Concerns from the Field: Looking at the Future of Special Education

As some of you may know, I am up to the final course of my doctoral program at William and Mary. For my "last hurrah," I have chose a course in Special Education Administration. As a practitioner, it is of utmost importance to be aware of the special education rules and regulations, at least for the purpose of avoiding a lawsuit. However, many of the concerns among special education teachers mirror those of their general ed colleagues. For my own purposes, I also want to better understand some of the issues that my wife talks about from time to time. Since she works in the juvenile justice system and deals with many of these issues on a daily basis, it was also nice to be able to include her in a post.

Recent interviews with three special educators from the Hampton Roads region showed a wide variance in the scope of concerns which need to be addressed in their field.

The initial question asked each teacher/administrator to identify their top three concerns related to the provision of educational services to students with disabilities.

The first teacher, Samantha Rozakis, is a former graduate student at the College of William and Mary. Currently, she teaches special education students between the fifth and eighth graders in rural Mathews County. Rozakis had little trouble identifying her three concerns. The  first concern is “actually providing an appropriate education. For example - should students with multiple disabilities really be in a public school in a self-contained class if their behaviors are extreme? It is important to find the most appropriate setting to provide the child with the best education.” 

Rozakis’ second concern is with accommodations. As she noted, “the purpose of accommodations is to "level the playing field" for the student and allow them to work at the same level as their peers. However, if you put too many accommodations on the child, he/she becomes accustomed to having these accommodations even if they don't need them anymore. For example, having a child have every assignment read to them stops them from learning to read because they won't have to read - someone will always read to them. The third concern was with staff training. Rozakis feels that teachers “are not being fully educated on how to work with students with special needs, and in turn, are not working with the children properly. For example, if you are working with a student with autism and don't understand the characteristics of the disability, how can you help the child succeed?"

Her final point is mirrored by Michele Mitchell, who serves as the director of special education for Newport News Public Schools. The Newport News system has shown great progress in recent years, particularly with issues of recidivism and helping dropout students find their way back to school to earn a diploma or GED. Mitchell is overseeing the improvements in her department, and lists her three concerns as follows:

·          the decrease in the number of students going to college specifically for special education

·          the special education general curriculum degree vs. students having expertise in specific areas of special education such as LD, ED, ID

·          the frequent change in state assessments for students with disabilities

Elizabeth McGrath teaches in Newport News and has a specialized student body, that being the young men and women housed in the juvenile detention facility. Although she listed more than three concerns, one of them also dealt with the training given to teachers. As she said, “all teachers, regardless of content, should know exactly how to service special education students. Additional training must be offered. A teacher education program should include more than a Special Education law class.”

McGrath’s other concerns are standardized scores for students with disabilities. Like Rozakis, she frames the issue into a question, “How can the bar be measured with students missing the prerequisite knowledge and the critical thinking skills? Her third concern is the misidentification of minority males as learning disabled students.

The interesting comparison among the three responses is that all responded to the provision of educational services for special education students by looking at the qualifications of the server. Rozakis looked at the issue through the lens of staff training, which includes educating all teachers, not just the special educators. Mitchell addressed the issue from an angle of specialization; that is, how education students should gain specialty training in LD, ED and ID, much like a medical student might focus on cardiology or pediatrics. 

McGrath also looks at training for all teachers, with a specific focus on servicing special education students.

The second theme mentioned more than once was that of standardized testing for special education students. While Mitchell commented on the constant change in expectations, McGrath focused on the lapses between what the student knows and is expected to know.

The final theme looks at the identification and placement of the special education student with the concern being the attempt to match properly qualified teachers with properly categorized students. Rozakis used extreme cases as an example, while McGrath’s concern was more with the identification of the student’s disability, as well as the practice of categorizing minority students as learning disabled, even when the label is unjustified.