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There are also highly successful programs for students with disabilities that are not inclusionary. I am all for inclusion when it is for student benefit and provides student benefit. I am very much opposed to it when it is designed or implemented to make adults feel good.
Absolutely. That's why these things have to be determined on an individual basis. The students I work with are currently in highly restrictive, one-to-one environments due to behavioral and disability-related specifics, and the intent of the program is to constantly be working to help prepare them to return to the least restrictive situation that will benefit them. Some will and do go back to self-contained, some will enter inclusion programs, some will likely always remain in a one-to-one setting. It depends entirely on what's most beneficial and safe for the student, and these things aren't uniform. The non-inclusionary setting that I'm part of is definitely highly successful, but it does do a LOT of programming that allows community access and access to neurotypical peer modeling (though IMO, could use a lot more, but logistics are a challenge), which is pretty crucial. With the particular disabilities I target, being kept away from nondisabled peers makes it very difficult for my students who are working on developing skills with socially appropriate interpersonal interaction. Isolation prevents their development in this way, with only teachers to model. For some kids, it's just the way it has to be due to safety factors, but for those where that's not a concern, they need all the peer interaction and behavioral modeling opportunities they can get to continue to develop and grow. Severely disabled kids are learning more in school than academic content...they're also learning how to get along with peers, how to get along in the world, various other life skills (just like their nondisabled peers are). It's hard to learn these things if you're kept isolated from your peers when it's not particularly necessary for reasons of safety. And it's downright criminal when the isolation is for reasons of convenience or the comfort of others.
Last edited by TabulaRasa; 02-14-2010 at 09:53 AM..
I agree with most of what you say except this--this should be done anyway and should have been done all along--after all, I'm old enough to remember what life was like before sped and those poor kids had to try to catch up the best that they could. My best friend in HS had a friend with moderate retardation, and she graduated at 21 but she had cried and cried so many nights over her school assignments. Now they have new teaching techniques that work with many students which could possibly keep more kids out of sped.
They're removing quite a few of the kids from the program in St. Louis "because those kids are doing well enough they don't need services any more." The real reason I think is because federal funds are drying up.
The federal funds for these programs dried up a LONG time ago. I am not saying that special ed kids shouldn't get help, they should, it just shouldn't be at the expense of the rest of the school, nor should they be exempt from budget cuts like the rest of the school. There are also services, like physical therapy, occupational therapy, etc. that should not fall under the school budget. If these are medically necessary treatments they should be treated as such and parents health insurance or the county money families get should pay for these things, not tax dollars meant for schools, period.
Our youngest is a straight A student who has some fine motor control issues. He could not get ANY help through the school because his grades were too high. Now, if he failed a class he would get all the help in the world. Why does this make any sense? We were told we would have to pay for it out of our own pocket to get him help . Why aren't the special ed kids told that?
golfgal, I have helped fight & won getting 504 Plans with accommodations for several of my students with fine motor issues, something you might want to investigate.
Before I begin this thread, please don't label me a bigot or a hatemonger. I'm not. I'm simply asking reasonable questions that I have gathered over a long period of time- questions that are legitimate and ones that need to be answered regarding the state of special education today.
The major push in K-12 education today is inclusion, which means including special education students in regular classes. To do this, millions of dollars are being spent to educate regular ed teachers on how to incorporate these students.
Meanwhile, many workshops, seminars, and conferences about for teachers attempting to become more proficient in special education. Conversely, there are an extremely limited number of workshops/conferences for meeting the needs of gifted students.
What gives? It's highly plausible to say that the gifted students will be entrepreneurs, college-bound, and innovative makers of new technology that will drive our economy, not the other way around. Is too much focus being given to the lower-end group?
The "lower end group"? really? they're lower end? what does that mean?
Absolutely. That's why these things have to be determined on an individual basis. The students I work with are currently in highly restrictive, one-to-one environments due to behavioral and disability-related specifics, and the intent of the program is to constantly be working to help prepare them to return to the least restrictive situation that will benefit them. Some will and do go back to self-contained, some will enter inclusion programs, some will likely always remain in a one-to-one setting. It depends entirely on what's most beneficial and safe for the student, and these things aren't uniform. The non-inclusionary setting that I'm part of is definitely highly successful, but it does do a LOT of programming that allows community access and access to neurotypical peer modeling (though IMO, could use a lot more, but logistics are a challenge), which is pretty crucial. With the particular disabilities I target, being kept away from nondisabled peers makes it very difficult for my students who are working on developing skills with socially appropriate interpersonal interaction. Isolation prevents their development in this way, with only teachers to model. For some kids, it's just the way it has to be due to safety factors, but for those where that's not a concern, they need all the peer interaction and behavioral modeling opportunities they can get to continue to develop and grow. Severely disabled kids are learning more in school than academic content...they're also learning how to get along with peers, how to get along in the world, various other life skills (just like their nondisabled peers are). It's hard to learn these things if you're kept isolated from your peers when it's not particularly necessary for reasons of safety. And it's downright criminal when the isolation is for reasons of convenience or the comfort of others.
excellent post, Tabula Rasa. After having worked with a pull-out model and now an inclusionary model, I see that inclusion is so appropriate in most cases.
golfgal, I have helped fight & won getting 504 Plans with accommodations for several of my students with fine motor issues, something you might want to investigate.
Tied pretty much everything--they just couldn't get past the straight A's and 99% on his standardized tests. One teacher tried to mark him down for "sloppy" handwriting. I showed her all the letters and rejections for help and she took that off his report card. We got a note home when he was in middle school to the same effect and again, brought the letters, etc. and said if this was effecting his grades he should have PT/OT in school to help-got no where there but the teacher didn't mark him down for being "sloppy" any more. He is now in high school and so far we haven't had to bring out the letters.
The federal funds for these programs dried up a LONG time ago. I am not saying that special ed kids shouldn't get help, they should, it just shouldn't be at the expense of the rest of the school, nor should they be exempt from budget cuts like the rest of the school. There are also services, like physical therapy, occupational therapy, etc. that should not fall under the school budget. If these are medically necessary treatments they should be treated as such and parents health insurance or the county money families get should pay for these things, not tax dollars meant for schools, period.
Exactly. Private insurance used to pay for these things, but IMHO, once HMO beancounters and profiteers came into play, those costs simply shifted to taxpayers (but gee, we saved you ever-so-much on your policy premium - no, really we did). That's simple smoke and mirrors. You're going to pay either way.
Of course that was back when many parents still had health insurance. Neither here nor there, I suppose, but it does illustrate how we really need to pay attention to cost shifting when it comes to school budgets.
I feel bad for the lower-average children who skate the thin line of being considered learning-disabled. These kids are not quite "disabled" enough to get any assistance, yet continue to do miserably in schools that have raised the bar too high for them, but they could be successful at a lower level. I suspect that they are the future drop-outs.
As far as inclusion vs. exclusion, I think that is entirely dependent on the child in question. If, for example, the child is known to have sudden and disruptive outbursts (as was the case in one of my kid's classes) then it without question, interrupts the rest of the students. In the case of younger children, it can be disturbing to see another child hauled out of a classroom for behavioral issues that they have no understanding of. That lack of understanding in and of itself can cause the student to lose track of where they are in terms of the subject at hand. I've seen time spent explaining and/or discussing why the student was removed, and that's nothing but pure core instructional time taken away from the rest of the children IMO.
Likewise, if the student is capable of behaving appropriately, then he or she can be an asset to the class. I have this experience with one child in my daughter's class now. She is profoundly MR, and she is pretty much nonverbal. During core classtime, she is taken next door to do what she is able to do in the resource room. When the class is doing things such as sharing book reports, or other things that she can sit quietly through and enjoy, she is brought back into the classroom. While I do agree that it is a good experience for the children in general, I'm always still amazed that many don't realize that in years past, these children would be attending centers that catered exclusively to their needs, and that for the most part, private insurance/families paid for them.
Are we really surprised that special ed costs are soaring and numbers are increasing when these centers are closed, and the children are mainstreamed into public schools?
It would have had he not had reasonable teachers that understood that there wasn't much we could do about it.
From what I understand, if a medical issue such as fine motor does not impact learning and academic achievement then it would not qualify for a 504. Thus it makes sense that it would not fly for your situation.
And of course, the very physical or occupational therapy that your child might have qualified for under a 504 is the very physical or occupational therapy that you do not feel it appropriate for a school district to shoulder!
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. Why aren't the special ed kids told that?
