By Sara Finegan
One of the coolest things about writing IEPs is that you get to create customized goals for the student.
Once you know and understand a student’s learning style and deficits, you pinpoint the specific needs of the student and design measurable goals with objectives or benchmarks spaced at reasonable intervals throughout the year.
This creates a roadmap for all of the support providers and teachers who are working with the student.
One of the most awful things I’ve discovered in my consultations with parents and districts from around the country is how generic and inappropriate many goals are.
- They aren’t measurable. What the hell does “will improve in-class attitude by 50% ” mean?
- They aren’t standards-based. There is no reason why a 14-year old should have a goal to learn the multiplication facts. If he doesn’t know them by heart yet, he needs to use other strategies. Any math goals should be related to the standards for his grade level, not third grade.
- They aren’t specific. If I never again see a goal like “given a topic Danny will write a 5-paragraph essay that fulfils 70% of the requirements for the assignment” , I will be a happy woman. Really? Which 70%? What can he already do, and what does he need to learn how to do?
- They aren’t customized to student needs and learning styles. Many districts have an IEP system online, and in many cases there’s a drop-down menu of goals available. The thing that most teachers don’t know is that these goals were never intended to be used as-is and the district administrators assumed we’d use them only in a pinch. Generic goals have to be revised to match the student.
We special ed teachers and case managers simply cannot allow ourselves to take shortcuts and use drop-down menus on this part of an IEP.
There is absolutely no excuse for generic, mushy goals. None.
There’s a reason that special ed teachers have a smaller class or caseload size than general ed teachers: we have more complicated work to do to create and fulfill individual education plans. Not “group” education plans.
customized goals · generic goals · IEP goals · IEPs · individualized · measurable · specific · standards-based
