Every special ed kid costs schools more money. They are incredibly expensive. Wealthy parents get lawyers and game the system for millions, and all the rest of the kids get inadequate educations that still cost more money.
They should be removed from the system and their education funded differently. Public schools should be reserved for the "neurotypical".
That doesn't mean they shouldn't receive funding; it should just come from a different pool of money–health care, probably.
When I think back to my elementary school days, and even later, the thing I don't remember is ever seeing any kids with disabilities in my classes. If you're about my age or older, you probably don't, either. They were sent to different places, special schools or institutions or other "alternative facilities" where they wouldn't interfere with the fine education that the rest of us received.
As with anything, there are extremes to be avoided. I wrote about the warehousing of special needs kids (and caught a little flack for it) and how their curriculum needs to be more specific to their disabilities, rather than just dumping them into the mix and wishing them good luck. But that individualized education needs to take place within the context of mainstream schooling.
Schuyler spends much of her day in a regular second grade class, and so does just about every other kid in her Box Class. Most of them have more serious physical impairments than she does, and cognitively, at this stage it's still anyone's guess for most of them, Schuyler included. And yet, as far as I can tell, most of them are thriving in their mainstream environments.
I've seen the looks they occasionally get from a few other parents, and I suspect they get the same thing from some teachers as well. And the thing that I am 100% certain of is this: when people advocate sending special needs kids away to "special schools", they are not thinking about the welfare or comfort of those kids. They are thinking of their own.
Yes, special education is expensive. Good education of any kind is, for that matter. But no matter what your politics, nor how extreme your position within those beliefs, a little socialism isn't going to hurt you, and it is going to help Schuyler and millions like her.
This is my opinion, but one in which I believe so strongly that as far as I'm concerned, it is a Big-F Fact: a society that doesn't take care of its own least fortunate, whether that's the poor or the disabled or whoever, is a society that does not deserve to survive. If we as a civilization can't do better than "Public schools should be reserved for the 'neurotypical'", then we deserve nothing less than to implode on our own selfish appetites and our own primping narcissism. I'll be the first one at the barricades when the revolution begins.
If you believe that you as a citizen have a right to decide that every penny of your tax dollars should go to providing your neurotypical child with the best education possible, and that you shouldn't be expected to help fund programs that do not directly benefit your kid, I'm not sure what to say to you.
Well, yes I am. I hope you take a moment out of your self-absorbed life every so often to thank your God (if you have one) that your kid didn't draw that card, the one that twists their genes or gives them an extra chromosome or stirs their brain chemistry or breaks their bodies. As you ponder your own child and their perfect world where they shouldn't have to share funding with or even look at kids who did draw that card, I hope you understand that inside every one of those unfortunate bodies and minds is a human being, one with aspirations and dreams and abilities just as big as your own kid's.
Bigger, probably, because when you have to fight as hard as these kids fight just to be able to sit in a classroom with neurotypical children, you learn not to take those dreams for granted. And as much as most of them would like to be just like everyone else, I'm proud to say that for most of these kids, there's not a goddamn thing about them that is "typical".
I lost out by not being able to attend school with special needs students. Your little darlings would be just as diminished as human beings if you had your way. Fortunately, I have no intention of allowing you to have our kids "removed from the system". And I am not alone.
50 comments:
purple chai/oldewoman:
I did attend school with special needs children back in the sixties. I had two friends who were autisitic, one of whom was in the special class in my regular school, and then when I moved, another boy who was in our regular classes. I don't know if he received the education he needed, which was much less structured then, but he was socialized with us.
I agree with everything you say, but as a high school teacher, I see that even well-intentioned plans to include special needs students with so-called "regular" students do not always work out as intended. In a class of 20 kids, if 12 of them are special needs, is it really a mainstreamed class? Or is it a special needs class in which 8 "regualar" students somehow find themselves getting less attention (i.e., what they need) than others? There's no easy solution here on any side.
Well said. Inclusive education is the very basis for developing a more accepting society.
In elementary school, my best friend was cognitively delayed. That is, she was my best friend until they her off into the portable classroom behind the school, reserved for "those" students, while I was put in an advanced class. While I understand her needs were different than mine in terms of math and language, we both had the same needs on a human level--friendship, acceptance, meaningless fun. We both lost some of that when we were separated.
I wish I had shared classes with kids with disabilities of all kinds. How much richer my education would have been.
Progress is slow, but there does seem to be some progress. And people like you are leading the way. Thank you.
Perfectly said, bravo!!
Well said. You are not alone in your opinion. I was lucky enough (I didn't think so at the time) to be able to span experience all of these worlds. I went to elementary school with students with various types of disabilities and had them in my normal classes with me. I went to special ed classes myself to combat a learning disabililty in reading/writing, and had speech therapy several times a week. I benefited greatly from these classes, and learning how other students with disabilities coped/learned.
But, when I was in fourth grade I was sent to live in Switzerland with my father. I went to a private school whose idea of helping me with my learning disability was to put in in third grade instead. I spent a year there, and then went back to the United States. The lack of help frustrated me, not to mention I was to learn German on top of trying to master the English language.
I'm glad to see someone writing so passionatley on the subject.
Brittney
I really wish you were doing a book tour, just so I could give you a high five for this post.
Once we start creating places where there's an "us" and there's a "them" and the "them" are the different, odd and broken ones, those different people will never be respected or given a chance. Because from day one we taught their peers not to. I'm so glad to hear about your daughter and her class. It means there are a lot of kids who will grow up as better people, on both sides of the line.
It's very true that parents have to be advocates for their special needs children. I myself have a condition that was not convenient for teachers to deal with when I attended public school, but my parents didn't hesitate to request special accomodations for me when I needed them.
However, I am somewhat disturbed by the activism of some parents of special needs children who insist that their children be in normal classrooms despite the difficulties it poses to teachers and schools. This activism seems to have increased particularly in parents with children are autistic and have peanut allergies.
I know of a family that would bring a laywer to school meetings, demanding acoomodations for their autistic child, who was physically difficult for teachers to handle. He eventually beat up his teacher, who then consequently suffered from Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Someone has to look out for teachers, too. I don't think teachers should have to fear for their safety, or have to try to impose unrealistic rules (like forbidding all peanut products and products produced in buildings that make peanut products).
So what's the solution? A dangerous student of any kind, autistic or schizophrenic or general punkass or whatever, should be dealt with on a case by case basis, I think we can all agree with that. I don't think a case like that should be generalized as an "autism" problem.
What about the kid with a peanut allergy? I don't think I'm being too liberal and squishy and "it takes a village" to agree not to give my kid a Reese's cup in her lunch box if it means that someone else's kid isn't going to keel over and die as a result. Peanut allergies are not to be fucked around with. I don't find it unrealistic to keep those products out of a school environment when the alternative is some parent burying their kid.
What do we do with a child whose very physical existence places a burden on the system? I say we make the system flexible enough to handle it. Not because I don't care about the difficulties that presents, but because honestly, what else are you going to do?
I read that other site often, and have for years. I used to comment on it quite a bit but I stopped because of commenters like that one. I don't think he's expressing his real thoughts. Maybe I'm being too charitable about that, but that's what I think. I think he's engaging in the trollish behavior of saying outrageous things he doesn't really believe to get a rise out of people and I don't like getting drawn into those games.
However, stupid comments like that do have the effect of helping reasonable people crystalize their thoughts.
My head spins when I read this kind of stuff. While it was spinning, Rob, you responded with a lot of the thoughts I was having.
Peanut allergy??? Seriously, if having to participate in keeping a peanut free environment so that kids don't end up in anaphylactic shock is such a burden, I think we're doomed before we even get to the question of distributing limited educational resources.
As far as the failure of well-intentioned plans, the solution is not to create separate systems, but to keep trying till we get it right. Bend, re-visit, re-imagine... whatever it takes to find a way to share the wealth in a way that encourages all children, regardless of the hand they were dealt.
In the absence of unlimited resources, we will always struggle with these kinds of questions. Wouldn't it be nice if we share the struggle, rather than turn against each other?
I couldn't agree more. There is a new movie out -- "Including Samuel" -- that makes this point eloquently, and I hope everyone who expresses wrongheaded opinions like the one you quoted will see it. Go to the web site of the same name to watch a very moving 9-minute trailer and learn more about the film.
I'm really glad you pointed that out to me. Here's the trailer, which I recommend everyone with any interest in this subject go watch.
I actually dropped a note to the filmmaker after watching this. I was deeply moved, and moved in a very familiar way.
Outstanding post, Rob.
There are so many issues here I want to address.
1) I am about your age (I'll be thirty-ten in February) and I did go to school with kids who had special needs. Of course, I grew up in Plano, which despite its bizarre cultural reactionism, is ahead of its time in terms of education.
2) Whether to include special needs children in the mainstream classroom and whether to include dangerous students in the mainstream classroom are two completely separate issues.
3) I don't know what peanut allergies have to do with any of this, but the peanut allergy argument really pushes my buttons. Why the hell would ANYONE have a problem limiting peanut products at school? It may be an incovenience for the parent of a kid who wants the peanut butter (or whatever). It's freakin' life or death to the allergic kid. One kid's inconvenience vs. another kid's life. Really, it's no contest. Eat your peanut butter at home. End of story.
4) As the parent of two neurotypical children, I think one of the most valuable things they're getting from their school is the opportunity to interract with people who are different from them. Different races, different social classes, different abilities, etc. That's the real world, folks. We all live in it together. And an education that ignores that fact, is, in my opinion, next to worthless.
5)The idea that public education money shouldn't be spent to address the needs of children with disabilities is ludicrous. They're part of the "public." They deserve and education. Or maybe we shouldn't be spending money educating women. Or blacks. Or anyone other than the sons of wealthy land owners. . .
Amen! Thanks for writing this Rob. My son wsa in a general education classroom (with paraeducator support)for 9 years. It benefitted the other students just as much as it benefitted him. I could tell you story after story about the positive impact.
I have taught. I have had to deal with a 17 year old with a second grade reading level in a 10th grade Physical Science class. Everyone was frustrated, and for him, this resulted in behavioral issues that could lead to eventual incarceration.
Special Ed teachers can help these kids. Forcing them on regular ed teachers and classrooms shortchanges everyone. There are reasons why the US is falling behind the rest of the world in terms of basic educational achievement, and putting "socialization" above education is a big part of it.
Currently, the #1 job of a special ed teacher is risk management: making sure that the school isn't sued by a parent.
Here is a clue: Schools are for educating the children of a community using shared resources. They are not huge tax pools to be spend on special needs kids, with normal and gifted kids sacrificed on the alter of liberalism.
Rob, thanks for another great post. I wish I could have said it half as eloquently as you did!
Um, Mr. Smarterthanwhoever?
It's "altar."
thank you. as a "resident" of the special education system---in high school with cerebral palsy---i find this argument absolutely ridiculous. whoever says "all special needs children" should be put in separate schools must have no idea that hey, there are these things called learning disabilities? that exist? my school is in no way disability-oriented, and it has 1500 students; probably more than 100 of those are in resource with some level of accommodation. so, i'm bad at math, but you want 8 percent of kids to be in what would be essentially a separate school system? and that's not even really counting any kids with particularly hardcore Issues, or the ones with---gasp!---peanut allergies.
as somebody else has mentioned, inclusion is a crapshoot anyway. i first realized this in first grade when i was made to sit next to a boy, i think he was autistic-y, whom i found incredibly annoying (remember, first grade, not so aware of the subtleties of the psyche or anything else), just because he also needed aide support. blah. in my experience the students with accommodations and/or difficulties all tend to be in the same class, whether it's because of the subject matter or a tolerant/lenient teacher. make of that what you will.
of course, i support specialized classrooms for people with emotional difficulties, and mental disabilities that manifest them as such, if that's what -works best for them-. isn't that the whole point of education---to help people, individually and as a group? even disregarding the whole "let's send them all away! it'll be great!" mentality, the thing that bothers me most about this sort of comment is the assumption that it's all so absolute, and that you can, in fact, "send them all away."
(oh, did you guys like reading my novel? sorry.)
There's also the Academy Award winning doc called "Educating Peter" from 1992. It's about a boy with Down's Syndrome who is mainstreamed into an elementary school classroom. It's funny and touching and shows how Peter and his classmates all benefit from having him as a member of the class. It's sometimes shown on HBO and I recommend it highly.
Nicely said. Thanks
Gee, mrsmarterthanyoubutcan'tspell is a real prince - http://mr-smarterthanyou.blogspot.com/ .
Rob, my (neurotypical) daughter is in a public school, in a class with a couple of kids with some kind of non-neurotypical disorders - privacy concerns don't let me know the exact labels. She is smart and clever and, along with learning to read and write, is learning that not everyone can do that as well as she and the majority of the class can. And what she is learning from that is not that her classmates with disabilities are losers or retards, but that there are delightful people in all kinds of packages.
And that to me is worth every penny spent to put aides and special education assistance into classrooms.
**APPLAUDING**
Bravo, Rob. Very well said.
1.) Since we are paying tax money out of our pockets for other people's children to be educated (for those of us that don't have any), then we should be paying for ALL of them.
2.) We are practicing socialism anyhow with public school systems, so we shouldn't draw the line and say that the socialism ends when you talk about extra costs for special needs kids.
3.) To be whole human beings, students should be exposed to students of all kinds and to learn that they are fellow human beings even if they are different. So, having them all together in school teaches them that and should also teach them to be kind and accepting. (Although, I don't remember kids in any of my schools ever being kind and accepting.)
4.) I would rather pay tax dollars for special needs kids than for kids that don't want to be there and cause problems for the rest of the students.
5.) Parents should be more involved anyhow, so if there are problems with their child learning in a classroom due to disruptions or bullying or whatever, then they can address it with that school.
Thank you for this post. I'm the parent of three boys, two of whom are neurotypical and one who has autism. Trevor has always been in a mainstream classroom and I think the benefit is immeasurable.I think, too, that having my other sons in classrooms that include special ed. students has been beneficial---they've learned a lot about the world in general. Life is not "cookie cutter perfect". I don't see the sense in closeting my sons against people who are different than they are. That's not the way Life works.
Yes, sometimes it's a strain on teachers, society, taxpayers and especially parents but what does it say about a community that chooses to hide away their "damaged" children like some dirty secret? Well written, Rob, and thanks for being a voice.
---Nikki
I agree with the anonymous comment that those of us without children are paying our taxes for the good of the community. Not to educate our offspring. In fact, none of you are paying taxes FOR YOUR KIDS. You are paying for a community responsibility. The amount I pay on my properties in Austin would go a long way to putting a kid in private school and my rich(er) friends who don't blink at those taxes could (and often do) send their kids to private school. If I had my way, Austin would have taken my money and accommodated Schuyler with a communication device and a special class to supplement her schooling. As with all taxes, though, that's a crap shoot. We have to elect the school board, lobby them, etc.
Parents have no special rights in the system whether their kids are normal (whatever that means) or special in some way (gifted, disabled, etc.). The schools should be driving to educate everyone as well as they can and as efficiently as they can. They should try to maintain a safe, healthy environment. Broad strokes like separating every 'different' child, etc. will tend to fail.
I have a couple of suggestions for improving education for all: (1) pay teachers (and aides the special kids need) more; (2) spend less on computers and technology unless there is a proven benefit (i.e. communication devices for kids like S.); (3) partner more with private non-profits to enhance public education. (I am donating money to organizations that provide arts and creative writing education for public schools. I do it for the future of our community as a place of culture and achievement.)
I enjoyed the 'novel' from the kid who has seen this from the inside, by the way!
Mr. Anonymous,
You, like others, are making the same mistake that Rob and many, many others have been trying to point out.
You can't just say:
"In a class of 20 kids, if 12 of them are special needs, is it really a mainstreamed class? Or is it a special needs class in which 8 "regualar"(sic) students..."
The whole point is the 12 special needs kids in that room will be kids with disabilities who may have a problem communicating, locomotion, or emotion but are completely capable enfolding of the course content without compromising the overall class experience for any of the others.
One of the jobs of the special education staff in our school systems is to make these exact calls.
If you have students who are disabled to the point that they cannot partake in any main stream class with out compromising the overall class experience for others, then the special education system is responsible to build a curriculum flexible enough to maximize the education experience for these and all disabled students in its district.
Too few of our boards of education realize this mandate. Bravo for Rob and Julie (why do we keep forgetting that she picked up and left everything as well) that they sacrificed everything and took huge gambles to give their daughter a fighting chance. Schulyer took it from there but they gave up their lively hoods twice in search of what every district should be able to do.
The Plano school system gets no more and I would wager a lot less than some districts and for them to be able to craft a special education offering like this means that with the right management all of our school districts should be able to.
I'm 43, and went to a "mixed" elementary school. There were two classes full of 6th graders. One was the "normal" kids. The other was mixed between gifted and special needs. I don't think I ever thought much about it. I was in the gifted class and whenever we were done with our work early it was expected (not required) that we would go help the special needs kids with their work. We all pretty much ended up with particular friends. There was one kid with Down's Syndrome and I sat with him every day because we just understood each other. I don't remember a single problem in that classroom. Looking forward to meeting you when we get to Plano, even if I have to stalk you at one of your fancy pants book talks. ;) We closed on the house and move at the beginning of Dec.
I am 39 and went to one of the first elementary schools in the country that actively mainstreamed children with disabilities (physical/mental/emotional, etc.) They are still doing it. (Creel Elementary in Melbourne, FL).
The thing that I think was done really well there was that there was a permanent classroom for the kids who could not be mainstreamed fulltime - most of the kids moved back and forth between that classroom and the maintstream ones throughout the day. They might go back for some kind of physical therapy or for lunch if they needed assistance, or whatever. Some only came into our classroom for certain segments - maybe reading or math but if they needed help with writing they went back. It was so....seamless. They came and went on a schedule that the teachers must all have been aware of but did not negatively affect any of the kids. (And a lot of times it was a "normal" kid who escorted them - which allowed our friendships to blossom.)
I think it worked so well because you do have to look at the group as a whole - the poster who mentioned a kid with a second grade reading level in a high school class does have a point. It wasn't helping anyone - not any of those kids - to have this poor kid in their struggling. (It especially was not helping him.) So he needed to be getting extra help in reading and maybe be mainstreamed instead in another course or attend the science course with a tutor who could assist him. Would it cost money? Well yes - but that kid was just going to cost money when he graduated and could not function successfully in mainstream society too. Better to spend money in school where kids have the luxury of time and patience on behalf of gifted teachers and give them a jumpstart on the future.
One interesting thing about my elementary school - by the time we left, seeing a disabled kid pretty much meant nothing to us; they were just classmates by then. I've often wondered what happened to many of them (most were younger than me as the program was in its infancy when I was in the upper grades). There were no disabled (or "non neural typical") kids in my jr high and high school. They disappeared.
How sad is that?
Colleen
Bravo Rob.
We paid town taxes for education while we homeschooled our children for 4 years.
And now we're starting to take advantage of the taxes we continue to pay.
We do this because everyone benefits when all our children get better education.
If I ever complain that some of this money is being spent for 'special needs' children, or that I no longer have children in the school system, someone please take a 2x4 and slap me hard.
I attended elementary school in the 80's and higschool in the 90's, so I think I may be younger than you.
I also attended both private and public school (and I'm Canadian).
So, here's the thing. In my small private school, students with disabilities ranging from learning diabilities to much more severe disabilities were integrated. There was a special ed teacher who would teach them separately in various subjects (i.e math). The rest of the time we were together as a group.
I was one of the "faster" students (for lack of a better word) and so I was often partnered with one girl in particular. I would help with whatever we were working on. Because I was very social I was also encouraged to invite her to play at recess.
Some days, when I was growing up this annoyed me. Some days my best friend annoyed me. The response was that friends are friends and you accept each other.
While I could read circles around her, she could draw circles around me.
We made up for each other. We became friends.
When I switched to public school it was much more segregated. I was in classes with other A students. Anyone with a disability was completely separated. We never sat together at lunch. Why would we? We were forced into separate social groups.
I remember thinking it was weird then. And I still think it is weird. Yes, in some cases it makes sense to be in separate classes. But at other times not so much.
I'm rambling, but my point is that inclusion is taught. And you can't learn the fun side of other kids if you are never around them.
Spending 30% of your time and money on 2% of the population is not great, but hey, we are a Christian, charitable nation. Oh wait, we are a nation full of atheists, Jews and others who object to us being a Christian, charitable nation. They want us to be a socialist nation instead, where realizing the socialist goals is more important than achievement. Bringing us all down to the lowest common denominator is the goal.
I have worked with GREAT special ed teachers who were hamstrung by rules that took kids out of their hands. If they could take 3 years advancing that kid 1 year in reading level, they would do it and not complain. But instead these kids are thrown into regular ed classes where they are frustrated, their teachers are frustrated, and their classmates suffer from "dumbed-down" curricula. 3 years later, they still cannot read any better, but are frustrated and angry.
I taught a carpentry class at a school where anything past basic first aid required a life-flight plane (not chopper)to get to a small hospital. The nearest real city was 650 miles away by small plane. I was told that If the parent complained about their child being excluded, I would have to let this 15 year old, 70 IQ klutzy kid operate table saws. Please tell me how "inclusion" laws make sense in this kind of case?
Of course, teeny tiny liberal minds prefer to go after me with silly insults rather than face my arguments.
Good job spell checking Matt. Glad to see that you have a use.
The lowest common denominator?
Jesus H. T-F Christ.
Nicely said, Rob. You really are becoming a fancypants authorly type!
What's wrong with including the "lowest common denominator"? How we as a society treat those who most need our help speaks volume for who we are as a people. If certain members of our population need more services, we should do our best to get them what they need.
As others have pointed out more eloquently, the costs of special education of children when they have the best chance to make real progress far outweigh the costs to society of turning them out of school with no skills, no education, and no real future.
Also, speaking as an attorney, the troll comment that "as a teacher", you had to let students use power tools that they could not handle and would put them in risk of severe physical injury is total BS. The costs of a special education suit for "discrimination" are nothing compared to the liability of the school for letting an unqualified child use a tool that can cause bodily harm. Most schools are so litigation averse that they would remove the saw, rather than leave the chance of the child being injured with it.
Wow. Trolls and everything.
Well said, Rob. I'm just beginning to watch my daughter in the education system, and it's odd. Three years she's been in daycare and the educators just took as a given that she would need footstools and whatever to help her participate fully. Now she's in junior kindergarten and I'm fighting with her teacher to get her a $5 footstool so she can reach the table and colour with her friends.
Meanwhile, my little special needs kid is the most popular kid in her class. I don't think any of them would be happy if we segregated her--probably with the other short ones. (Can't have them dwarfs thinking they're just as good as everybody else, you know.)
The lowest common denominator means you look at the kids that you are forced to put into one class, and you don't teach more than what the slowest kid can learn. With 15-30 kids in a class, it is impossible to have 5-6 lesson plans per class for the different skill levels present, while providing support to all those subgroups as they need it. That is the state of Special Ed in Alaska, which is where I taught.
Also, the only thing I trust less than a lawyer is an anonymous one. I can however repeat what I was told by my principal, which was confirmed as being technically correct by the VERY experienced Special Ed teacher.
To top it off, thanks to lawyers, if any of my kids had TB or Hepatitis or AIDS, it was illegal for the school to tell me. Thus if a kid did whack off a finger, and I were to respond, I would be putting myself at risk.
Of course they Lawyer's answer to this is get rid of shop classes for all students because of some retarded or otherwise disable kids who have selfish parents and access to lawyers. Punish everyone because some sleazebag lawyers are hiding behind every bush.
Quite frankly if we lined up all the lawyers and shot them, the next day our cost of living would drop by 80% and the quality of special education would skyrocket. I never met a teacher who wasn't disgusted by how legal risk prevented them from doing the best for the kids. Not one.
Andrea, Jr Kindergarden?
Don't you mean taxpayer subsidized daycare? Why don't you cough up the money for the footstool?
Mr. Smarterthanyou -
Teachers are now given training in how to deal with bloodborne pathogens safely, so no, you would not be putting yourself at risk cleaning up after an injured student with a bloodborne infection if you paid attention in training. You would probably also be encouraged to get vaccinated against Hepatitis A & B, which are the strains you're most likely to run into.
And if a student tests positive for TB and is contagious, they will be removed from the school and anyone they have come into contact with will be tested. That is standard procedure everywhere in this country as far as I am aware. No, you won't be told who the student was (do you want your private health information shared with everyone in the school?), but it won't matter, because the student won't return to the classroom until he/she is no longer contagious.
-Elizabeth, who works in Public Health
Cleaning up and first aid are two different things. If a kid whacks off a finger, I want to stabilize him and not loose him to blood-loss induced trauma for the time it takes to have him evacuated to a proper hospital.
And If I am responsible for the classroom, I need to know who has a disease that can change my life. This privacy crap all came about because we are so afraid of outing gays with AIDS, not because there was a problem with school officials and teachers knowing who is a risk.
Yikes, let's not feed the trolls. Especially the anti-Semitic ones.
And I'll be right behind you on those barricades. If there's a ramp, that is. An accessible revolution - wouldn't that be nice?
What morons like that don't realize is that their perfect little kids (as well as themselves) can become imperfect at the drop of a hat - for me, it was rheumatoid arthritis when I was 4, for others, it's an accident that can impair the body or the mind and I'm pretty sure they'd change their minds in a hurry if that happened. It's the supreme arrogance of the healthy and ablebodied to assume that the "abnormal" have nothing to contribute. It's beyond offensive and I am left sputtering in rage.
Public school is for the public. We are the public, too.
I never said public schools aren't for the public, and I thank God I was born and still am healthy, I will be praying that my future children are healthy. If they are not, I certainly wouldn't want them to fall through the cracks either. But that doesn't mean that I want every other kid in my childs school to suffer because of mine. I want specialists to help my kid advance as far as he can, not generalists forced to adapt.
For a selfish perspective (which seems to be the modus operendi here(someone want to correct my spelling?)I want the other kids to learn and study hard and get the support of their teachers too, because if they turn out undereducated, it will hurt the economy and there will be fewer resources for special ed in the long run.
I had a student in AK ask why we couldn't have Chemistry. I had to explain that I couldn't trust the students with chemicals and burners. I explained why the social promotion policies put them in a position where it would be dangerous to do it, and pointless as well, as there were too few kids capable of doing the work at grade level. This actually happened at a public meeting in the school. Some parents got mad. I hope they got a little mad at themselves and their relatives for allowing such a situation to develop. Social Promotion and mainstreaming are the two biggest culprits.
So I want to be clear here. You think that the neurotypical kids in my daughter's school suffer because of her presence in their classes? I want to make sure I really am reading that correctly. I'd also love to know how it is that you figure that, especially since she is doing work at their level, not the other way around.
I really am suspending my personal opinion of you and what you've been saying here for the moment because I want to understand how you have come to that conclusion.
First, as the parents on this list are well-aware of, there's a difference between mainstreaming a child in a way that gives her support and help, and the full range of services she needs to thrive, and mainstreaming a child in a way that dumps her on an overstrained teacher in an overcrowded classroom and leaves her there to rot. My uncle was a schoolteacher in the rural south for decades, and to this day nothing makes him as upset as talking about the kids with learning disabilities who sat in the back of the room and drew pictures for ten years of their lives because there was no one in the school system who could address something as basic as dyslexia. He had forty kids in a classroom, no training in special needs, and no help. When he hears the word "mainstreaming" now his reaction is kneejerk, to say the least.
Second, I grew up in a school that had what I will call a very wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds in its student body, and I feel compelled to say: it was not a wonderland of diversity in which everyone loved everyone else. The teachers worked very hard, but they were up against a hell of a lot. The worst year I had was when I was in a classroom where the teacher held the whole class to the pace of the kids who hadn't learned to read yet. She was a brilliant teacher for students with learning delays, and I really wish that the school system had been able to fill her class with the kind of students she excelled at teaching, because as was the nuerotypical and gifted kids who got bored engaged in some really heavy-duty bullying. I'm just saying, wanting to come home from school without any new bruises isn't a special need, but it's one I would have liked to see better-respected.
Third, (and this is what I meant to say before the lengthy digression about my childhood) schools for the deaf are (according the interpreter at my college) funded under Health and Human Services, not education, and it's a huge problem, because education does get periodic budget increases, while schools for the deaf are an obscure line item that everyone tends to forget about: even the original commenter, who is in favor of this approach, doesn't know that it's been done! In fact, I will bet you most people don't know that deaf boarding schools exist.
Like I said, this makes funding them problematic.
The thing is, the worst case scenarios are always going to sound scary, but poorly run, underfunded or yokel schools that mainstream incorrectly don't represent the reality of mainstreaming special needs students. They represent the reality of crap schools. I can't imagine that any of the "scary boo" situations you present would be magically transformed into good educational programs if only there weren't special needs students being mainstreamed. Students being marginalized is hardly limited to special needs or mainstreaming programs.
Bad schools are bad schools, regardless of mainstreaming. As Schuyler's program illustrates, it can be done correctly, and when it is, it represents an educational model that benefits all students, not just special needs kids. The fact that some schools are doing it poorly is hardly a compelling case against mainstreaming. It's more of a compelling case against shitty schools.
::nods:: I wasn't disagreeing, actually, just explaining my point poorly. I should have added, as thesis statement and conclusion: broken special-needs education (mainstream or pull-out/mixed) isn't a symptom of having broken students, it's a symptom of having broken schools. The fact that resources are often so scarce that parents start arguing about whose kids get shoved off the metaphorical lifeboat is - distressing, and missing the point. What we need is better boats. Hell, what we need is a flotilla.
(And for the record, I have seen small rural schools do the job of mixed-needs education beautifully, mostly when someone's around to throw money at the problem).
Rob,
If your daughter is one of 20 kids in a class, and she is taking up so much of the teacher's time and energy that the others cannot "be all that they can be", then yes, by definition they are suffering. Learning to have empathy for disabled kids is important, but so is learning how to build bridges, cure cancer, or read a tape measure.
I would say that most kids who are significantly behind their classmates (and are not expected to catch up) are better off with experts who can teach the kids at their pace. If this is a special ed class with a half dozen kids per teacher, great. But if a kid is incapable of doing anything but slouching in a wheelchair drooling on himself, then he shouldn't be in school at all. He needs one on one. Mom is probably getting subsidies for him anyway, she should probably get a couple of $ more to stay home with him and do her best.
If it is in a liberal, uncaring (Oops, I was redundant) school where they put 25 kids with learning disabilities in a class, than you're screwed, because that is obviously a daycare, not a classroom.
And BTW, why not just call the other kids normal? Calling them "neurotypical" is just liberal new-speak. Does it really make the pain go away when you refuse to call other kids "normal"?
But your very definition is bogus. All these "ifs" that you hold up as gospel simply aren't true, beyond whatever anecdotal evidence you think you have. Schuyler and her classmates (and thousands of other mainstreamed special needs kids) participate in a regular classroom, doing the same work as other kids. Schuyler's homework is no different from anyone else's, and when she answers questions in class, the only difference is the manner in which she answers. They are there because they have disabilities that include speech impairments, being confined to wheelchairs, blindness, deafness, any other number of issues.
You see "special needs" and you extrapolate that as "incapable of doing anything but slouching in a wheelchair drooling on himself". That's beyond offensive; it's also wildly inaccurate. Who is even talking about profoundly retarded children being mainstreamed? You've set up a boogeyman to rail against, and it's not even relevant.
Incidentally (and as a self-described "teacher", you should know this), neurotypical isn't a "feel good" term. It describes a specific state of being in which neurological development is unimpaired. It's a scientific term, not a "liberal new-speak" one. Having a typically formed and functioning brain has nothing to do with being "normal".
Why are you so frightened by these kids?
Neurotypical is as scientific as "Differently Abled". Is is a BS term designed to eliminate the word "normal" so that parents like you don't get your knickers in a twist.
I see no problem with learning to deal with a mute in a classroom. If she doesn't hold the other kids back, then it is GREAT that she can be there. My example was not a boogeyman, once liberals start talking about mainstreaming, they don't know where to end. How does a liberal decide who to exclude?
But special ed is typically for kids with learning disabilities, or at least was. That is usually retardation, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and the like.
Where I taught, it was FAS coming out my ears. And mainstreaming made the education system a joke. Throw in severe with mild cases, and everyone gets ripped off. A child with an IQ of 70 and 1st grade reading skills doesn't belong in a high school class-PERIOD. Just as a kid who attended less than 3 weeks of his 7th grade should not be promoted to the 8th, and this isn't fantasy, it is real, I saw it. I also saw a kids get frustrated and act out because of the crap and boredom that they had to deal with.
You know, I refer to Schuyler as "mute", which is an acceptable (if not overly PC) term for the condition of speechlessness. But I don't refer to her as "a mute", which is considered a pretty derogatory term, like "retard" or "gimp". As has been pointed out ad nauseum elsewhere, I've learned a great deal about my own past insensitivity since Schuyler was born, and while I have little use for squishy, feel-good terminology, I do like to stop short of actual derogatory language, particularly when describing someone else's child instead of my own.
Is that hypocritical? Perhaps. But if it is, it's hypocritical in the same way that it's okay for African-Americans to drop the N-word or for homosexuals to self-identify as "queer", but not for someone who has never met Schuyler and who is clearly and perhaps pathologically afraid of people with disabilities to call my kid a mute.
All of which is my liberal, selfish, hypocritical way of saying that you've had your say and then some, and now I believe I'm done with you. You've got your own blog. Rant away.
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