The Black Hole of Special Ed

Great article Dad. Glad to have read it.

Thank you.

Great news, I have just exited a student from sped; she is in11th grade and has been in sped since 2nd grade. Remediation was accomplished using PG, VV and Step Up To Writing. Biggest challenge is to get her caught up in Algebra due to dead-end LD classes. I have projected that seven more of my caseload will be out of sped in the next two years. They have been remediated and will be tested out. After all, sped isn’t a place!

nfm

I worry that a child “testing out” of special ed might have caught up with support but won’t be able to keep up. What if she wants to go on to college… will she be able to get the support she needs there after her last minute exit from special ed in high school?

We use a progression in my high school when we think that a student should be exited out of sped. She has been in all inclusion classes and is passing her state tests for a standard diploma. She doesn’t have a basic skills class and she tested overall in her educational testing as average and above average scores. Even if I wanted to keep her in sped, she tested out. Again, sped isn’t a place, it is not a place to stay. As to college and special education support. I know that there are colleges that accept accommodations but the student has to have updated tsting within the last three years. With her scores, they wouldn’t have accepted her for special education accommodations because she wouldn’t have qualified for them. What we have to remember is that most people have areas that they aren’t as good in as others; I probably would have qualified for sped services in math if I would be a student today. Some colleges give accommodations but more often than not, they are very few. In the workplace, they don’t give any accommodations unless you are physically handicapped. Students should be remediated and exit special education as soon as possible; unfortunately, she couldn’t do so until now. I hope to exit as many kids as possible from special ed as soon as I can. This is why I remediate reading as well as writing. I understand that some kids will need services throughout their schooling, but not the 20-40% that are justified for sped in many schools. Those figures are just not acceptable to me. Whole language has certainly inflated the amount of kids that are truly in need of services and are really learning disabled.