generally have no background on disabilities and their effect on learning. It is commonly accepted that about 50% of students who drop out of school have LD. A large number of these dropouts, especially adults who are 35 and older, have no idea that they have LD. They again have a high dropout rate when they make a second try in adult education.

D. Increase the supply of professionals who are qualified to assess adults for LD. Only such assessments can qualify students for appropriate accommodations which allow them to succeed. Children and adults with LD make up the largest group of persons with disabilities.

The legislature, I believe in the sixties, changed the requirements for credentials to make sure that teachers had to show knowledge in the subject matter they taught. At your hearing it was interesting to hear the discussion about Drs. in Pedagogy and reference to new useful information which is the result of studies of the brain. Members did not reject knowledge of subject matter but rather had become more aware that effective teaching is more than knowing subject matter. Progress in the knowledge about LD and how to enable persons with LD to succeed is also a result of the brain studies.

What is happening in CalWORKS and One Stop Centers is also increasing the need for awareness of and competence in teaching students with LD. All CalWORKS clients now have to be screened for likely LD and if there is an indication of LD, they will have to be professionally assessed for LD so they can receive the appropriate accommodations which enable them to succeed. In the One Stop Centers there is also a move towards increased awareness of LD. That is where the shortage of professional assessors is hurting. When any of the welfare or One Stop Centers clients are found to have LD, they are sent for training and/or education to "adult and/or vocational schools" where generally the teachers have no background in the needs of students with LD. That is the reason for the recommendations above.

Sincerely,

Emmy Gunterman.

Math Teacher of Adults

Sacramento, California