Recognizing that traditional strategies result in a lack of learning outcomes for students with special needs, relative to outcomes of comparable peers without special education labels, IDEA encourages general and special education teachers to work together for the benefit of each and every student. The legislation bolsters the philosophy that the majority of students with special needs be moved out of segregated classrooms, and given the appropriate strategies, accommodations, and teaching styles to match their unique learning styles.
The No Child Left Behind Act builds on four principles for education reform: accountability for results, doing what works based on scientific research, expanded parent options, and expanded local control and flexibility.
At a fundamental level, inclusion is really about fairness. Responding to each student based on need is the meaning of fairness. In the past schools could hide achievement results by excluding students with special needs. This is no longer possible. No Child Left Behind has changed the landscape of education by shifting the focus from compliance to outcome ; it requires us to measure the progress of all our students so that every child can realize the great promise of America.
An education in the fullness of humanity should be the defining feature of Catholic schools. Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.
The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God.
All students are now guaranteed an education that is not only accessible, but also free, appropriate, timely, nondiscriminatory, meaningful, measurable, and provided in the least-restrictive setting.
Although the signing of these federal laws imposed immediate legislative mandates to ensure equal access for and treatment of people with disabilities, long-standing assumptions, stereotypes, and pedagogical practices have persisted. Practically, educators still struggle to balance the acute needs of a few with the ongoing needs of the whole. Philosophically, educators and advocates today explore the implications of a semantic or paradigmatic shift from disabled to different.
In more practical terms, the education community continues to worry that students with special needs will detract from the integrity of the competitive classroom environment. We've been here before. At the time, it was widely thought that educating those who were believed to be inferior would be not only a waste of resources, but also a threat to the dominant majority. The late 19th century brought the Jim Crow laws, which legally mandated racially segregated education in many states under the veil of "separate but equal.
It wasn't until that segregation was declared unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. But it was another 10 years before the Jim Crow laws were finally eradicated by the Civil Rights Act of , which forbade discrimination on the basis of race. Even so, entrenched biases persisted in many communities, and black students faced harassment and often abuse as they matriculated into previously all-white schools. Jason Sokol describes how some white Southerners felt as desegregation began to take hold:.
The civil rights struggle threatened to hoist African Americans up and out of [the] social "place" that whites had created for them. White Southerners would find blacks in their schools and neighborhoods, their restaurants, and polling places.
They clung to the notion that rights were finite, and that as blacks gained freedom, whites must suffer a loss of their own liberties. On the precarious seesaw of Southern race relations, whites thought they would plummet if blacks ascended. Just as many educators and families today fear the intrusion of students who are differently abled into general education classrooms, many white Americans believed that black students would be a drag on teachers' time and energy, and would dilute the dignity and integrity of a homogenous learning environment.
Dipping back in time again, it is important to remember that early American education was an exclusive privilege not of white people , but more specifically of white males. In the early 19th century, girls and young women who were lucky enough to have access to education were generally taught only homemaking skills, such as needlework, cooking, and etiquette Forman-Brunell, It was years after the first American colleges were founded before white women were allowed to partake in postsecondary education, and even then, only sort of.
By means of a familiar "separate but equal" version of segregated education, women were granted admission to coordinate colleges that were loosely affiliated with men's colleges, providing only limited access to university resources and opportunities. By the beginning of the 20th century, white women were allowed to enroll in historically male-only colleges.
As was the case when black students first entered historically white-only schools, women encountered prejudice and discrimination from their peers and instructors. Many professors disapproved of the admission of women, asserting that women were constitutionally incapable of higher-level academic work and often refusing to acknowledge women's presence in their classes.
The situation for black women was even more repressive. Just as some educators today doubt the academic potential of students with learning or functional differences, many considered women to be constitutionally inferior and unworthy of the investment of robust academic resources or opportunity.
A dramatic shift would later occur in with the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, which protects students from discrimination on the basis of gender. Where does this fear and resistance of others come from? Again it seems the dominant majority of white men felt somehow unsteady on their lofty perch—they believed that the act of lifting up others would topple the towering world of privilege they had created.
So the status of black Americans and women was perpetuated as less-than, a disadvantage, a flaw, a predictor of incapacity, or incompetence—a disability. At this point in our development as inclusive educators, we have moved past legally exclusionary practices.
But perhaps we, too, feel uncertain at the helm of classes that already struggle to stay afloat, even before students with significant learning differences come onboard. A paradigm shift could help us change course. First, let's look closely at the language we use. As inclusive educators, many of us are still in a self-conscious phase of adjustment, bumping up against remnants of old stumbling blocks.
Consider this historical parallel: As women took their place in previously male-only classrooms, the term coeducation became an uncomfortable catchphrase.
Although coeducation means "the education of both sexes together at the same time," women were considered to be the physical manifestations of the coeducation movement. While men were called students , women were called coeds. In France or in Switzerland, in the 20th century, specialized institutions like IME Institut Medico Educatif or CMP Centre Medico Pedagogique were progressively developed and offered children learning conditions which were adapted to whatever handicap they might have.
Although the idea behind the development of such options came with good intentions, it still meant, for these young people, a situation of segration , relegating them to the margins of society. Beginning in the s there was a new policy adopted for assuring the education of these young people.
But this plan had its limits. It was asking the child to adapt to the school rather than having the school adapt to the child so that, when the child couldn't follow what was being taught in the class, he or she was taken out of the class, and this had significant negative effects. Will, In most European countries, following the publication of reports from UNESCO which maintained the right of handicapped people to actively participate in social life conference of Salamanca, , this concept of integration has permitted more handicapped children to be included in normal schools.
The first major legislation of its kind, IDEA required that education be provided in the least restrictive environment for each child, meaning that students with disabilities should be taught in neighborhood schools in general education classes. The U. Court of Appeals ruling, with Timothy v.
Rochester School District, established that all school districts have the responsibility for educating every child, including those with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act of further protected school-aged children with disabilities outside of education in employment and access to public and private services.
Inclusion: Another Way to Educate Although still rare in many school districts, real special education inclusion began in the s when children with physical disabilities gained access to neighborhood schools. For children with developmental disabilities in , though, separate classes remain the norm.
The re-authorization of IDEA in guaranteed more than access to education for students with disabilities; it ensured the rights to a quality education and quality outcomes.
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