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Controversial Issues in Special Education Recently we have a lot of children that are considered to be disabled of doing certain tasks that an adequate child is. These children received inadequate treatment and chances to develop for a very long period of time, but the situation has changed since 1970 s. Before that time many schools were depriving certain categories of children with disabilities, for example deaf or blind of getting education at all. Only after Public Law 94 - 142 became effective in 1978 and, in several states, after Federal and State court cases, did education for all policies become a fact. Public Law 94 - 142 required that all students with disabilities receive Free and Public Education (FAPE) and provided a funding mechanism to help defray the costs of special education programs. Public Law 94 - 142 later was amended into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), whose main goal has always been to ensure that children with disabilities are not excluded from school. (Sitko) IDEA defines children with disabilities as having any of the following types of disabilities: autism, deaf, deaf-blindness, hearing impairments (including deafness), mental retardation, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairments, other health impairments, serious emotional disturbance, specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairments (including blindness). (Male) The passage of Public Law 94 - 142 in 1975 provided children with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate public education.
During the early years of its enactment, primary emphasis was placed on the provision of services to students who in the past had been denied access to an education. To insure the provision of adequate services to students with disabilities, the law required providers to develop an individualized educational plan (IEP) based on the students disability, individual level of functioning, and desired education outcomes. Adherence to the law, however, was likely to be monitored by census data, compliance with due process procedures, and clerical record keeping related to various requirements within the law. (Scherer) Recent years, however, have seen an increasing concern regarding the quality of outcomes for those students served under IDEA. These growing concerns, along with provisions contained in the 1997 reauthorization of IDEA, have insured that students with disabilities will not be left out of the national debate regarding accountability for educational outcomes. The 1997 reauthorization responded to concerns regarding the quality of services provided to special education students by including elements that addressed access to the general education curriculum along with accountability and public reporting of outcomes. While keeping in place original requirements that assured handicapped students access to a free appropriate public education, the reauthorization added requirements designed to address the quality of outcomes for these students.
These requirements mandate the inclusion of students with disabilities in general state and district-wide assessments for those students who are not able to participate in the state and district-wide assessments. (Scherer) At the level of individual student learning, increasing numbers of states with accountability systems have established expectations for adequate learning for general education students. For students with disabilities, the students IEP establishes individual learning goals. The question raised by the inclusion of special education students in accountability systems is, How should expectations be set for IEPs? Although there have been some attempts to answer this question, no consensus has emerged.
In several states where students with learning disabilities have been included in the accountability system, the expectations for students with learning disabilities appear to be the same as for students in general education. Although this standard is not likely to apply across all disabilities, it is clear that the ability to specify reasonable expectations for individual student learning is a foundation for implementing a balanced model of accountability. (Lewis) Having a child with a disability means that parents must develop an understanding of how the disability influences development; it also means that parents need to become familiar with their rights under IDEA in order to ensure that their children receive appropriate services. To this end, in 1986 Congress required that awards for Parent Training and Information Centers (PTIs) to support parents be made in every State. Now there are 94 PTIs across the country, plus a Technical Assistance Alliance. In addition, 13 Community Parent Resource Centers work to meet the needs of racially and ethnically diverse communities. (Male) The Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers (the Alliance) is funded by the U. S.
Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, to serve as the coordinating office for the Technical Assistance to Parent Projects beginning. The Alliance is an innovative project which focuses on providing technical assistance for developing and funded Parent Training, Information Projects and Community Parent Resource Centers under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The Alliance project provides technical assistance for establishing, developing, and coordination of parent centers, offers technology resources and information to lead parent centers in the new millennium, and informs parent centers about IDEA and other laws that affect families of children with disabilities. It also works on building leadership among families and advocates to help them secure services and opportunities for children and young adults with disabilities and promotes cultural diversity and cultural competency.
This assistance helps parents to participate more effectively with professionals in meeting the educational needs of children and youth with disabilities. Parent centers affect the daily lives of children and youth with disabilities across the nation. They serve the families of children and youth from birth to age 22 with all disabilities: physical, mental, learning, emotional, and attention deficit disorders. These centers are here to train and inform parents and professionals, help families obtain appropriate education and services for their children with disabilities, and work to improve education results for children, resolve problems between families and school or other agencies, connect children with disabilities to community resources that address their needs. (Finn) Parent centers are funded by the US Department of Education, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Each state has at least one parent center, and states with large populations may have more. There are approximately 100 parent centers in the United States currently.
Parent centers are as individual as the families and communities they serve. Whatever their size or geographic location, commitment is the mark of parent centers. Staff is likely to be parents and siblings of children with disabilities, or have disabilities themselves. (Finn) It is necessary for a child with Down syndrome or any other mental handicap to be able interact with other kids; however, they dont get to do that in academic classes. They spend all of their time trying to understand whats going on in the classrooms, and in reality they never will understand.
What these kids need is to receive this interaction in non-academic, hands on classes. Classes like gym, art, and music classes allow special needs children to have time with other kids, while learning from it. They can learn how to play games with others and work together while understanding whats going on around them. Those classes are perfect places for them to be able to intermix with other students and be a part of their school. That way, no one is suffering from it. With special needs students in their classes, mainstream students and teachers can suffer a great deal.
To have a kid with Autism in a Science class, they need a lot of personal attention. Teachers have to make special assignments, and find new ways to teach them with easier concepts. Of course, the child deserves that and a teacher should be able to do that, but with 29 other students in the class, attention must be divided. While the teacher is helping the one or two students, the others a left without getting the attention that they may need. Now, this may sound selfish, but every student deserves an equal education and some may feel neglected from the lack of attention.
Also, there is a potential for these kids to cause a real disruption in the class. So, not only does the teacher have a class of 28 talkative, rowdy and sometimes obnoxious high school students, they have one or two special needs kids who may not have a social skills or mind capacity to sit through a 55 minute class. In their other classes, where they often get one on one attention they are able to keep focus and the class is geared around their needs. In a regular class, they may be forced to act up to receive that attention, or may just do it because they dont know any better. (Deboskey) Many Autistic children dont have the social skills to know how to act in a normal classroom setting, and the teacher would spend all of their time trying to correct the one child instead of having a smooth running, functioning class. Its hard enough to do that with their other students.
So, everyone in the class begins to suffer, including the special needs child. Ultimately, the Autistic or Downs child is the one to suffer the most in these situations. They are thrown into an unfamiliar setting, with lots of kids and no acknowledgement of what they need to succeed in those classes. They are forced to sit through classes that are extremely fast passed to them, even if the teacher does slow it down for them its not enough. To go from a one on one classroom situation to a larger classroom setting is often too much for them to handle, and they arent learning anything. They cant possibly understand everything thats going on, and therefore arent being placed in a good learning experience.
They need to have their academic learning environment to be a low stressful and personal one. What ends up happening is the teacher gives them enough easier assignments to get them by, and passes them without any real evaluation of what they learned. They need to learn their academic subjects with children like them and teachers who can make sure they are learning and understand whats going on around them. They need to be made to feel comfortable and able to learn; after all, they deserve just as much as anyone else to receive exactly the right type of education they need. (Deboskey) To place a special needs student into mainstream academic classes causes everyone to suffer and the education process to be tainted.
However, because of dwindling funds, school boards are forced to cut costs, and that is one of their ways to cut them. Instead of taking such a huge chunk out of one program, they need to even it out and take a little bit from everyone. Committees need to gather and find ways to cut costs in other places, so that the students education doesnt suffer. Schools spend millions of dollars on new football fields, new computers every two years, and other expensive things that they could live without. But because of the competition to be the best and nicest looking school, students begin to loose the necessities for luxuries.
To decrease quality of education because of money is unfair and un-American. Every child in America deserves the best education they can receive, no matter the cost of the amount of work it takes. That, after all, is what America is all about, opportunity. Bibliography: Alliance for Technology Access. 1994. Computer Resources for People with Disabilities. A Guide to Exploring Todays Assistive Technology.
Alameda, CA: Hunter House. Behrmann, M. 1984. Handbook of Microcomputers in Special Education. College-Hill Press. Deboskey, D. S. 1996.
An educational challenge: meeting the needs of students with brain injury. Houston, TX: HDI Publishers. Finn, D. 1998. An overview of the assistive technology scene in Canada. Technology and Disability, Vol. 9: 81 - 88. Harwell, Joan. 1989.
Complete Learning Disabilities Handbook. West Nyack, New York: The Center for Applied Research in Education. Lewis, R. 1993. Special Education Technology Classroom Applications. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company. Male, M. 1994.
Technology for Inclusion: Meeting the Special Needs of All Students. 2 nd edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Male, M. 1988. Special Magic: Computers, Classroom Strategies and Exceptional Students. Allyn and Bacon Publishers. Neuman, D. 1989.
Computer-Based Education for Learning Disabled Students: Teachers Perceptions and Behaviours. Journal of Special Education Technology, Vol. IX, No. 3: 156 - 166. Okolo, C. , C.
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XII, No. 1: 1 - 28. Ray, J. and K. Warden. 1995. Technology, Computers and the Special Needs Learner. Delmar Publishers.
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Research essay sample on Children With Disabilities Technical Assistance
