Justice Department to look into discrimination against students with disabilities

@Jane W:

Here is the full statement from the NEA website your posted.

“The National Education Association supports a free, appropriate public education for all students with disabilities in a least restrictive environment, which is determined by maximum teacher and parent/guardian involvement. There must also be a full continuum of placement options, services, and delivery models available to students with disabilities.

Over the past 10 years, the number of U.S. students enrolled in special education programs has risen 30 percent. Three out of every four students with disabilities spend part or all of their school day in a general education classroom. In turn, nearly every general education classroom across the country includes students with disabilities. Each school and school district must determine the best way to conduct programs and figure out how to pay for them.

As the nation’s parents, citizens, educators and elected officials tackle the problems facing special education, NEA urges everyone to acknowledge our successes. Local public schools are now educating millions of disabled children, and a growing number of them are graduating from high school. Only three decades ago, these same children would have been isolated in separate institutions or simply kept at home, with little or no chance of ever becoming independent, productive, taxpaying citizens. ”

I am not sure quite HOW that translates to “insisting on the rights of disruptive students to remain in the classroom.”

Perhaps you could enlighten me?

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@teacher&mom: No, the NEA wouldn’t be to blame there—but how about in the HUNDREDS of urban schools where kids are DAILY cheated out of a fair chance in life because bad teachers are protected by union work rules?

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@Lee:

When my middle child was in first grade, he had a Down’s Syndrome student in his class who needed his diaper changed. He could be disruptive but for the most part, everything was fine. My child is graduating this year and he remembers having a wonderful first grade year.

The same child had 2 Asperger’s students in his 2nd grade class.

My oldest attended kindergarten with a moderately physically handicapped student. By the end of the year they were best friends. They are in their 20’s and they still stay in contact.

Their learning was never impeded by the inclusion of special education students.

I firmly believe they did learn a little compassion, patience, and respect for those who are “different”. Granted those qualities will never show up on a standardized test, but I for one am grateful they had the opportunity to develop those skills at an early age.

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@teacher and mom

Exactly. If teacher unions were truly responsible for all the educational woes for which they are constantly blamed, then logically, right to work states would be offering a much better education for their students.

They aren’t. In fact non-union states are often some of the lowest performers.

How do the anti-union folks explain that?

The problems in education are complex. Blaming “unions” and “bad teachers” is just a way to avoid having to deal with the real underlying issues which are much more complicated and difficult to address.

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@GAE/NEA in your various online guises (Ron F. etc.): If teachers’ unions are so beloved, why not support Right-to-Work laws in all states?

And why squander GAE/NEA dues money fighting to keep Wisconsin and Ohio teachers from being allowed to quit the local NEA affiliate? What your union money is doing in those states is unconscionable.

Once again: Parents—rent the film WAITING FOR SUPERMAN to understand what’s at stake in education if unions are allowed to continue calling the shots in American education.

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I see that this blog is actively patrolled by the teachers unions to enforce their views and to protect dues revenues. I wonder how many of those commenting are different aliases of the same persons.

But I’ll say this—the problems with our public school systems are long-standing and never seem to get better. And yes, I’ve watched the movie Waiting for Superman and believe it to accurately represent the situation in cities across the nation. And I’m sure President and Mrs. Obama do too—otherwise, why do they keep their daughters out of the public school system, as did the Clintons? As for solutions, I favor charter schools and much more that’s innovative. When education decisions are in the hands of parents, real solutions will eventually result.

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I was wondering how long it would take to turn this topic from a serious discussion to bash GAE/NEA.

As far as what this thread is supposed to be about, I have one class that has some mainstreamed students. Some of them are just fine being there, but some really need even more support than the coteaching model allows for…. And for those that are fine with the additional support, they lose out because the special education teacher has to focus so much of her time on two of her five students.

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With classrooms splitting at the seams, requirements of differentiated instructional techniques, and abilities ranging from severely SPED to gifted in the SAME classroom, you get less than mediocre results…and it isn’t the fault of the teacher.

In the name of equality, we have sacrificed education in this country. While every student has worth and inherent value, every student does NOT have the same cognitive or learning ability.

In the name of self-esteem and self-worth, we have absolutely killed our educational system. We socially promote kids, provide “outs” for kids that can’t perform, and tell every one of them that they can grow up to be the CEO of some major corporation, a rocket scientist, or an astrophysicist.

We are liars. Most can’t. We lie to their parents. We lie to society. And most of all, we lie to the students. They aren’t o.k. And many aren’t going to make it.

But if it makes you feel better to tell them that everything is fine, go right ahead.

It’s called ROI…return on investment. And the kids that are being sacrificed are in the middle of the bell-shaped curve.

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“We are liars.”

Now that is a CORE truth. “We the people” have lied to OURSELVES. And when we can no longer deny it, we play the game called “blame the teacher.”

If we spent a TENTH of the time EMPOWERING children by allowing teachers to hold THEM accountable for their learning, we would get exponentially greater results than our current “blame the teacher” game we play.

But you, the educrat can’t get PAID to hold the child accountable, can you? Yet you CAN get PAID to “fix the teacher” can’t you?

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The elephant in the room is the definition of special needs students. Some are slightly behind and need a little extra attention. Others are truly disruptive, and still a few others are truly unable to learn in such an environment. Todays folks have gotten confused over what the definiton of disabled is…..although advances have been made, a school system should not go broke over a person who absolutely is unable to even semi-function in a particular environment. I’m all for giving everyone a chance, and this may sound hard, but teachers these days would get blamed if they could not teach a stump fractions!

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Who protected Beverly Hall until the last possible moment? The union?

Exactly. Had NOTHING to do with ‘the union” but get on nationwide blogs and the ignorant and uninformed will reflexively blame “the union” for the cheating scandal. The same ones who want a “bidness” solution don’t even realize who was one of Hall’s MAIN defenders.

That would be the Chamber of Commerce, (along with Board Chairman Lashandra Butler-Burks, with a pinch of Kasim Reed and SACS thrown in)

Just how PATHETIC in retrospect do Andy Young, Shirley Franklin and John Rice look now?

Pathetic enough that they don’t DARE show their face in the AJC again?

Again, as stated above, WE ARE LIARS.

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If we spent a TENTH of the time EMPOWERING children by allowing teachers to hold THEM accountable for their learning, we would get exponentially greater results than our current “blame the teacher” game we play.

AMEN

Teacher + student + parent = quality education
the teacher is only 1/3 of the equation.

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It also doesn’t help that Georgia only has one diploma track which is basically a college prep diploma – totally ignoring that many of our students (many SPED students included) are not going to college.

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“The solution to failing schools is competition. ”

I am so tired of people touting “competition” as the fix for education. Really, it only shows how little these people understand what motivates teachers.

I didn’t get into teacher to “compete” with anyone. I got into it to TEACH children, and do what is best, not only for MY students but for ALL children. Get it? ALL children! The idea that I want to compete with my fellow educators and only work for the good of MY students (and screw the rest because I am in competition with them) is outrageously distasteful to me. Merit pay, school competition, teachers and schools pitted against each other for funding, pay and benefits only undermines what actually WORKS in education – teachers and schools cooperating and working together to benefit ALL students.

I constantly work with other teachers to develop better lessons. We share ideas, and materials and instructional strategies. We work cooperatively to design interactive white board lessons and assessments. We support each other and our students through cooperation, not competition! I may learn a new approach to content that really works for my students, and I gladly share it with others so it may benefit their students as well! They do the same! That cooperative culture works to the benefit of all our students. Competition threatens that and destroys the culture of mutual support found in those schools that do perform well.

I am not against Charter schools or alterative avenues of education per se, but I am against shifting funds from public schools to alternative that are run on the cheap, are designed to make a profit for their corporate owners, do not require certified instructors, do not have set curriculum standards, are not required to meet the same accountability measures as public schools, etc.

Over and over, studies that show that Charter and virtual schools are NO BETTER at educating students than public schools are ignored in favor of reformer sound bites.

Rather that actually dealing with the underlying issues in our educational system, so called reformers are pushing the idea that unions are evil, our public schools are flooded with lazy, idiotic teacher, and alternative education filled with cheap, replaceable robo-teachers will save the day.

Until so called reformers actually address the REAL problems in schools and our society as a whole, I cannot accept their platform as anything but a desire to dupe the public, destroy public education, permanently disenfranchise a large portion of our children and privatize education for their own profit.

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I love teaching says…

“We work cooperatively to design interactive white board lessons and assessments.”

Just like the way Coke shared their secret formula with Pepsi, so together they could make the best soft drink?

Oops, scratch that.

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@Jane W

I’m certainly not a union shill. And I TOTALLY agree the education monolith needs to be SERIOUSLY challenged, if not outright DISMANTLED.

But when you look at how “bidness” actually SUPPORTED the education monolith, in one of its UGLIEST permutations in APS, how do you expect John Q. Public to blindly support “bidness” as “the answer”?

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What else, precisely, do you think the “unions” in this state do?

Well they do PONTIFICATE very well. And CAPITULATE.

So you can’t say they don’t do anything…

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@BeverlyFraud: Allowing PARENTS to decide where to send their own kids makes more sense than the alternative.

And certainly more sense than allowing teachers’ union bosses and their bought politicians to decide how competition is to be narrowed—and education resources squandered.

The film “Waiting for Superman” isn’t your enemy, Beverly. You obviously see it as an incomplete indictment of a corrupt system. But it goes far in highlighting needed reforms which you are then free to add to. And I’m confident you will.

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@UGA Student, Many of the students I work with would be appalled at your statement, as would many adults I know. My cousin received Special Education services for a dyslexia (a learning disability) from 2nd grade through high school and is in law school right now. I know Autistic and/or Asperger’s Syndrome adults who are bigwigs in major Fortune 500 companies. I know of blind, deaf, and/or physically handicapped soldiers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers. My mother’s principal is learning disabled, but is still very successful. The are many successful actors, actresses, politicians, and public figures who stuttered or had other speech impairments or delays. Same with deaf/hard of hearing persons. Ever heard of Helen Keller? I highly doubt many people would view her as “unsuccessful”. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Yep, he was successful AND handicapped. Thomas Edison? He had significant hearing loss, but was still successful. Have you ever watched The Big Bang Theory? People like Sheldon Cooper really do exist–high functioning, successful Autistics or Asperger’s Syndromers.

Having a disability, be it physical, emotional, mental, or psychological, is not an impediment to living a full life. People with disabilities can get married, hold jobs (even good, six figure ones), go to college, and anything else those without disabilities are able to do. In fact, studies indicate that every single person, unless they have a low IQ, has some form of a learning disability; in other words, we all have strengths and weaknesses, things we struggle at and things we excel at. For example, you might be great at math, but a terrible singer. Or, maybe you excelled at reading, but struggled in mathematics. Have trouble remembering faces or find oral lectures hard to remember or unhelpful? Have difficulty reading a map or with spatial reasoning? Yep, those would be mild learning disabilities.

Not everyone who receives Special Education services has “mental cognition” deficits or issues. Some do, many (if not most) do not. Special Education encompasses deaf/hard of hearing, speech delays/deficits/impairments, learning disabilities, physical impairments (for example, being wheelchair bound), severe medical illness (sickle cell anemia, diabetes and cancer, for example), Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, Traumatic Brain Injury, emotional-behavioral disturbance (including schizophrenia, severe clinical depression, bipolar/manic-depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and more), AND developmental or mental delays (including Down’s Syndrome, Rhett’s Disease, et cetera). Special Education is far, far, far more than warehousing the “mentally retarded” and training them for menial labor in preparation for a life on the State’s dime.

My mother is a Special Educator who specializes in teaching emotional-behavioral disordered students. A large number of her students have exceptionally high IQs and outperform their peers academically when their emotional or behavioral needs are met and their emotional or behavioral issues are dealt with. They look to the outsider to be the “bad” kids or the “weird” kids, but once they learn to cope, fit in, find peers who are accepting, and make it outside of Special Education, they can be extremely successful. She has worked with teachers of the mentally impaired who have students who are exceptionally gifted in some way: artistically, physically (one student she worked with over a decade ago qualified for the Olympics, yeah, the regular Olympics, in Track & Field), musically, or at a particular type of task.

Since you are apparently a student at one of our state’s fine institutions of higher learning, how about you take a trip to the library to do a little research? You might learn something.

Remember: Your pretty, perfect, straight-A student, popular, thin, blond hair, blue eyed, upper middle class, God-fearing, Young Republican daughter could be driving home today and struck by a car, suffering a severe brain injury. She would likely require Special Education services. Would you want her to be treated as less than or as a burden? Or, would you want the school system to help her achieve to the best of her ability? What if she isn’t struck by a car, but instead catches meningitis as a toddler and looses her hearing? Or, what if she is born blind? What if she has Autism?

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RonF@various aliases: Ron, we haven’t yet heard your response to http://goo.gl/bNdPt … or to the National Education Association calling for the “mainstreaming in the least restrictive environment” of Special Ed students: http://www.nea.org/specialed

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@Jane W

Would you PLEASE stop with the whole “aliases” thing. It is getting quite tedious and silly.

There is no problem with insisting upon a “least restrictive educational environment” for children. The problem arises when one tries to define “least restrictive”. What is “least restrictive” for one special needs student may actually be detrimental for another.

Some special needs students thrive in mainstreamed classrooms where they and the regular education students all benefit from their participation. However, is it really “least restrictive” in insist that a child with low cognitive abilities be mainstreamed into an environment where they are constantly frustrated, cannot master the material, suffer from low self -esteem as they come to realize they can’t keep up with peers, and take up far too much of the teacher’s time and energy. Is it really “least restrictive” for the remainder of the students who suffer as a result?

We need balance, and right now we don’t seem to have it because too many people are afraid of offending someone by suggesting some students may not actually be college material and would do better learning other skills that will ultimately serve them far more in life.

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Just remember that vouchers should be equal to the amount the School System will save when YOUR child leaves. Not the “average” amount of cost. That is highly skewed towards SPED students.

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I have taught inclusion classes on the high school level for many years. Generally, the SPED student’s unique disability was not the cause of poor academic or behavioral performance. My SPED kids usually have good work ethics and are very affable. The only trouble I have had with a few of these kids are the same problems I have from my non-SPED kids: they have such crappy home lives that they act out their frustrations in class. What teachers resent is that admin quite often lets them off the hook, as though having an IEP conveys immunity upon a kid. It does not. A much greater problem is one of proper and timely diagnosis of SPED. Problems need to be correctly identified and students rigorously examined every year or two. Some problems disappear by 6th grade, while others do not begin until then. Many IEP conditions are not physical or congenital in nature but are brought on by the pathological living conditions of poverty and abuse. Students who seem OK in first grade become mentally ill by fifth or sixth grade but are never tested. They become behavior terrors in middle school and high school but are never given the social worker or SPED help they need because nobody wanted to spend the money (and yes, psychiatrists and psychologists ARE expensive!) to test them after age 12. Other kids, whose SPED symptoms have disappeared, continue needlessly and expensively to receive services. Our systems need to be much more efficient at diagnosis, treatment, and followup to ensure that we assist those who need it AND spend money most efficiently.

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Gifted children need special attention; not held back because of children with special needs. (By special needs, I mean children that can’t read in the sixth grade.)

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@UGA, You may not personally group them into Special Education, but they are and do receive specialized services. I do urge you to do some research into the number of successful adults with ADHD (Do you remember Ty Pennington from Extreme Home Makeover/Trading Spaces? He has ADHD.) and Autism Spectrum Disorders. Many, many are able to live full, active, and successful lives. Those you may have seen/encountered were most likely the most extreme (and, thus, obvious) examples. Poll your peers in your largest lecture class, it is highly likely that even at UGA up to 10% of your classmates may be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD–it is a very pervasive diagnosis, whether that means most of those have it or not. It is also likely that you have classes with persons on the Autism Spectrum. If your major is in the sciences, mathematics, or engineering, it is even more likely that you have a professor or two on the Spectrum.

@Jack, The real problem is gifted children receive no extra money from the state or Feds to provide gifted education services. Special Education students do. Why? Special Education is designed to bring students up to the level of their peers through accommodations/interventions/modifications. However, gifted students, by virtue of high/higher IQs are exceeding those same peers, so the Feds don’t see them as needing more money. Also, there are more Twice Exceptional students than regular gifted students–i.e. students who have high IQs/gifted talents AND a disability; but, until NCLB few of those students were allowed to access the regular or advanced curricula they were capable of doing and excelling at. Unfortunately, the problem slices both ways.

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