Special Education

What It Is and Why We Need It

James M. Kauffman, Daniel P. Hallahan, Paige C. Pullen, Jeanmarie Badar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351813860
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Special Education: What It Is and Why We Need It provides a thorough examination of the basic concept of special education, a discussion of specific exceptionalities, and constructive responses to common criticisms of special education. Whether you're a teacher, school administrator, teacher-educator, or simply interested in the topic, you will learn just what special education is, who gets it or who should get it, and why it is necessary. The second edition of this brief yet powerful primer will help you build the foundation of a realistic, rational view of the basic assumptions and knowledge on which special education rests.

chapter 1
How and Why Special Education Is Often Misunderstood

Misunderstanding of special education is common, even though “special education” is a term regularly used in discussion of schooling. Exactly what special education is and how it differs from general education, which students should get it (and who does or does not), and why we should have it are matters that relatively few teachers, parents, school administrators, or those who prepare teachers can explain with much accuracy, consistency, or confidence.

We want you to build a foundation of understanding—a rational and realistic view of the basic knowledge and assumptions that are the bases for special education. Only with such a foundation can anyone sort through the various statements they might hear or read about special education and separate facts from misinformation, truth from fiction. Only then can anyone reasonably weigh proposed changes or reforms and predict their likely outcomes.

After reading this little book you should be able to explain (a) what special education is (and is not), (b) how it differs from the general education of most children, (c) why it is needed, and (d) reasonable outcomes when special education is what it should be. We hope this booklet will provide a sound basis for separating fact from fantasy or misconceptions about special education.

We want you to [have] … rational and realistic … knowledge and assumptions that are the bases for special education. Only with such a foundation can anyone sort through the various statements they might hear or read about special education and separate facts from misinformation, truth from fiction.

We begin by describing some misconceptions about special education and propose more accurate alternatives. We then sketch special education’s history in the United States. We explain why special education is such a puzzling matter and touch on problems that simply go with the territory of special education— perpetual issues that demand both decisions and the understanding that points of argument will always remain because there is no definitive, final, not-arguable answer.

Common Misconceptions and More Accurate Concepts

Special education is easily misunderstood. Following are some of the most common misconceptions we have heard or read, along with more accurate statements of fact.¹

• Misconception: Special education is just good education— good teaching of the kind that every student should have. There is nothing really special about it.
• More Accurately: Special education is not just good education for typical students but is instruction that differs significantly from what is effective for typical students— special in ways we discuss further in a subsequent chapter.
• Misconception: Special education is primarily a matter of recognizing that children are diverse in lots of ways and being tolerant and understanding of those who don’t learn and behave like most other students.
• More Accurately: Teaching anything well requires understanding of diversity and patience with and understanding of students’ differences. However, disability in learning is not like many other types of diversity. Patience and understanding are important; but for teaching students with disabilities, competence in special instruction is even more important.
• Misconception: Those needing special education are mostly those who have intellectual disabilities (formerly called mental retardation).
• More Accurately: Most children with intellectual disabilities do need special education. However, intellectual disability is not the most common disability requiring special education. Most students with disabilities do not have an intellectual disability. They are more likely to have learning disabilities and communication disorders.
• Misconception: Special education is a place they put kids who are problems or don’t fit in, and they’re put in special education just so teachers don’t have to deal with them.
• More Accurately: Most students in special education are not there because they are problems but because they have problems in learning. Special education is never legitimately —and is not typically—just a way for a teacher to get rid of a student who is a problem. And special education is not just a place. It is special instruction that sometimes is best offered in a place other than the general education classroom.
• Misconception: Special education is like a “roach motel”: A student goes in but does not come out. The fact that so few children exit special education is scandalous.
• More Accurately: No one knows how to cure most disabilities. Most children who have disabilities require special education and other special supports throughout their school years if they are to make maximum progress. Special education does not typically “fix” disabilities so that they no longer affect students’ educational needs or progress. Most students with disabilities have developmental problems for which there is no known cure. The fact that a relatively small number of students receiving special education are eventually found no longer to need it does not mean that special education is ineffective for those who continue to need it.
• Misconception: Special education prevents students from achieving at a higher level because it offers a watered-down curriculum and low expectations.
• More Accurately: Special education should, and often does, help students learn more than they would otherwise. Many students do need a curriculum that is different from that offered to most children. That curriculum is often simplified or addresses needs most students do not have, and expectations should be appropriately high for the individual. It is senseless to teach what students do not need to know or fail to teach what they do need. Also, having the same expectations for all students may sound good, but is an instructional disaster.
• Misconception: Special education is segregationist. It is a way to accomplish discrimination against children of color, shunting ethnic minorities disproportionately into dead-end programs where their time in school is squandered.
• More Accurately: Recent research suggests that African-American children and some other ethnic groups are over-represented in special education compared with their percentage of the general population. However, children of color are under-represented in special education when compared with otherwise similar Caucasian students.² Children’s experiences outside of school may have more to do with their identification as needing special education than their unfair treatment in school. Furthermore, special education is not necessarily a “dead end.” General education is and always will be a “dead end” for some students when their special educational needs are not identified and served appropriately.
• Misconception: Special education is required for all children with disabilities because kids with disabilities can’t be expected to learn much.
• More Accurately: Some students with disabilities do just fine or excel in general education. Others fail by any reasonable standard in the general education environment. Special education’s purpose is helping students with disabilities learn all they can in school, and for most students with disabilities this means they’ll learn a lot. All students with disabilities have a right to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment for them as individuals. For some students, this means no special education at all. For many, it means special education in the context of general education. For some, it means special education in a separate, special, dedicated environment.
• Misconception: Special education is unfair because some kids get educational opportunities or have special legal protections that other kids don’t.
• More Accurately: Fairness doesn’t mean treating all students the same, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. Some students have disabilities that don’t require any education different from the typical. But other students with disabilities require different treatment at school if they are to be treated fairly. Without special legal protections, these students aren’t likely to get what they need. Fairness in education means that every child receives the teaching he or she needs, whether it’s no different, just a little different, or way different from what most kids get.
• Misconception: Special education wouldn’t be needed at all if general (regular) education did its job well.
• More Accurately: General or regular education has to be designed for students who fall within a range of “typical” or “normal” development. Even if general education teachers are doing a superb job, they can’t possibly be expected to deliver the special education that some children with disabilities need.³

Paying attention only to misconceptions about special education might lead someone to conclude that special education is ineffective, misguided, or even malicious and harmful. Although special education has often been poorly practiced and suffered abuses, it is an idea and a set of recommended teaching practices that can make (and often has made) public schooling fairer and more effective than it would be without it.

Historically, it represents the intention to make sure that students with disabilities are not neglected, that they learn all they can, and that they are given a “fair shake” in school.

Paying attention only to misconceptions about special education might lead someone to conclude that special education is ineffective, misguided, or even malicious and harmful. [However,] it … can make (and often has made) public schooling fairer and more effective than it would be without it.

A Brief History of Special Education in the United States⁴

In the United States, the first formal attempts to provide special education for any children with disabilities began in the nineteenth century. Then, special schools were started for children who were blind or deaf (or both) or had intellectual disabilities. Before these special schools were established, children with these disabilities were kept at home. Usually, they were offered nothing in the way of formal education unless their families could pay the cost of private, highly unusual education. Special schools, often funded by religious groups or other charities if not the state, played a very significant part in the early days of special education. The “universal” public schooling that began in the mid-1800s typically did not include students with disabilities.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, large metropolitan school districts faced three serious problems: First, large numbers of immigrant children who spoke little or no English; second, large numbers of truant, delinquent, or “wayward” youngsters; and, third, large numbers of children who spoke English and attended school regularly but did not succeed in the standard curriculum with standard teaching procedures. Faced with these problems, some large metropolitan school districts, New York City in particular, instituted special classes for students who were unsuccessful in the typical or general education classes.

To address the first problem, some special classes were designated for “steamer children,” recent immigrants who were learning English. Today, we call these children English Language Learners (ELL) or refer to English as a Second Language (ESL). To address the second problem, some special classes were for truant and delinquent students. Today, they would likely be said to have emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Still other special classes addressing the third problem were designated as “ungraded” and served “laggards” or “slow” children whose progress was markedly slower than typical. Today, these students would likely be said to have intellectual disabilities (ID) or learning disabilities (LD). In many of the special classes, the emphasis was on vocational skills and work habits as well as basic academics, the assumption being that these students were not going to attend high school or college and should be prepared for work.

At the same time, large metropolitan school districts also found students whose rate of learning was extraordinarily high. Special classes and schools were started for these very high achievers, who today might be called gifted or talented, allowing them to proceed faster and reach advanced levels of performance, sometimes in specific areas such as science or the arts.

A major problem of large city schools in which attendance was required in the early twentieth century was extreme variability among the students to be taught. In fact, an early textbook noted that the problem “is found in the fact of variability among children to be educated.”⁵ Variability in learning was noted to be the crux of the problem of education again in 1988: “Special education was the solution to the regular educator’s thorny problem of how to provide supplemental resources to children in need while not shortchanging other students in the class.”⁶ In 2015 one of us wrote:

Even before all children without obvious disabilities were required to attend school (i.e., before school attendance was mandatory in all states for children without disabilities), educators noticed the extreme variability among students. Educators saw the folly in expecting the teacher of a general education class to provide sufficient differentiation in instruction to meet the needs of all students.⁷

By the 1920s, most school districts in the United States had mandatory attendance laws and attempted to accommodate a wide variety of students. However, students with many disabilities, especially if their disabilities were severe, were often left out of school completely. Even many students with relatively mild disabilities were not educated. So, in that era, concerned teachers organized the Council for Exceptional Children, which for a century has been the primary professional association fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 How and Why Special Education Is Often Misunderstood
• 2 Measurement of Educational Performance
• 3 The Nature of Educational Disabilities
• 4 The Nature of Special Education
• 5 Tiers of Education: RTI, MTSS, PBIS . . .
• 6 Frequent Criticisms and Responses to Them
• References
• Index