The Truth About Special Ed: Part I
Special Education in context
Special education is intended to make education as accessible to students with special needs as their general educated peers. In short, to afford any student the opportunity to perform at their potential. Before you can truly understand the legitimacy of special education as well as its issues, you much first understand the context in which it is presented. Like any other public service institution, school systems reflect societal ideals. Unfortunately, a tenant of our society is individual success and our educational system has adopted a similar focus. This is also a society that has been guilty of clumping homogeneous groups together. Staying true to form, schools have also developed class systems, encourage segregation and thrive on competition. Special education has become a thorn in the side of the educational system. Special education represents a minority group that this institution must recognize, but only to the extent to which they are held accountable. It represents a minority group that does not fit any of society's molds and for a long time had been neglected. Education reform requires society to demonstrate "fair and appropriate" provision of public services as described in our governing documents. Society at large is slow to create level playing fields and the educational system has inherited the same selfishness. This context is important to what makes special education "special" instead of just education.
Competing perspectives
"Whose job is it"? "Who is responsible for providing accommodations or modifications"? "I am not a special education teacher". These are the very things discussed in teachers lounges across the country. There are competing perspectives about who actually is responsible for providing an educational program for students with special needs. It is the author's belief that many educators unknowingly choose a side, but make their stance known in their practice and preference in the classroom. It's the classic debate of the special educator vs. the general educator and who is supposed to do what. This is not a conspiracy theory attacking the general education teacher or vice versa, but instead another indicator of misinformation and inadequate training. Remember that a teacher's effectiveness is measured in test scores (so says regulation) and students with special needs are tested at their age-appropriate grade level. Furthermore, a close relative of the "responsibility" debate is the inclusion debate. Inclusion, as its name suggest, involves the provision of special education services within the general education classroom. This issue has much more history than the former as it actually stems from regulations created to provide equal opportunity for individuals with special needs. Special education had become the scapegoat for removing difficult to teach students (whether academic or emotional). Differentiated instruction has always been difficult and requires lots of training for teachers to do effectively; it has been much more convenient and inexpensive to remove the minority and create a different classroom. The best interest of the other students actually has served as adequate rationale in many cases, stating their progress to be inhibited by students with learning differences. Conversely, advocates of inclusion would champion that very diversity to be in the best interest of classroom. The most interesting aspect of all the debates was that there has been no real solution, merely ongoing discussion and disservice to students with no real policy to stand behind. Special education as a right of the disabled has been defined, but its best method of provision has not. Educators struggle with integrating individualized education plans (IEP) into classroom curriculums and tying them to grade level standards. General educators juggle differentiating instruction to meet diverse learning modalities/levels and meeting grade levels standards and standardized test scores. You won't find many districts that have solved this riddle and perform both well. What you will find are misdiagnosed children (more on this later), inconsistent practices and burnt out educators.
Special Education today
What does special education look like as a system? The guidelines for each area of exceptionality have always been under scrutiny. Some laws state eleven categories while other regulations state thirteen. Additionally, exceptionality areas are often "fine tuned" by individual districts and what may qualify as a student having mental retardation in one district may be diagnosed as a learning disability in another. The discussion of how labels can effect more than the labeled is also very intriguing. While labeling a child disabled could be a ticket to more a more appropriate education it also shapes people's expectations and justifies prejudice for many people. The very label used to provide for a more appropriate education can often times carry a stigma that places a child on a track of mediocre services. The type of tracking that used to channel students away from college is still alive and well. We still track students; only now tracking is not as overt. Special education labeling in our current system could be viewed as tracking when poorly done and in the best interest of anyone other than the student.
Our trend today is more toward, inclusion where all students are kept together and provided for within the same classroom environment. However, many classrooms still employ a pullout system (resource) where the exceptional student is pulled out to receive his or her services. In order for an inclusive classroom to work, communication and planning for students must be clear and expectation must be understood. Additionally, more than just special needs students should be served; otherwise the same issues will arise as with a pullout classroom. Other placements such as self contained classrooms and full-time residential placements also come under scrutiny when it comes to effectiveness versus senseless tracking. Mainstreaming provides an opportunity for a self-contained classroom student to earn passage into the classroom, but this too must come with lots of teacher communication and planning in order to be effective. All of the above have very fuzzy lines and that kind of discretion is dangerous in the presence of political agendas.
Related Tags: learning disability, school, teaching, public, special education, exceptionality
Jon M. Bennett is a special education teacher and administrator of http://www.exceptionality.net, a network of special educators, families and support systems of children with special needs.
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