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Special Education

Notes the books, supplies and homework they needed to begin the school day. At the end of the school day,
the special needs students would receive similar support to make sure they took home the proper
materials for their homework.
School systems that experimented with grouping severely disruptive special needs students in one
small classroom found there were advantages as well as drawbacks. The disruptive students were
not preventing other students from learning, and they had large blocks of time devoted to the intensive
instruction and counseling they needed. However, the disruptive children had no positive peer role
models in the classroom.
In a retrospective study of school districts' experiences with mainstreaming, Education Digest reported
that when a student is two years behind by the time she reaches third grade, it is almost impossible to
bring her up to grade level, regardless of the intensity of the remediation effort.
In a 1982 case brought in the early days of mainstreaming, the United States Supreme Court ruled
that it was not a school district's responsibility to develop every disabled child to his or her maximum
potential. Rather, the intent was to provide every disabled child with equal access to public school
education.
When inclusive education was first tried in the United States, with special needs students and regular
students taught side by side, there were few attempts to back up the theory with research.
Mainstreaming was seen as a moral imperative, almost a human rights effort on behalf of special
needs children. No one was studying the techniques, teaching methods, staffing and training needed
for a comprehensive program of inclusion. This lack of preparation and research led to poor planning
and poor implementation in many school districts. Since mainstreaming was more a campaign than
a carefully thought out program, there were times when the needs of individual children were ignored.
The needs of children who were medically fragile or severely emotionally disturbed could not be met
in a regular classroom and in some situations, the best option was for the school district to provide
home tutoring. To add to the confusion, it was difficult to devise an orderly system of evaluation. For
example, one deaf child might do very well in a regular classroom while a different child with the
same degree of disability might need a customized mix of standard education, special education and
one-on-one instruction.

For students with mild to moderate learning disabilities or speech/language impairments,
the "pullout" system is common used.

28.4 Trends in Mainstreaming

The various trends in mainstreaming come to a head at the end of high school, when districts award
diplomas differently. Some high schools grant diplomas with the same set of standards, exams, and
course work applied to all students. Other schools offer a different credential or certificate of completion
for special education students. The diploma, therefore, may not always mean the same thing.
The act calls for standards-based reform that would reorganize educational standards. The ultimate
goal would be to devise a fair way of developing one system of accountability that applies to all
students. Special education students would still have an individualized educational program (IEP)
and achievable goals, and there would be more of an effort to tailor goals to every student's abilities
and needs. Advocates would like to see school districts break away from evaluating students chiefly
on norms that are based on peer performance. Ideally, all graduates would have a credential that
accurately reflected their skills and achievements.
The Committee on Goals 2000 recognized that not enough is known about special education and
standards-based reform and recommended long-term research in search of new information. Education
studies have either omitted special education students or have measured them inconsistently. There
is very little data on how special education students compare with general education students. There
isn't enough information on funding special education and there is no information on how standards-

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