The School System’s Need for Special Education
There is often a terrible stigma associated with special education- few people WANT their child in special education! The reality is that special education exists because there are so many different abilities of children of the same age. The American school system is set up so that all children of a certain age are placed together in the same classroom and are often expected to learn the same things at the same time at the same rate. It is the assembly model/ agricultural model of education- in nine months time, a certain amount of information is provided to students, they are to learn it and at the end of the year, they take a break to help their families harvest the crops, and then progress to the next station, um, classroom, and new information is provided for the next nine months. Public education was established in this country during the Industrial Revolution when we were learning to make cars more efficiently and many students were still working on farms. That history is long past, but its cultural implications are deep in the very fabric of our schools. Education is still often perceived as a process similar to making cars and traditional school systems follow this historical pattern.
Unfortunately, children are not cars. No two children are alike- my own daughter walked at 10 months, her brother at 14 months. My son can ride a scooter really well; my daughter rides a two-wheeler bike. My daughter is tall and slim; my son is small and slim- you can see the pattern! There are individual differences among children in all respects- whether you are discussing physical, learning, emotional, or social characteristics. Recognizing individual differences at a personal level is one thing- from an institutional perspective another. Since schools were established in a manner to mass-produce students, individual differences are harder to manage. If a student is learning far ahead or far below his or her age peers, the typical classroom was not often prepared to handle those differences. A Brief History For many years, children who exhibited significant differences in learning or behavior were simply ignored, told to go home or placed in institutions. Rodín, one of the world’s greatest sculptors, was told by a teacher that he should learn a trade since he was “too stupid to learn anything”. Thomas Edison also was asked to leave school because he burned down a barn. Countless other children were placed in institutions and left, ignored by anyone other than determined families. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States. He also had a sister with significant mental retardation. In one of his great pieces of legislation, JFK created the Office of Handicapped Children as well as began the process for the Special Olympics. It was the first time the federal government had taken a step towards including children with disabilities in public education. During the 1960’s, when civil rights became an priority of national significance, children whose learning needs were not being met in public schools also became a national issue. In 1973, the first legislation was passed providing people with disabilities access to public services and in 1975, Public Law 94-142 was passed creating the system of special education in the public schools. Since, then Congress has re-authorized this system of special education many times, making some significant tweaks to it along the way. In 1990, the law was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, commonly known as IDEA and its most recent reauthorization is known as IDEA 2004. IDEA established categories of disabilities to be served, mandated that all students be served, and provided about 7% of money that schools needed to set up their special education programs. Not only were the needs of students who were struggling in school being recognized, but also the needs of students who were surpassing their peers. In 1988, although not part of the Public Law, Congress authorized the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Student Education Act, which, although it did not mandate that states serve gifted students, some monies were provided for the education of gifted and talented children. “Some” by way, means “almost nothing”. The most recent 2007 authorization of federal monies provided $11 million dollars for gifted and talented funding, which is 2 cents out of every 100 dollars the federal government spends on education in general and certainly less than the 33 million dollars the government spent on a “bridge to nowhere” to be built in Alaska connecting two islands together that have no roads. I hope that you hear the bitterness in my tone about funding issues. Requiring schools to provide services and then only providing 7% of the funds leaves school systems struggling. Providing a third of what is spent on a single bridge for students who are the source of our next generation’s greatness is a poor sense of priorities. However, with the federal laws, schools are required to pay attention to students who have historically been ignored or told that that they were uneducable. Foundational Concepts of Special Education There are several types of guarantees defined under IDEA. These guarantees are extended to ALL students with disabilities, but not to students who are gifted. The states individually decide how gifted students are to be served. IDEA is federal law and state law has to follow these broad guidelines. The first of these is the concept of “Zero Reject” that states that ALL students, no matter how severe their disability, WILL be served by public schools. That doesn’t always mean typical classrooms; it can include children in hospitals and children whose needs require another placement. The second foundational approach includes the concept of a Free and Appropriate Public Education, commonly known as FAPE. “Free” means that education is not restricted to those families who can pay for it, but that all students, regardless of income level, can have access to services that are deemed necessary for a child to develop. The third concept is that of nondiscriminatory testing and assessment. In earlier days, students from other countries were often assessed using tests in English. Not surprising then, that they did poorly on these tests. In the early 1900s, a good number of students identified as having mental retardation were from other countries, including a number of Greek children! The federal law now states that testing to determine eligibility for special education services has to be done in the child’s strongest language. This can provide a challenge for my local school district who has recently received an influx of students from Somalia- but no one in the district speaks Somali! However, it is required that either a translator be found or that the testing uses measures that do not use language. A fourth concept is that of an “Individualized Education Program” or an IEP. This reflects the understanding that no two children with disabilities are alike, the intensity of the disability can vary, and the things that a child needs in order to grow can be different. Thus, each child’s educational plan has to be constructed according to that child’s individual needs. In determining these needs, the fifth principle states the importance of including parents. Too often in the past, education professionals “ran the show” and made educational decisions. The law recognizes that parents are the true experts on their children and that their voice is significant when making decisions about a child that has to continue on every year. Thus, parents have to be provided permission to start the process, notice about meetings, invited to attend, involved during the process, and provided copies of all special education documents. A sixth foundational aspect is the concept of Equal Protection and Due Process. While primarily legal considerations, school systems have to establish policies and procedures that are fair to all students and applied evenly to all students. Just because a student has a disability does not mean that they can be excluded from things provided to all students, such as the right to try out for teams or field trips. The right to be included is one that is addressed in the concept of Least Restrictive Environment, known as LRE. This principle states that the general education classroom is the one in which planning for educational programming starts. If a student is to be removed from the general education classroom, there must be clear justification and cause to do so. It is not expected that all students with disabilities be served in special education classrooms, but that some level of services and supports be provided within the general education classrooms Inclusion Efforts In the last 15 years or so, there has been a tremendous emphasis on serving students with special needs in the general education classroom. Although schools were set up in an industrial model where students moved down the conveyer belt of classrooms, there is a recognition that the typical age/grade placement leaves a number of students out. Every time a student has to leave the classroom for special or additional services to allow them to learn more at the level of their age peers, the greater the degree of “difference” was felt. Often, children were stigmatized and teased when they left in the middle of one subject, only to reappear in the middle of another subject. They would go to a “special room”, or in some cases, stay in the “special” room all day long. This was the case for many students, regardless of their level of disability. Often, too, general education teachers didn’t know how to teach a child who came into their classroom for an hour a day or ignored the child during the subject of challenge. Inclusion is the concept that rather than moving the child to a place where a specialist is, bring the specialist to the child in the classroom. In a “full inclusion” school, ALL children with disabilities are served within the general education classroom, and specialists come to all of them. In a “continuum of services” school, some children are served in special classrooms designed for to provide the intensive one-on-one services that they need. Perhaps the underlying belief of inclusion is that children learn from children- in both directions. Children who are more typical will learn about the humor and strengths of children with disabilities while children with disabilities can learn concepts and social behaviors from their typical peers. And evidence is showing that such exposure is beneficial on both sides. There are significantly more adults with mental retardation who are working and living independently than ever before. There is a greater acceptance of disabilities in public areas. However, we have a long way to go… To be continued in the Fall Issue...
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