Week 5 Assignment #2 Special Education News

Gloria Wade Gabb
Week 5 Assignment # 2
Special Education News

“Thousands of City Children Not Getting Special Education Help” by Elizabeth Harris (2017) painted a grim reality of what has been happening with special education services in our schools. According to the article published by the New York Times, tens of thousands of children did not receive mandated educational services in 2017. Students are supposed to receive services for difficulties like speech impairment, emotional disturbances or learning disabilities but their needs are unmet despite reports made by the chancellor’s office on major investments made in hiring more staff, opening new programs and expanding partnerships with providers.

If a school does not have staff to provide special education services, it has to look for a contractor who can deliver the services. If one cannot be found, vouchers are issued to parents whose responsibility is to find a provider and have the child seen outside the school. Many families who were given vouchers for special education services, however, were unable to use them simply because there weren’t enough therapists available to service the number of students emerging with special needs. This continued lack of support and availability shows up in academic results, especially in standardized test scores.

The above has dire implication for teaching, learning and technology as many special needs’ children are included in general education classrooms where teachers are not sufficiently trained to address their disabilities. Also, assistive technologies required for some special needs’ children may be unavailable in general education classrooms. No doubt, students with disabilities can master general-education content if they receive educational supports. Supports, depending on the level of need, can include basic adjustments such as having test questions read aloud, or being allowed to sit in a certain part of the classroom or even differentiation of content and process when teaching.

The need for all teachers to have both the knowledge and the ability to teach special-education students is more critical today than ever before. Teachers must have the time, support, and training to provide a high-quality education based on a student’s needs.

Consistent on-the-job training for the already certified general education teacher is one possible way for equipping the teacher to deal with inclusion while efforts are continuously made to increase the number of special education providers.