American Journal of Community Psychology, 1973, 1, 4, pp. 3 7 7 - 3 8 7
Evaluation of Project Reentry 1 PHILIP A. MANN 2
Indiana University This report describes a project designed to return to regular classrooms a group of rural poor elementary schoolchildren who were suspected of having been misplaced in special classes for the educable mentally retarded. At the end of the 3-year project, more than half the children were returned to regular classrooms, with proportionately more boys than girls being returned. The total sample of Project students gained significantly in verbal IQ over the course of the project, compared with a sample of students who remained in special education classes. The implications of the project for research, intervention programs, and educational practices are discussed.
While the controversy continues over the existence and effects of differences in educational opportunity (Hodgson, 1973) and over the effects of compensatory education (Gray & Klaus, 1970; Jencks, 1969; Jensen, 1969; Klaus & Gray, 1968; Westinghouse Learning Corporation, 1969), there are some immediate effects of education facing a more limited, but still large, number of minority-group children. These are children who because of test biases, linguistic or cultural backgrounds different from those dominant in the school, lack of early educational socialization, or a combination of these factors, are misplaced in special classes for the educable mentally retarded. It seems hardly necessary to document the fact that educational expectations and subsequent social opportunities are more limited for children in special classes for the retarded than in normal classes. To be sure, individual children, who upon retesting are found not to be retarded, are returned to regular classes. There is, hopefully, more current awareness of such biases in diagnosis and placement, and early intervention programs are aimed in part at preventing such occurrences (Hunt, 1968), but some such misplacement still occurs. The objective of special classes for the educable mentally retarded is to teach 1This study was supported by a grant from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. 2Requests for reprints should be sent to Professor Philip A. Mann, Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47401.
377 Copyright © 1973 by V. H. Winston & Sons, Inc.
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children within the level of their abilities and to maintain them within a special education program, rather than to accelerate intellectual growth (at least as measured by intelligence tests) and to return children to regular classes. As a result, forces would seem to be created that would work against the later discovery of many misplaced children. While the average life chances for employment, earnings, and social integration are generally lower currently for poor and minority-group children, placement in a special education curriculum would seem, on the average, to diminish those chances further. Yet, systematic efforts to correct such conditions have been limited. Perhaps this is in part because of the belief that the IQ is not generally modifiable after age 6 (Hunt, 1961), despite the fact that this argument is not especially relevant to the children in question here. The investigator was asked to participate in the evaluation of a program that set out to correct the misplacement of children in special classes by showing that such children could benefit enough educationally to justify their return to regular classes. Accordingly, the program was named "Project Reentry."
Development of the Program The superintendent of a small, predominantly rural school district in Texas became concerned about the disparity between the proportion of children in various ethnic groups enrolled in special education classes for the educable mentally retarded and the proportionate distribution of ethnic groups in the total school population. Prior to the initiation of Project Reentry, the percentages of enrollment by ethnic groups in special education classes for the educable mentally retarded (EMR) were as follows (with percentages for the total school enrollment in parentheses): Negro, 25.53 (14.62); MexicanAmerican, 55.32 (18); Anglo, 19.15 (67.38). All these children had been considered qualified for admission to special education programs for the mentally retarded. (Guidelines for eligibility for special education classes for the educable mentally retarded established by the Texas Education Agency include an IQ of 50 to 70, and a minimum mental age of 3.5 years. Students are to be selected for such classes by a placement committee that considers the student's chronological age, IQ, mental age, comprehensive psychological report, and a report of a medical examination.) However, the school personnel observed that most of the children came from large families having little or no income, that the total enrollment in programs for EMR students exceeded what would be expected from national norms, and that there were many among the students who had limited vocabularies, in either English or Spanish or both. It was further noted that there were frequently wide discrepancies between verbal and performance IQs, even though Spanish-speaking children were tested with the Spanish-language version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
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(Wechsler, 1949) and that some children appeared to be alert and showed an ability to handle academic materials much earlier than is expected of a retarded child. On the basis of these observations, the school district obtained a grant to conduct a 3-year project of systematic instructions with a small teacher-pupil ratio. The actual ratio was approximately 11:1. Although located physically with the special education facilities, the program was viewed as distinct; and the express goal was to enable the students to return to regular classes. Among the many difficulties encountered because the design of the evaluation had to be constructed after the program had begun, one was that the criteria for selecting the children for Project Reentry were not exactly clear and were difficult to specify objectively. Students were selected by a committee composed of the Superintendent, teachers in the Special Education program, and those assigned to Project Reentry. Another problem was that children were not assigned randomly to experimental and control groups; rather, all children selected were placed in the project. Therefore, children selected for comparison had to be drawn from children remaining in special classes, thus limiting the inferences that could be drawn from the evaluation. One index that seemed to have been a clear selection factor, as the data presented later indicated, was that children tended to be selected if their Performance IQ on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) was noticeably higher than their Verbal IQ. The IQs were still sufficiently low, however, that they were qualified for placement in the special education classes on the basis of individual psychological examinations before being placed there. A total of 45 children (18 boys, 27 girls) were enrolled in Project Reentry during its 3 years of operation. The mean age of the entering children was 9, with a range of from 7 to 13. There were 9 Negro, 31 Mexican-American, and 5 Anglo children in the Project. Nearly all came from families with annual incomes of under $2,000. These were predominantly rural, poor families. The teaching staff consisted of four teachers who had special education experience in the school system. Curriculum
The curriculum was built around four areas: intensive skill-building academic instruction, increased cultural and intellectual exposure or enrichment activities, incentives designed to enhance motivation, and physical development. In addition, teachers made frequent home visits and actively sought family involvement. Academic instruction in reading, number work, and social studies made use of systematic packaged "laboratory" materials. Audiovisual materials were used whenever possible. Teachers attempted to maximize individual instruction.
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Frequent field trips were used to increase students' exposure to their environment. While several of the families were the third generation living on their own land, most of the children had never visited the large city located near where they lived. The field trips included restaurants, movie theaters, an airport and a tour of a jet airliner, a visit to Astrowofld in Houston, and several other places. The children were given regular and frequent tasks to perform for which they were paid at the rate of 10 cents per hour. This money was accumulated in accounts for each child, and periodic field trips were made to a large discount store where they could make purchases with the money they had earned. This was done in an effort to provide a tangible reward with the aim of enhancing motivation. Regular physical exercise and team and individual games were conducted with an emphasis on improvement of individual physical coordination and skills. The male teacher who provided this instruction was also part of the academic instructional staff. Aside from the curriculum, it was clear that the teachers had strikingly different expectations for the project children than those they held for other special education students. It was also evident from observation of the classroom that these expectations were communicated to the students. METHOD The project staff, administrators, teachers of regular classes, and consultants met at the end of the project to review each student's progress and make recommendations about reentry to regular classes or retention in s p e c i a l education. Data on socioeconomic and family background, achievement test scores, and intelligence test results were available for each student. Each student had been given an individual intelligence test by a qualified psychologist prior to admission to special education, prior to the Reentry Project, and at the end of the project. The same test, however, was not always used at the beginning and end of the project. Some students, for example, were given the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale prior to special class placement. This reduced the number of children for whom useable intelligence test data were available. Similarly, different achievement tests were employed that made before and after comparisons of achievement data impossible. There were 19 boys and 16 girls for whom Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WlSC) scores were available at the beginning and end of the project. This sample of 35 students was used to compare cJaanges in intelligence test scores, a A comparison group of eight boys and six gifts was obtained from 3One boy was killed in an automobile accident prior to the decisions on reentry or retention, accounting for the discrepancy in the two male samples.
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among the special education (EMR) enrollees who were in the program during the period in which Project Reentry was conducted and for whom intelligence test scores were available which had been obtained at the same preprogram and postprogram time periods as those of the Reentry students. This comparison sample of 14 children was similar to the Reentry students in age, socioeconomic background, or ethnic group membership. Since the students enrolled in Project Reentry were specially selected, however, differences between them and the comparison group reflect these selection factors as well as effects of the project. Thus, generalizations about the effects of the project itself must be qualified accordingly. Nevertheless, the fact that the Reentry students in all probability would have remained in special education but for the project, data indicating gains for Project students compared to control students cannot be attributed merely to random errors in test scores or to time alone. RESULTS Of the 45 children enrolled in Project Reentry, 24 were returned to regular classes at the end of the project. There was a significant sex difference in the proportion of boys and girls returned to regular classes, with 13 of 18 boys and 11 of 27 girls returned (X2 = 4.85; df= 1 ;p < .05). For the total sample, there was no significant effect for length of time in the project on the proportion of students returning to regular classes. When the sexes were treated separately, there was a significant effect of time in the project for boys (Xz = 7.98; df = 2;p < .02), but not for Nrls. These data are presented in Table 1.
TABLE 1 SEX, DISPOSITION,AND TIME IN REENTRY Sex
Males
Total Females
Total
Years in reentry
Disposition Return 6 7 0 13 4 5 2 11
Remain 0 4 1
Total 6 11 1
18
16
12 10 5 27
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The WISC scores were treated by analysis of variance using Reentry versus Special Education, Time, and Sex as independent variables. The effect of primary interest in evaluating the project is the interaction between groups and time, while the interactions involving sex differences are of interest because of the effect of sex on the proportion of returnees. The Group x Time interaction effect was highly significant for the WISC Verbal IQ, indicating a greater gain for the Reentry students compared with the special education students (F = 28.98; df = 1/45; p < .00001). For the Reentry students, the mean "before" Verbal IQ was 62.47, and mean "after" Verbal IQ was 74.39. The mean "before" and "after" Verbal IQs for the comparison group of special education students were 62.13 and 60.57, respectively. No significant sex effects or significant interactions between sex and other variables were found. For the WISC Performance IQs, the interaction between groups and time did not reach statistical significance (F = 2.61; df = 1/45; p = .11); and while there was a significant overall effect for sex (F = 9.66; dr= 1/45;p < .004), there were no significant interactions between sex and other variables. Although the results fail to show significant gains for the Reentry students relative to the special education students on Performance IQ, two observations can be made from this data. First, the Reentry students had a significant advantage over the special education students in Performance IQ at the beginning of the project. Second, examination of the various Performance IQ means suggests that the overall sex difference is due primarily to initial sex differences in Performance IQ for both groups in favor of the boys, and a lack of change over time in Performance IQ for the special education girls. The mean Performance IQ scores are presented in Table 2.
TABLE 2 MEAN WECHSLER INTELLIGENCE SCALE FOR CHILDREN PERFORMANCE IQ SCORES BY SEX, GROUP, AND TIME Group and sex Reentry students: Male Female Both Special education (EMR) students: Male Female Both
Preprogram
I
Postprogram
80.32 74.00 77.16
90.32 82.06 86.19
73.88 66.17 70.02
80.63 66.83 73.73
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TABLE 3 INITIAL PERFORMANCE IQ AND GAINS IN VERBAL IQ
Preprogram performance IQ !
Number and verbal IQ
Above median Males
Number
9
Females I 8
Verbal IQ: Preprogram Postprogram
62.67 77.89
60.50 71.63
Gain
15.22 a
11.13 b
at = 6.76; df = bt = 3.89;df= ct = 3.44; df= dt= 3.82;df=
8; p 7;p 9;p 7;p
/
f
Below median Males
Females
10
8
62.70 75.80 13.10 c
64.00 73.75 9.75 d
~ .001, two-tailed. < .01, two-tailed. <~ .01, two-tailed. < .01, two-tailed.
The results for the Full Scale IQs reflect roughly a combination of the Verbal and Performance IQ data by definition. Here the interaction between groups and time was significant (F = 23.14; dr= 1/45;p < .0001); the overall effect for sex was obtained again, and there were no other significant interaction effects. The mean before and after Full Scale IQ scores for the Reentry students were 66.09 and 78.17 respectively, and comparable scores for the special education students were 62.92 and 63.83. These results indicate that a majority of the Reentry students were returned to regular classes at the end of the project, and that they improved in measured verbal intelligence. The sex difference in return rates and the fact that the boys had higher performance IQs on the average than did the girls, however, raises the question of how these two factors may be implicated in the results. Therefore, further analyses were performed on the data in an effort to illuminate the findings further. The Reentry students, treating boys and girls separately, were divided at the median on their preprogram Performance IQs, and the gains in Verbal IQ were then computed for each group. Although gains were statistically significant for all groups thus formed, the amount of gain and the level of significance of the gain varied for the groups (Table 3). Boys who were above the median on Performance IQ initially made the greatest gains in Verbal IQ during the Project, with boys below the median, gifts above the median, the girls below the median following in that order, in the size of the gains made.
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PHILIP A. MANN TABLE 4 INITIAL PERFORMANCE [Q AND RETURN TO REGULAR CLASS
Sex
Disposition
Preprogram performance IQ Above median
Males
Total
Return Remain 18
Total Females
Below median
Return Remain Total
11
16
To determine how the preprogram Performance IQs might have influenced return to regular classrooms, the frequency of those above and below the Performance IQ median for each sex at the beginning of the Project who returned to regular classes or remained in special education was tabulated (Table 4). The results indicate that boys with higher preprogram Performance IQs were more likely to return to regular classes than were boys with lower Performance IQs prior to the Project (X2 = 5.14; df = 1; p < .05, corrected for continuity). For girls, their standing on Performance IQ before the project did not significantly affect whether they returned or remained (Xz < 1; NS). It should be noted again that these are only the children for whom both before and after WISC IQs were available and this latter comparison does not include all children in the project. Thus, while all groups made significant gains during the Project in Verbal IQs regardless of their standing on initial Performance IQs, higher preprogram Performance IQs were related to return to regular classes for boys, although not for girls. This relationship, together with the fact that the boys as a group had a higher average Performance IQ initially, may account for the finding that proportionately more boys than girls were returned to regular classes. A follow-up inquiry 1 year after the end of the project indicated that all but two of the children returned to regular classes from Project Reentry were still enrolled and performing satisfactorily. Of the two students who were not still enrolled, one student moved to another community, and one student had left school to enter a vocational training program. No intelligence or achievement data were collected on follow-up, which would have been desirable from a psychological and educational standpoint; but the retention of these students in regular classrooms continues to indicate improvement from a social perspective.
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DISCUSSION The results of Project Reentry demonstrate that it was at least a short range success in its expressed goal of returning children to regular classes, and the improvements in measured intelligence of the project students suggest that there is potential for longer range educational gain on their part. It is impossible to answer many questions that might be raised by this project because the available data and the manner in which it was collected do not permit the appropriate analyses. The results are provocative, however, in their implications for further research, intervention programs, and educational practices. The data tend to support the idea that many of these children were misclassified, and that they could be helped to make gains which would justify their return to regular classes. However, a potential barrier to return could exist if the receiving teachers did not change their expectations for the children. An effort to counteract this effect was made by involving the teachers of regular classes who would be the receiving teachers in the reviews and evaluations of progress, so they would be aware of the gains the children made. Still more lasting effects might be achieved by providing consultative help and follow-up reviews for the receiving teachers. It is possible that these results could be considered analogous to those achieved in teacher-expectancy effect studies (Meichenbaum, Bowers, & Ross, 1969). While more systematic control of this variable would have to be employed in future studies before its precise role is understood, one hypothesis to be suggested is that teacher expectancy and curriculum may both be critical to achieving results such as these. Clearly, more accurate instruments for diagnosis of intellectual functioning and more care in their interpretation are needed. Until, and perhaps even when, such procedures are developed and implemented, the case for regarding such diagnoses as tentative receives some strength from this study. Perhaps a more enlightened practice would involve the use of a transitional placement where the possibilities that a child might be misdiagnosed could be tested behaviorally under conditions of closer and more deliberately stimulating teacher-pupil interaction, and where children who are discovered to have been misclassified could be prepared for reentry into regular classes. The sex difference in return rates would appear, on the bulk of the evidence, to be a difference in the initial Performance lQs that happened to favor the boys, rather than a sex difference as such. There are a number of possible explanations for this result, but they can only be suggested as hypotheses for further research in the absence of more definitive data. The boys above the median on preprogram Performance IQs had scores of 82 or above. Scores at this level would not ordinarily justify special class placement, and it is clear that for these boys their markedly lower Verbal IQs led to their initial classification
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as retarded. On the basis of this data, placement in special classes for children with Performance IQs this high or higher would seem to be a mistake. Even though the Verbal IQs were quite low, these students seemed to respond best to the intensive Reentry curriculum, a fact that seems to justify the use of the Verbal-Performance IQ discrepancy as a selection factor for the Project. In interpreting the results, joint consideration must be given to the initial IQ levels, the amount of gain, and the meaning given to the level of IQ at the end of the Project in a classification framework. As the boys, who started at a higher level of Performance IQs than the girls, made significant gains in Verbal IQ, they also moved into a different IQ range, which made it more difficult to classify them as mentally retarded. Not as many of the girls, starting at a lower level of Performance IQ on the average, attained such a final level, even though they made significant gains. Thus, decisions for the girls' placement may have been weighted more heavily by factors other than intelligence, so that their initial Performance IQ would not have been a factor in placement decisions for them. Despite the arguments raging currently about compensatory education, these children showed definite benefits from such a program. If the experience of other compensatory programs is any guide for these older children, it is likely that they will need further teaching tailored to their particular abilities. Of important social significance, however, is the fact that they should not have to be classified as mentally retarded to receive the kind of teaching they require. As they move into regular classes, they join a much larger group of lower than average intelligence children who require the best efforts of regular classroom teachers to meet their educational needs. While this is a significant challenge to education, it is clearly not socially appropriate to attempt to meet it by misplacing some of the children in classes for the mentally retarded. REFERENCES
Gray, S. W., & Klaus, R. A. The early training project: A seventh-year report. Child Development, 1970, 41,909-924. Hodgson, G. Do schools make a difference? Atlantic Monthly, 1973, 231(3), 35-46. Hunt, J. McV. Intelligence and experience. New York: Ronald Press, 1961. Hunt, J. McV. Toward the prevention of incoroetence. In J. W. Carter, Jr. (Ed.), Research contributions from psychology to community mental health. New York: Behavioral Publications, 1968. Jencks, C. Intelligence and race. The New Republie, Sept. 13, 1969. Jensen, A. R. How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement? Harvard Educational Review, 1969, 39(1). Klaus, R. A., & Gray, S. W. The early training project for disadvantaged children: A report after five years. Monographs o f the Society for Research in Child Development, 1968, 33(4, Serial No. 120).
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Meichenbaum, D. H., Bowers, K. S., & Ross, R. R. A behavioral analysis of teacher expectancy effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1969, 13, 306-316. Wechsler, D., Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Manual. New York: Psychological Corporation, 1949. Westinghouse Learning Corporation, The impact of Head Start: An evaluation of the Head Start experience on children's cognitive and affective development.
Westinghouse Learning Corporation, Ohio University, 1969.
