EDUC 703_Special Education Reform

good afternoon.

My name is Patricia Dimitri,

and I am thrilled to be speaking with

today about special education and school reform.

In order to take a comprehensive look at

special education and school reform throughout history,

we need to take a look at what special education and education used to look like.

In the 19 early 19th century,

there was an exclusionary model where they created specialised institutions to

send any kind of adolescent or individual with a disability,

whether it be mental or physical.

And all these things had 11 particular thing in common.

And it was that there was a removal of these adolescents from society.

And so whether students, um,

suffered from any kind of mental or physical disability, be a deafness, blindness,

uh, any sort of emotional or academic disability.

They were simply removed from education from society in general.

And so this really kind of ushered in the

importance of place and where people belong within society.

And that idea of place is really integral.

When we have a conversation about special education reform because it truly

is at the helm of why it is that we created change,

there became a shift in practise because of two very, very important reformist.

Charles Brace and Samuel.

How Samuel How was a reformist from Boston, Massachusetts?

And he truly believed in,

um,

reform for anybody with disabilities and how important it

was to bring them into a more collaborative,

community based support system.

And so he built cottages for the blind at Perkins School, which we,

which he was a co founder for.

And he also developed a programme that brought female inmates

to, um, kind of a physical setting that was, um,

within foster families because he believed that

the support that they would find there

would really be restorative to bringing them back to becoming members of society.

Likewise, Charles Brace was a was an activist in New York and he too,

developed in programme a programme.

But this one was more geared towards adolescents and it shipped impoverished or

delinquent adolescents out of the city of New York to neighbouring rural farms,

again espousing to that belief that giving them a support system would help to, um,

adequately reform and restore them back to a

place where they could then rejoin society.

So these two men were really the foundation of

how place became a conversation and special education reform

and how important it was to not segregate and

isolate those that were delinquent or have disabilities,

but really,

that they would flourish and become part of society if we integrated them within

our communities.

If we're going to talk about special education reform,

we need to talk about the then and the now.

So in the past, as I mentioned the 19th century,

more exclusionary tactics of dealing with anyone who had

a disability looking at that school model we had,

we would be remiss if we didn't talk about several

of the pillars of what that model looked like.

The first is that there was truly a risk of failure

on standardised test for students with disabilities in the exclusionary model,

because there was a standard to which they had to meet,

and if they didn't meet that standard, they simply failed.

Likewise,

the curriculum for students with disabilities was what could be categorised as

dumbed down because it wasn't the same as their general education piers.

There were harsh graduation requirements for students in order to, you know,

facilitate leaving after their educational careers and

students with disabilities didn't meet those requirements.

They simply didn't graduate

physically. Manifest manifestations were non existent.

If a student with disabilities had any kind of behavioural issues, they were simply

categorised as malfeasance.

As defiant as disobedient.

Federal and state money allocations didn't exist for students with disabilities.

It wasn't considered a need to be privately allocated to those special programmes.

And there was a lack of community support.

Truly,

people preferred for students with disabilities and any child that was different

or learned differently to simply be removed and to be taught elsewhere.

Excuse me.

When we saw the shift to a more inclusionary model where place mattered,

this changed the foundation of how special

education truly functioned within a school setting.

All of a sudden, students were educated in the same place.

No longer were their self contained classrooms,

where students were alienated in separate wings of buildings,

but instead everyone function together and learned in the same place.

Curriculum for special education students was scaffold did not adapted and what

that means is there were no separate standards for students with disabilities.

Instead,

material was scaffold and placed in steps that were easier

to be chunked and organised for students with disabilities,

but at the end they still mastered the same curriculum and content as their peers.

Special education students in an inclusion

setting are monitored with progress schools.

Also, there are achievable graduation standards for students with disabilities.

If they don't meet a random standardised, you know, requirement for graduation,

they don't simply just not graduate.

Now there are achievable standards,

and students with disabilities are able to meet them and graduate high school.

Also, they are part of the school community.

No longer they briefed and, um,

segregated and isolated within the inclusion model.

They are in general education settings with their

peers and not completely isolated to themselves.

How did we get here? How do we get to an inclusive model?

Well, special education is a movement of reform.

In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped Children Act made

it illegal for states to not educate students with disabilities,

whereas previously they were sent off to institutionalised centres.

Now they had to be educated within public setting.

In 1986 we beefed up that with the regular education initiative R E. I and the R E.

I ushered in inclusive education with the

need for a least restrictive environment.

L are released.

Restrictive environment means that students with disabilities must be educated

in the least exclusive environment possible within a school setting,

which means that it is now

against the law to pull Children out that have

disabilities and educate them separately from their peers.

In 1990 the Individual's Disability Act I. D. E. A.

Is simply a renaming of the 1975 education with all handicapped Children.

Act where it is against the law to prohibit

students with disabilities a free and equal education.

So what do critics say about this inclusive

model that we have for special education reform?

Well,

they surmise that educators are not sufficiently

trained for full inclusion classrooms that they

are not able to differentiate properly for

students with varying levels of ability.

Likewise,

they say that inclusion isn't knew that this idea has been around for decades.

We just simply don't do it well.

Likewise, reform movements they suggest are full of generalisations.

We simply tout that you know students with disabilities need this

set of criteria and that they are segregated and that,

uh, self contained classrooms in and of themselves, simply you know,

remove students from educational practises.

However, they truly believe that, you know generalising is the pitfall of reform.

Personally, I think that, you know,

certainly there is not a one size fits all model and that the inclusionary model,

while far surpassing any kind of exclusionary

method of removing Children from classrooms,

certainly will not work and be effective

if there isn't collaboration amongst teachers,

case managers, parents, administrators and the community.

But it also schools need to really work and consider how

they can vanquish stigmas and labels where Children are concerned.

I see parents and students on a weekly basis who are in the eligibility process and

still fearful of what it means to be

considered a student within a special education programme.

And so we truly need to as school communities make sure that we

are valuing worth and dignity within all of our students above all else,

and that our school climates

kind of practise what we preach.

If we are going to be an inclusive environment and we are

going to suggest that we are individualising practises for all students,

regardless of where we educate them,

then we need to make sure that we are following those standards were meeting them.

And we are re evaluating as we go along

to ensure that we are meeting our best practises.

And we are serving the success of each and every one of our students.

Thank you so much for spending time with

me today discussing special education and school reform.

EDUC 703_Special Education Reform

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