If Americans despise one thing it is the establishment of a set of "special" rules for others. In part this is why I have always hated the term "special education". There is nothing "special" about "special education". In fact I would maintain "special education" is merely different and far too often an inferior education. All those who fall under the rubric "special education" are not special at all. So called "special education" students are instead merely different from the norm. They do not learn at the prescribed rate or cannot physically navigate the educational environment. For me, this would have meant I had to use the "special bus"--though no such bus existed when I was a kid. For others, "special education" can mean a host of different things. Hence the federal government has required all public schools to offer "special education" in the form of an IEP, Individual Education Plan. This is far from perfect but a vast improvement over the bad days. Those bad days involved barring children with disabilities from receiving a public education. Yes, as late as the mid 1970s students with disabilities were not legally entitled to a public education. People like me were deemed a fire hazard or our presence alone was too upsetting to other children. Millions of people with a disability were denied an education and shunted off to institutions. In fact I tell people had I been born in 1950 and not 1960 I would have been sent to an institution and would have never received a formal education.
The history of discrimination directed at people with a disability is virtually unknown outside of the disability community. It is simply not part of secondary education and is rarely taught at the university level. The resulting ignorance on the part of the general public has consequences for so called "special education" students today. Specifically, parents and the general public deeply resent the money spent on "special education". Opposition to "special education" is rampant. For example, in last Sunday's tabloid the New York Post published a short commentary by David Seifman. In "$pecial School Bus". Seifman wrote that the NYC Department of Education will spend $100,000 transporting a single student with severe disabilities to school. According to Seifman, "the student has debilitating conditions that require an advanced life-support ambulance, specifically one operated by Park Avenue Ambulance, which will be paid as much as $96,100 to cover his rides during the 10-month school year". I have no idea if Seifman is correct in his assessment of the cost or condition of the student in question. But I do know what the general public will think. Why the hell are we spending $100,000 a year to transport a kid to school who needs an ambulance with advanced life support? But wait it gets worse--or more expensive. According to the Department of Education, the child in question has been transported to school via ambulance since 2005. In 2010 alone the cost of transportation was $161,200 for this student. Seifman goes on to tell readers that costs for the 55,000 "special education" students amount to a staggering $712 million in 2010 and is projected to cost $805 million dollars this year. These sort of numbers makes an accountant blanch and parents screech in horror. I can just hear parents now: "My kid has to bring his own supplies to school and we spend over $100,000 to transport one kid to school via ambulance! What a waste of money".
Who do we blame for the great expenditure of money on one "special education" student? The Federal Government. Seifman writes: "its only one case but demonstrates how the city is caught between a rock and a had place when it comes to special education, which is governed by state and federal mandates that the city has no choice but to follow, regardless of cost. A student's individual education plan dictates services he or she will receive, and that includes transportation". Let me translate this sentence and its implied meaning: if it were up to me and anyone else with an ounce of common sense I would cut out transportation for this student in a heartbeat. This sort of expenditure is nothing short of wasteful. Spend this money on the "normal" kids who are ignored and under funded by the school. If you think I am being particularly jaundiced I beg to differ. I went to plenty of school board meetings and I noted an immediate pattern--when it came to cutting the budget the first line item eliminated was anything and everything related to improved wheelchair access, transportation, and "special education".
What no one wants to discuss is the long range consequences. What happens if we cut "special education" to the bare bones? What happens to students who learn they are second class citizens who we have no investment in educating? What sort of life will these students have? Will such students think they are destined to be unemployed for their entire lives? Will they be happy for life long hand outs? I would contend we cannot afford to provide an inferior education to so called "special education" students. If we do this, we will have a perpetual underclass of people who will need life time supports. Just how much will that cost taxpayers? Essentially we can invest in education or invest in institutions to house a multitude of people for their entire lives. We can listen to people like Seifman who cater to the lowest common denominator or we can learn from our past mistakes--like barring people with a disability from a public school education.
It's amazing to me -- and deeply distressful -- that our culture is virtually incapable of looking on anything in any other context than commodity --
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, Oh how I wish I could disagree with you! I am stunned at how people perceive college education today. Education is secondary to its application--meaning a job and a career. English majors are laughed at. Less than 1% of students major in the hard sciences. Exactly who is going to engineer and build our buildings and bridges? Who will maintain our infrastructure? As for special education, I never thought I would ever write this but thank goodness for the federal government. If it were up to my neighbors no so called "special education" students would get an education. And wheelchair access would be utterly absent.
ReplyDeleteHaving been a HS Principal in a public school system for 30 years, I see that great strides have been made in keeping kids with severe needs in the community and not farming them out. I see student issues which were unrecognized for years, now being dealt with. We've come a long way in the last 40 years...and still have a long way to go.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem? It's not money but it is regular education teachers. I have battled with regular education staff about mainstreaming when appropriate. They don't want "those kids" in their classes, they do not want to modify their curriculum, they do not want to make the effort to tier instruction, they do not want to tailor assessment, they refuse to recognize a variety of learning styles and the variety of methods of assessment. IMHO, the major problem we face is the resistance of regular education teachers to do what is required in an IEP and that resistance is supported by unions. Regular is the problem as it doesn't acknowledge and actively marginalizes the special.
Phil, I agree 100% giant strides have been made in terms of keeping kids with learning issues in public schools. What you noted r.e. regular education confirms what I observed when my son's teachers were confronted with a student who was outside of the norm. I felt they perceived these students as extra work--unnecessary extra work they resented doing. Complicating this further was resentment over the money spent on special education. In my son's school it created a toxic environment that I suspect is the norm. Sadly I can report there is a serious and on going backlash on college campuses. Professors I know consistently refuse to make any accommodations for students with recognized disabilities. Amazingly some of my colleagues have told me directly the college is "overrun with special education students". My reply is "have you noticed all those ridiculously expense ramps too? Wheelchairs should be banned". In response I get "but you are different". So much for an enlightened professorship.
ReplyDeleteWhile I entirely agree with the observation about teachers wanting to exclude "special ed" kids to make their own jobs easier, they also have to deal with parents who will not want their children's education compromised by any extra resources being directed to that child. A number of years ago I read of a young girl (Nadia Clarke) whose parents moved from a village to a relatively deprived urban area in a different part of the country because the school in their village refused to accommodate their disabled child (she is deaf and has cerebral palsy). These were fairly wealthy parents who would otherwise have gone private, and if not enough children go to a school, it ends up getting closed. The local authority offered a special school miles away which would have necessitated a long daily commute. In the end, the young girl did well. I wonder what the effect of the move was on her two brothers (who aren't disabled), though.
ReplyDeleteMatthew, I agree parents have good reason to be wary of so called special education. Secondary schools are institutions and they are not concerned with the education of one child but of all children. In the USA parents must be very cautious, signing an IEP is akin to signing a contract. Once it is signed you are locked in and God forbid the child changes and needs additional supports. Even with all its faults it is a vast improvement as when I was a boy it was legal to ban me from attending school. Oh, and thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteBill, you need to write a book. You and Phil in particular could really open peoples' eyes about this topic. I know that 6 years in the special education at the high school level really opened my eyes...
ReplyDeleteGirlwithaCane, I was never subjected to "special education". In fact I consider myself lucky in that I missed most of my secondary education. I went to hospital schools where we directed our own education. Monthly I received a package of homework for all my classes. I did this work in a day and spent the rest of the month reading what I wanted. Luckily my brothers were in college and I followed their course outlines and required readings. Phil is the man to srite the book about special education.
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