Many parents credit No Child Left Behind with “opening opportunities” for disabled students to learn the mainstream curriculum, writes the Washington Post. They fear that if schools can exempt more special education students from testing, the pressure to teach their children will wane.
As Montgomery County ninth-grader Stephen Sabia reads “Romeo and Juliet” and studies the Holocaust and World War II for honors history and English, his mother credits an important ally in her years-long drive to secure the best education possible for her son with Down syndrome: the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The six-year-old law’s requirement to raise student achievement across the board has forced schools to pay attention as never before to special-needs children who too often had been written off as incapable of handling the same lessons as peers in mainstream classrooms. Students with disabilities have made some strides in math and reading on state and national tests in recent years, although experts debate whether the law is responsible.
Of course, it’s very unusual to see a Down’s Syndrome student who can handle honors classes. But most special education students have less serious problems.
On the other side, there are parents who say their children are drowning in the mainstream.
Re the drowning in the mainstream article. It makes one wonder how watered down the sixth grade curriculum must be if anyone thinks a child with an IQ of 55 could be successful at it. It sounds like the school day is an exercise in humiliation and frustration for that poor child.
My husband is an elementary school teacher at an school piloting a total inclusion model - no pull outs for any special education students. His experience: Every meeting, intervention, and faculty development is focused on the special education students. He and his fellow teachers voice frustration that middle of the road and higher-ability students are the ones being ‘left behind.’ The school gets no incentives when high-achieving students get higher, but they do receive many incentives when low-achieving students improve. I’m happy these students are improving, they deserve high quality education and opportunities. However, I’m concerned that public education is doing a great job with the lower-achieving students while middle and higher students stagnate.
Ann
Ann,
Maybe these meetings are targeting children receiving special education services because historically, people with disabilities have been at the bottom of the totem pole in every area, and it is about time schools be held accountable for every child. You are the spouse of an educator… trust me, you are on the outside looking in. I, being the parent of 2 children receiving special education services, am on the inside looking out. And it is a constant fight. I can’t just find a tutor and spend some extra time in the evening coaching them with their homework, the way some of my friends do, who have middle of the road children falling in the area of concern for you. Having said that, if the parents of these middle of the road students took the extra time and effort to help their children, then they wouldn’t be in the middle of the road. In addition, if children receiving special education services were in environments considered “high quality” and with “opportunities” there would not be a 75% unemployment rate for people with disabilities. It irritates me you even have an issue with the increased energy in schools to educate children with disabilities,when every club, extracurricular activity, sport, after school care, dance, and meeting, if aimed at the child who does NOT receive special education services. Special education is not a placement…it is a service.
Ann said, “Every meeting, intervention, and faculty development is focused on the special education students.” That’s not “increased energy in schools to educate children with disabilities,” that’s an exclusive focus on children with disabilities, while ignoring the needs of every other child in the school.
If “every club, extracurricular activity, sport, after school care, dance, and meeting, if aimed at the child who does NOT receive special education services,” that in no way substitutes for schooling. Extracurricular activities are not on an equal footing with time spent in school.