Appropriate or Inappropriate Education For All? What Do You Think?

At the risk of alienating any number of Special Education teachers out there, I feel it necessary to comment on a situation that is prevalent in the public schools today. Special education was started by caring individuals with only the very best of intentions. The idea was to provide an appropriate education to any student who had some disability that negated their ability to function in the regular classroom on the same playing field with those students who needed no special considerations.

At one time, special education meant small classes of special needs students who worked with them in books and materials that reflected the actual ability levels of the students. Often the work was specially tailored to give them real life training that was applicable to skills needed in getting a job. Then some parents became irate that their children were being excluded from regular classrooms and went to court.

What happened was that it became nearly criminal to keep any student of any ability level or with any sort of disability from the regular classroom. Schools of education began preaching the doctrine of total inclusion, meaning every student of every ability in every classroom. The idea came to pass that every student could succeed in a college preparatory program with appropriate accommodations and an individual education plan. Does anyone detect fallacious logic at this point?

Special education has become a dumping ground for students who at one time were called "dumb." Oops! Very politically incorrect there. Too bad. Many of these kids are kids who have difficulty reading past a 3rd grade level, can't do math beyond simple arithmetic (You want them to do algebra and geometry? Forget it.), and often can't find their rears with both hands. These are kids who need training for a vocation and often need some type of counseling, not attempts at preparing them for a college they will never attend. You are setting these kids up for failure.

What often happens is that these kids get frustrated trying to do work that they are patently unable to do and they resort to acting out in class, wandering in the halls, becoming habitually truant, and any number of other coping mechanisms that get them out of actually trying to do the work. Being placed in a regular classroom, they create such scenes and disruptions that they get in the way of the education of those students who are able to do the work at an appropriate level. Special education teachers often cater to these students, babying them, cajoling them, making excuses for them, and doing whatever necessary to justify passing them along without the requisite skills or knowledge.

They create unhealthy dependencies that do nothing to prepare special education students for success in later life. Yesterday a special education student wandered into my classroom 15 minutes late for class (Nonchalantly.). I repeated the instructions that I had given the other students 10 minutes before. I gave him a photo-copied sheet with the day's assignment on it. I told him to be seated and get a textbook out. The young man sat down and said to me in an inquiring tone, "Mr. Ray, most teachers give you something to write on when you get a sheet like this." I said, "Excuse me? You want me to give you the paper to write on?" He, quite genuinely insisted that I should provide him with the paper to write on in addition to the textbook and the guided reading prompts.

A great many of these students become so dependent on their teachers that they expect teachers to provide them with paper and pencils and to sit with them while coaxing them through every last step of the work. Often they think they can't be expected to remember to bring any necessary tools with them, so they make teachers keep their notebooks in the room for them and expect the teacher to remind them of its presence in the room every day when they arrive. A great many get to the point that they expect teachers to point out any correct answers in a textbook and if possible just give them the answer, negating any responsibility on their own part to work. Yet they are routinely passed along.

Teachers, such as myself who actually demand some effort of these students are met with incredulity, anger, and swearing from students who are accustomed to being passed along no matter what, because they are special needs students. We are met with reprimands and disgust from supervising administrators, for failure to meet the needs of every student, no matter how ridiculously insane the expected task. Many just give in and pass every special ecucation student, no matter what. It deflects the heat from oneself.

So how are these kids being prepared for any reasonable life after school? Answer: They're not. They are being set up for failure and a life of dependency and poverty. The system needs to be corrected. We cannot continue to pretend that there is a cookie cutter education that works for every child. Not every student has the same ability, needs, or desires in life. Not every student needs to be prepared for college. Every student deserves an appropriate education. That means very different things from student to student.