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The problem is, what happens to society if you cater to those who cannot contribute to society at the expense of those who can. Telling the kids who can accomplish something that they are on their own because they're not special ed not only harms that child, it harms society in the long run.
Yes, we're talking about people but you still have to look at return on investment. If the effort to help one child who will never get into college would help three get into college, where should I expend my effort? The answer, in our society, is found in the question "Which child is yours?".
My youngest daughter is gifted. As our system is set up, she's ignored. She already passes the tests so there's nothing in it for the school to put any effort into her. All I can do is nag an try to make the system work for her. I'm not a fan of just pushing kids forward but that's all they're offering her now. She can move up a grade for math and science this year but take the regular classes for her other subjects. No one will consider tailoring education to her.
In my dream system, there'd be a para in every classroom. The para would deal with the special ed kids and their accomodations, while I teach and I could further enhance education for the higher kids while the other kids were working on assignments.
All four of my children are gifted, the youngest profoundly so. She is also disabled. I'm still trying to figure out, since so many here believe that ESE kids are the "bottom 10%", which half of her trumps which. (The answer of course is "neither", because we homeschool.)
That's the problem with school systems (and the people who work in them) who see only numbers and labels and not the humans attached to them. As they say in the disability community, "if you've seen one autistic kid....you've seen one autistic kid."
I was just talking about the most severe cases, where there would be no long term benefit or use of education for the child. Therapy would be better for them then trying to get them to learn something as simple as 1 plus 1 for 13 years.
There is other learning, though, academic and otherwise, that will help those kids achieve the most independence possible for them whatever their degree of disability...which should be the ultimate goal.
I was just talking about the most severe cases, where there would be no long term benefit or use of education for the child. Therapy would be better for them then trying to get them to learn something as simple as 1 plus 1 for 13 years.
I hate to see disabled kids given up on, though. I know too many who were grossly underestimated because they were nonvebal when tested. Therapy doesn't have to be at the expense of education, or vice versa.
Two examples-- the first is a child I know through advocacy circles who made a sixty point IQ gain when she had ear surgery and could suddenly hear well enough to make huge gains in verbal skills (and who is now, three years later, in the second grade's gifted program).
The second is a boy whose mother was told he'd never progress past a three month cognitive level-- and who now is in second grade and signs. He'll probably never be gainfully employed, and possibly won't live to adulthood because of his particular disability-- but better communication skills have improved his (and his family's) quality of life immeasurably. (Of course, enough people talked freely in front of him when he was thought to be profoundly impaired that he could probably start his own blackmail business.)
Now if you want to argue that speech, OT and PT should be health care issues rather than educational issues-- or better yet, what should be the scope of education's responsibility altogether (OT? DARE? sex ed? dispensing condoms in the school clinic?)-- that might be an interesting debate. Of course, that's going to pull in a tangent on universal and/or single payer health care, so look out for another thousand-post thread.
All four of my children are gifted, the youngest profoundly so. She is also disabled. I'm still trying to figure out, since so many here believe that ESE kids are the "bottom 10%", which half of her trumps which. (The answer of course is "neither", because we homeschool.)
That's the problem with school systems (and the people who work in them) who see only numbers and labels and not the humans attached to them. As they say in the disability community, "if you've seen one autistic kid....you've seen one autistic kid."
It's not an issue of not seeing humans. It's an issue of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. Right now we have the needs of the few outweighing the needs of the many. It's backwards. You put your money where it can have the most impact. That is where it will help the most children not the least.
I'm not talking about giving up on special ed kids. Just recognizing that we can't meet their needs at the expense of regular ed kids.
No, the problem is that we aren't focusing enough on effective instruction for all children. I'm a big fan of inclusion and mainstreaming-- I believe all children benefit from it, not just the ones with IEPs. But I think there has always been issues with education in our country in the way we do education-- curriculum tends to be geared toward the majority students, etc. I don't like tracking either-- I think it is a bad idea that reproduces many cultural issues without effectively instructing students the best way.
I think that teachers need more resources and need to teach a high level, complex, interdisciplinary curriculum for all students in a heterogeneous setting. I think this is quite possible through multiple differentiation and dual differentiation for students who are twice exceptional and so forth (in my opinion, that is the class of students most underserved, those who are both gifted and special needs).
I think this isn't done now because of a variety of things-- people are used to the way things are done, there isn't enough resources or the money isn't always allocated the best way and so forth. It takes strong distric level leadership and the right attitudes from admins to do things a certain way. Why don't we have more team teaching and differentiation? Why don't we automatically expect more from students and then give them the tools to do more? Its freaking hard, for one thing. But I think it can be done.
The advantages of a setting like ours as I've observed them are too numerous to list...the main disadvantages are the lack of access to neurotypical peers (learning social skills is crucial to our kids' independence, and it's hard to learn social skills when you're in a setting where your peers have the same struggles you have). We combat this to a degree by incorporating interactions within the greater community, various outings, life skills related activites, mostly, but most of our day is spent at school without a lot of access to typical peers. So very little modeling can go on. The other disadvantage is also an advantage...ultimately, we want our kids to be able to be as independent as they possibly can.
I think that social emotional learning is one of the areas of the curriculum most unimplemented. In order to make adequate yearly progress, everyone looks at test scores in reading and math and one little thing they can measure. Why don't we demand things like learning about social skills and measuring how well kids know their own culture and community? We teach geography and capitals without ever stopping to see if kids know what is going on in their own back yards.
Personally, I think we need to focus more on people skills than test scores-- what makes the bigger difference when looking for a job, or friends?
I'm with you. Because the kids who don't need crutches will be the leaders, I think we have to serve them first. Not that we don't address the needs of special ed kids but we can't let it be at the expense of the kids for whom education will make a difference. My school's budget is, disproportionately, in favor of special ed. and I don't see that changing. Every time there is an increase (which we haven't had in years) special ed gets a bigger increase but when there are cuts, they come out of regular ed. or teacher benefits.
People need to wake up and realize what all these acoomodations are costing. If you want them, great. Just pay for them. Don't rob the general ed budget to put them in place.
How do you know the kids who don't need crutches won't be the leaders? I know plenty of people who have been in need of special education services at one point or another who are full fledged or emerging leaders-- some of whom are still utilizing such services!
Think of every child like a phoenix-- always rising up from the ashes and ready to be born again. Who might that child become? Maybe you can think of a few cases that seem hopeless, but I am certain there are far more cases where no one can imagine the lives these students will touch or what they will go on to do.
My perspective is somewhat different. My son got labeled special ed although totally inappropriate, was forever stuck in special this and special that, they weren't going to give up and label him "normal" ever again, he brought in too much money from state and federal funds. Finally I gave up and took him out to homeschool. We jumped two grades in less than a year. When I started working with him he could barely write his name, now he's at 7th grade level and cruising right along.
For those children who truly need special ed, seems its an uphill battle to get the services they need. But my son just got labeled, and the labels stuck. I agree we focus too much on special ed, because its a money maker.
I think that social emotional learning is one of the areas of the curriculum most unimplemented.
Agreed. Our school devotes balanced time to social skills as to academics and life skills, depending on individual student need. Program goals to be implemented include very specific curriculum relating to this, right alongside academic goals. When you're dealing with severe autism, as we predominantly are, the skills needed for appropriate interaction with others are generally very much lacking, and typically have to be taught, or they'll be a significant barrier to essentially all other learning.
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