Rebecca Klein, education editor of Huffington Post, writes here about parents who must struggle to persuade school districts to let their children with disabilities remain with their peers—or move to another district that will include them.
“Just a few decades ago, students with disabilities faced high rates of institutionalization and were rarely included in typical classroom settings. In 1975, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act ― originally called the Education for All Handicapped Children’s Act ― enshrined into law these students’ right to an appropriate public education.
“Part of IDEA’s framework requires parents to advocate hard to get what they see as their children’s needs met. Often, school districts have different ideas about what would best serve a child. Decades later, this is still the case.
“Sometimes teachers lack the best training for dealing with a student’s specific disability. Other times, administrators have low expectations for what these students can achieve.
“While IDEA says students with disabilities should learn in the least restrictive environment ― meaning with non-disabled peers ― parents still often find themselves fighting hard, expensive battles for their child to be included.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From the article”“People keep saying education shouldn’t depend on your ZIP code. It’s thrown around a lot in terms of kids in poverty, but it’s also true for kids with disabilities. It shouldn’t depend on your ZIP code,” she said.”(Ricki Sabia) The article misses the main barrier for many school districts-COST. The law was never close to being adequately federally funded so most cost falls on states or local school districts. Many of these students require special services-OT, PT, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Nurses, adaptive PE, speech pathologist, hearing specialist, behavior managers, TSS, assistive technology, regular education teacher, special education teacher and so on. Until the Feds are made to adequately fund this law, students with disabilities and their families will continue to struggle to break down the barriers that prevent least restrictive environment.
The school district in which I worked promoted as much inclusion as possible. However, inclusion may turn out to be an expensive proposition for school districts. While we successfully mainstreamed a blind student, many language impaired and a few Asperger’s syndrome students, our efforts with Down syndrome had mixed results. A Down syndrome student may have an IQ between 25 and 70, and there is a big difference in that range of abilities. Those with higher abilities without other problems were able to be successfully mainstreamed.
We struggled to mainstream a very provocative student with an IQ of 32 into a 4th grade class. The excellent teacher was certified in both regular and special education. This student also received speech and language services for support. The gap between the 4th grade curriculum and what this student could do was great. His provocative nature repeatedly disturbed the class, and other parents complained. The district hired an assistant to work with him elsewhere during the academics. This young man needed life skills such as learning to wipe his mouth after eating and tying shoelaces. Much of the regular education program was way beyond him. Potential for mainstreaming should be done on a case by case basis as there are many social, emotional and academic considerations. Since this young man’s mother was a good parent and the president of the PTA, we did our best, but I cannot say that this mainstreaming was successful.
Very helpful, thanks. The article seems polemical, as though suggesting ‘mainstreaming good, segregation bad – all depends on your zip code.’ Which conflates two separate issues, without explaining how they overlapped in this case. Refusing to mainstream a Downs’ Syndrome student is hardly equivalent to warehousing. Perhaps what it indicates is that the TN districts didn’t have the SpEd budget to provide any in-class supports at all, which would have left the student learning nothing and being frustrated and upset to boot. But that could also mean that they had one large ‘special class’ where they put everyone from 30-70 IQ, ensuring that those with academic potential get short shrift. That level of detail would have supported the thesis.
Mainstreaming can have many benefits for all, but mainstreaming needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. It is not appropriate for all classified students or even one class of students such as those with Down Syndrome. It takes a dedicated team to work out a student’s program. For example, for our blind student a teacher of the visually impaired came from BOCES (cooperative educational services) two days a week to prepare materials in Braille. This student also received speech and language services from the speech teacher.
Budget-cutting for public education puts school districts in a bind in providing for special education. This is especially true when the least restrictive environment for serious issues that may, for example, require the presence of a qualified medical aide to assist in feeding, taking care of personal hygiene, and preventing medical emergencies.
Although economic reasoning should not exclude students, it is increasingly clear that politicians want to offer vouchers, scholarships, and similar incentives to parents/guardians so they will go to school “elsewhere,” or do online education. DeVos/Trump and others seem to think that IDEA should never have been passed. There can be little doubt that the wealth of the nation is not going to those most in need. Adding insult to injury is the latent and sometimes explicit attitude that education has little value unless it is directed to “cultivating pipelines of talent for the global economy.”
When I entered education, children/teens with severe disabilities were warehoused in god-awful state facilities with not an ounce of sensory or intellectual stimulation.
Then came along a documentary film, presented in one of my education courses. The film showed the amazing focus and physical movement of children/teens who were confined to large cribs in a state institution. The filmmaker was allowed to bring a live chicken into the ward. Children/teens who had been regarded as if incapable of focus or unassisted movement, followed the path of the chicken as it moved from crib to crib.
To the astonishment of staff, some children/teens with severe muscle atrophy rolled over in bed to keep track of the chicken. Way back then, that film and some required visits to these state hospitals made a deep impression on me.
So did my student teaching and first year of teaching at “Roosevelt School for the Physically Handicapped.” I was fortunate to have supervising teachers who challenged me to look past wheelchairs, crutches, whole body casts, and spastic movements, and see first, each student as an individual–including a twelve year old boy who reliably had a grand seizure before lunch. Without extensive training all teachers in that school were united in assuming that every student could learn–a lot.
For over fifty years I was in touch with one of these teachers and one of these students. Not long ago, J. W. my student in art, retired as the CEO of a program he began called “Get Out And Live.” GOAL became a venue for donations of all kinds (equipment, free tickets, special transportation to sports and cultural events). GOAL is still operating in support of adults who otherwise might be living very restricted lives. J. W. had severe cerebral palsy in an era with minimal accommodations and assistive tools. He had little support beyond his public school teachers to get out and live. Teachers, and not just those in special education, need to join parents in fighting cuts to special education and that looks like warehousing students with special needs, especially for-profit schooling.
That is why people like Jeb Bush and DeVos are pushing special education charters. They want to avoid IDEA compliance to offer cheaper services for impaired students.
IDEA is one many laws that the Congress had no right to write. Education is a local thing. Any US law dealing with education is unconstitutional. The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution says anything not explicitly stated for Federal Government o do is left up to the States or individuals to do. Education is one of many areas not explicitly stated for the Federal Government to do.
Any law that puts too much of burden on people is unethical to boot. I define Ethics as Moral Philosophy (or morality).
Ethics has one (out of 5) ethical principles and that is ‘Overridingness’. That is it overrides everything like aesthetics and laws (laws are supposed to be based on ethics – Moral philosophy). What most see as ‘right’ I see as aesthetics (appearances). It would appear that teaching all at all costs is ethical as that is what these laws such NCLB require, in order to be fair. But is not possible to teach all, especially in a ‘normal’ classroom. Any impossible goal (whether a law or not) is unethical. Another tenant of good ethical theory is ‘Universalizability’ or the ability to apply it universally the same to all. Another way to say this is to say it must be practical or doable.
Anything, such as anything impossible, that puts too much of a burden on the agents, in this case teachers, classmates, other resources is therefore unethical.
IQ of 32 is almost impossible to teach anything.School is not supposed to be a baby sitter. Even IQs of 80 are not likely to graduate high school. Forrest Gump is totally unbelievable, with a supposed IQ of 79, in that he would be highly improbable that he would have graduated high school or been allowed in the Army or University of Alabama or have been able to operate (navigate) a shrimp boat. While it is nice to see him succeed it is not likely to happen en mass in real life.
So these laws are both unethical and unconstitutional.
There are so many false & uninformed assertions in your post it’s not possible to answer them all here. We have a long history of children with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities living productive, happy lives that came about because they were educated. Public Education opened the doors for them to become full members of their communities.
“laws are supposed to be based on ethics – Moral philosophy.” My expertise is very murky, shall we say consists of having once, long-ago, been married to a law student/ attorney 😉 but even from that shred of experience I recall that moral, ethical, and legal principles are three separate concepts which overlap only partially.
Your argument is reductive to the point of uselessness. Law evolves as morals and ethics evolve in a society. By 1975 society’s moral principles had evolved to the point where it was no longer acceptable to refuse free public education to the blind, the deaf, et al physically handicapped as well as anyone labelled emotionally disturbed, mentally retarded etc. – yet many states did exactly that, refusing public education to an estimated 80% handicapped kids. That’s why the Fed had to get involved. Nothing in EHA or the later IDEA says the impossible can and will be accomplished regardless of burden on teachers taxpayers etc. The law is about equal access to free and appropriate education.
NCLB was absurd in its declared intent to achieve 100% proficiency in X yrs, & worse in its top-down mandate on how to achieve it. NCLB was a failure and intensely unpopular and eventually thrown out. Unfortunately ESSA which replaced it retains the annual testing mandate. and retains DofEd review of state accountability systems. Pronouncing the law unconstitutional is a non-starter since it has not been deemed such in a court of law. Unethical (because unworkable, burdensome, etc)? Maybe. To me, the whole idea of “accountability” systems is flawed, intrusive, counterproductive, and is cynically used to close public schools, while not equally implemented on charters/ vouchers in most states. A state problem at this point. Contact your rep 😉
An Individualized Education Plan for students diagnosed (yes, I say diagnosed, NOT labeled, which puts need for special education in the most negative light possible; food is labeled, clothing sizes are labeled, but children & adults are human beings, NOT to be labeled; findings of any type of learning impairment{s}should & must be looked at as education diagnoses, just as we have medical diagnoses {we don’t tell patients that they are “labeled” when examination & testing has found a person has, say, leukemia or cancer: we look at the conclusion on a case-by-case basis, diagnosing & trying medical techniques which will, hopefully, ameliorate the medical condition).
I’ll have to finish this diatribe later: a discussion of this magnitude merits consideration–thus, requires (from me, at least) a lengthy answer.
Oh–sorry–but most important point which had to be made at beginning: there’s a reason that people (adults are, as well) diagnosed w/learning difficulties have an INDIVIDUAL Education Plan–because it is the plan that best suits the INDIVIDUAL, & no two cases are alike.
THAT is the crux of special ed.. & that is why there is the continuum of services.
Again, more on this later.
This person is obviously not in my state. Utah is cutting special education services and teachers like crazy, and mainstreaming nearly all students is the norm. But it’s not really mainstreaming, because the kids just get thrown into enormous classes of 35-40 and we teachers are expected to differentiate. I have had as many as 15 students with IEPs in a single class of 33.
Business types believe that money for education should be spent only on top performing students. Indeed, Eli Broad threatened to withhold funding from Clinton when she criticized charter schools for excluding difficult students. Rahm said he wasn’t going to waste money on the undeserving low performers.
The idea that children with disabilities should have money spent to adequately educate them is anathema to reformers. In their fantasy world charities or churches can pick up the bottom 10%.Corporate reformers just want SPED kids to go away.
I am the parent of a child with dyslexia, language processing problems and ADHD. She has an average nonverbal IQ. School and school testing has never been a place where she can show her true abilities. She has a gift with teaching small children and has a naturally ability to control a group of children. To think that the world would be denied her gifts because of tests that that are are poorly designed and haven’t been proven to predict anything is appalling.
In terms of mainstreaming, I chose to educate my daughter in a private special education school paid for by my state. I had hoped when she was receiving services in a center based pre school that all the services , that she would be able to attend a public school with support. Unfortunately, she needed a much smaller class size than available and an Orten Gillingham program of instruction. Mainstreaming is great for kids who can function with larger class sizes and have the social skills to use typically developing children as role models. Now my daughter could have been educated in public school if the state was willing to fund more, Angelica could have been educated in public with exactly the same supports.
As a retired school social worker, I have seen parents enamored of mainstreaming. They let children who can’t cope with mainstreaming be in general education. The children don’t make academic and social progress. The kids leave elementary school not ready for the increased demands of middle school. Lenore