Providing Equal Educational

Opportunity

Desegregation

Desegregation and

Integration:

Desegregation:

The practice of enrolling students of different racial groups in the same schools.

Integration

1. Overcoming the achievement deficit and other disadvantages of minority students.

2. Developing positive interracial relationships.

Compensatory Education

An attempt to remedy the effects of environmental disadvantages through educational enrichment programs.

Compensatory education was expanded and institutionalized as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965

Increase fund for students from disadvantaged background to participate in compensatory education program (five million students by 2009).

Compensatory Education

Compensatory education

services

1. Parental involvement and support

2. Early childhood education

3. Reading, language, and math instruction

4. Bilingual education

5. Guidance, counseling, and social services

6. Dropout prevention

7. Personnel training

8. After-school programs

9. Computer laboratories and networks

Early Childhood Compensatory Education

Compensatory education in preschool and the primary grades

Impacts of outstanding early childhood programs

Overall picture of the programs

By the early 1980s, programs could improve the cognitive development and performance of disadvantaged students.

A long-lasting effect

Positive long-range achievement results

Likely to graduate from high school and to acquire the skills and motivation

Needed for rewarding employment.

Fewer gains

Still fail to ensure that most low-achieving students will acquire the academic and intellectual skills necessary to obtain good jobs in a modern economy.

Comprehensive Ecological Intervention

Comprehensive efforts to improve the environments of young children

Features of successful

Programs

Late interventions may not be successful

The important cognitive development during infancy

Successful intervention begins when children are younger than two or three years old.

Successful programs provide nutrition and health care and guidance on parenting.

Disappointing results of Head Start interventions that do not begin until age four or five.

The No Child Left Behind Act

No child left behind act

Many analysts assert

that students are hurt by such practices

Standards and Testing

Students with Special Needs

Adequate Yearly Progress

Teachers and staff

Possibly lowered standards

Unidentified disabilities

Encouraging dropouts

Clinging gifted students

Overemphasis on the nearly proficient

Teaching to the test

Multicultural Education Assimilationism Focuses on developing a single

American identity Discourages or forbids students’

use of native languages Discourages or forbids cultural

customs or learning styles that do not fit American ideal

Curriculum emphasizes western European cultural heritage

Cultural Pluralism Encourages diverse cultural

identities Bilingual education is often an

option Accommodates diverse learning

styles and appreciates contributions of diverse cultural customs

Curriculum recognizes diverse cultural heritage

Elements of Multicultural Education

Accommodates Diverse Learning Styles

Accepts Dialect Differences

Accommodates Language Differences

Includes Multiethnic Curriculum and Instruction

Key Elements of Special Education

Evaluation and placement based on a variety of criteria

Individualized Education Plan (IEP)

Optimal Learning Environment

Mainstreaming

Inclusion

Education for Students with Disabilities

Growth of special

education

Education for Students with Disabilities

Growth of special

education

Three- quarters of students with disabilities receive most or all of their education in regular classes.

25 percent are in self-contained classes.

The rest are in special schools or facilities.

Since 1988, the proportion of students with disabilities who spend 80 percent or more of their time in regular education classrooms has increased from less than one-third to more than half.

Education for Students with Disabilities

Basic requirements for

special services

1. Fair and comprehensive assessment services and IQ score alone is not enough.

2. Functional assessment and develop suitable intervention strategies

3. Parents or guardians must have access to information on diagnosis and may protest decisions of school officials.

4. Individualized education program

5. least restrictive environment

Education for Students with Disabilities

Mainstreaming and

Inclusion

Mainstreaming: efforts to accommodate students with disabilities in regular class settings for all or most of the school day.

Inclusion: more strenuous effort to include disabled students in regular classrooms as much as is possible and feasible.

Children with exceptional needs are still in special class or services.

Education for Students with Disabilities

Ambiguous studies

Education for Students with Disabilities

Ambiguous studies

No improvement in academic performance, social acceptance, or self-concept

Few indications emerged that mainstreaming/inclusion has been consistently beneficial for disabled students.

Several assessments of individual schools have been more promising

Classification and Labeling of Students

Classification difficulties It is hard to distinguish between mentally retarded learners and slow learners.

It is also hard to distinguish between learning disability and poorly motivated, poorly taught, or culturally unprepared for assessment materials.

Disagreement on what constitutes such a disability and on what services should be provided to ameliorate (improve) it.

It is hard to differentiate between severe and mild emotional disturbances or between partial and complete deafness.

The Discrepancy Model, Response to Intervention and Incentives to Mislabel

IDEIA requirements

Growth of the vague “LD” category

Students are not to be classified using the Discrepancy Model.

Response to Intervention (RTI) is to be used for classifying students with disabilities.

Response to Intervention has been used to obtain funding to improve educational services for low-achieving students.

half or more LD students may not meet criteria commonly accepted by special- education experts.

Effects of Labeling

Dangers in labeling

Inconclusive research

Students labeled as “disturbed,” may be more inclined to misbehave because the label makes unruly behavior acceptable and expected.

It remains inclusive whether placement in a special class or program has a positive or a detrimental effect on students.

Disproportionate Placement of Minority Students

Correlation between mental beardedness and races and socioeconomic background

Students from some racial minority groups are much more likely to be designated for mental retardation programs than are non-Hispanic white students.

Black students in special education are approximately twice as likely to spend 60 percent or more of their time outside regular classrooms than are white students with disabilities

Placement in mental retardation categories also correlates highly with students’ socioeconomic background and poverty status

Disproportionate Placement of Minority Students

Causes and effects

Intelligence tests for placement in classes for the retarded

Minority students may be classified as emotionally disturbed or retarded to remove teachers’ problems in dealing with culturally different children and youth.

Such placements may constitute a new version of segregation and discrimination

Court intervention (e.g. California court)

Issues and Dilemmas

How will we handle the costs?

How should special-education students prepare for state testing?

To what extent do arrangements and services for educating disabled students detract from education of nondisabled students?

What services should we provide for which students, where, when, and how?

Providing an optimal learning environment for students with severe disabilities can be expensive

Until recently, most states allowed testing exemptions for special-education students but this has changed.

Separate placements or special services for disabled students?

To what extent should we make differing arrangements for severely and mildly disabled students?

Not enough funding

Applying statewide standards may prove disastrous for learning disabled and other students in special education.

Will classroom conditions for nondisabled students suffer if including students with disabilities to regular classes?

Full inclusion? Partial inclusion?