My child will be mainstreamed next year for Kindergarten in our small
neighborhood elementary school next year. He will have a highly trained
shadow aide with him. I know already that my child can not take more than
15% of the teachers time to be able to stay in that placement. I am doing
everything I can to make sure it is highly successful. What I have to fight
with is a School District who does not feel he needs an aide, a principal who
wants to know who is paying for what. Parents who want their gifted child to
have all the special attention and will not knowingly tolerate any child who
they feel will hold back the class. What I have to work with is a great ABA
provider and a caring and experienced teacher who I know beforehand.
If someone feels mainstreaming is right for their child, I think that it should be done in accordance w/the law. I feel that the law is on the parent's side here, but I can see the issue of an overcrowded classroom. Here is a good link, I may have gotten it off these boards, I don't remember.
http://www.aboutautismlaw.com/sample_chapter.html
This is an issue that I battle with myself on. As the parent of a regular ed student, I do see how inclusion does negatively affect how much attention my child receives in class. There are days when the teachers attention is spent mainly dealing with the behaviors of her peers. I see this happening myself in the classes at my school. Yet I also see how much she benefits from exposure to "different" kids and how it has made her much more empathetic and kind to those with challenges. There are several teachers I work with who have truly embraced any and all suggestions to help our special kids succeed. Others expect us special education staff to be responsible for it all. My main beef is that kids are placed in classes where teachers are given minimal to no training. If sped kids are to be mainstreamed, than I feel all teachers should have special education classes as part of their training. I reread the above post and I think I came across too negatively about mainstreaming. When I wrote it, I was thinking about the day my daughter told me that a special education student ran from the classroom to the outside and the majority of the class time was spent trying to bring her back. Yes, the SLP in me is concerned about what precipitated this event and how could it have been prevented. The mom in me thinks "my daughter needs help in math!" In all fairness though, there are plenty of "regular" students who are every bit as disruptive in class and probably do so on a more regular basis. I apologize if I offended anyone by my remarks.smith22, sorry to hear what you have gone through & are going through...right now... AND it's something WE ALL will be going through at different degrees of frustration OR success.
Mainstreaming is the IDEAL WAY. As smith22 puts it, how else can people "learn to interact with people that are so different and show compassion".
Yet we know the obstacles that come our way, that's why KathyK acknowledges the need "to fight the School District and Principal". And just having a physical person, the teacher aide, beside the special needs child may not be enough if there was inadequate early behavourial intervention.
Then comes the teacher... where this particular one in the article seems to ONLY SEE THE NEGATIVE side...
So what's the conclusion ??? We cannot deny the importance of mainstreaming, to us and also to all NT kids and families, exposing & creating awareness to our situation with a special needs child.
Yet if the components are not doing their part, the School District, the principals and the teachers then we as parents definitely has the right to KICK A** to get things done !!
The saying... "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going." is NEVER ALWAYS TRUE... So maybe in the end... "When the going gets really tough, we just pack our dough and get going...to another state, country even!!" We have heard here of Malaysian parents migrating abroad... to Canada, USA, Australia or New Zealand for better education facilities... Ummm!! But that might mean going to areas where some you are currently facing problems ALREADY !!
So the INITIAL PROBLEM has to be the system... which in the end reeks of bureaucracy and political stalemates making advocators of mainstream plain frustrated !!
But if we are "stuck with it" as our ONLY OPTION like in Canada (i.e. coalitionkids) then we as parents, can help to make it work by working together with the teachers and if needs be, to teach the teachers how to teach our child !!
Thanks for sharing the article. I certainly agree with the term "main-dumping" vs. "main-streaming." Luckily my son's school provides an aide so his teacher isn't overwhelmed the way the teacher in the article is.Just having an aide is not enough. A child must also have had behavoiralMy problem with this teacher is she didn't have ONE positive statement about this child. She spent plenty time documenting "negative behaviors, but no time documenting anything positive. My ds is one of those "difficult" children you talk about. Why should I have to spend 2 and 1/2 hrs a day travelling to a special needs school and not be allowed to send my child to his local elementary school?
Until schools integrate students with severe disabilities no one will learn how to interact with people that are so different and show compassion instead of complaining about how hard life is with a severely disabled chiild around. It's so much easier to blame the child than learn how to work with the child. This reeks of discrimination - because my child is different he should be excluded? The schools are full of disruptive NT kids, yet my child that has different behaviors should be excluded because its too much work for the teacher.
I have NT kids, and because they were quiet and did their work they were ignored by their teachers at school. Teachers always loved to point out how wonderful it was to have such quiet kids in their classroom.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118254994081445264.html?mod= todays_us_page_one
I can so see both sides of this equation. My oldest if multiply handicapped. I don't want him anywhere near a mainstreamed class. My middle is on the border of mainstream/self-contained (he is the one with Autism). While my overall worry is what is best for him, I do worry (quite a bit) about what he would do to the classroom as a whole.
There just needs to be more money in education. And we, as a society, need to value it more.
Mainstream is the only option available where we live we do not have special ed. Mainstream isn't something achieved and often not supported and sounds remarkably similar to the posted story.
Administrators claim lack of funds and that child's needs are met. It is a system where you have to fight for everything. This from the article, summarizes my feelings:
Judith Gran, the plaintiffs' lead attorney on the case, says that some districts aren't mainstreaming but "main-dumping" -- packing classes with disabled children without adequate staffing.
Living in Vt where they ONLY mainstream and have para's galore(and I am going to say, having para's galore isn't as glamorous as it sounds)- A clueless para is worthless...a clueless teacher is worthless.
I agree with both sides...
This teacher reminds me of my daughter's kindergarten teacher. My dd's are NT, but there was a special needs child in the class, and the teacher hated her being there. The girl was quiet, and to me seemed to be mostly ignored, every opportunity the teacher would get she would complain.
The problem with teachers is that they get used to things being a certain way, and when real change and inclusion is required they fight it tooth and nail. The girl in the article had an aide, and nothing she did sounded that bad. The comment from another child in the class, was probably caused by having a teacher that didn't want to work with a child with a real disability.
This is why my child will NEVER get the opportunity to be mainstreamed. The mainstream option does not remain open to all, and it's a disgrace in this day and age that people have such open hostility to a child with a disability. Shame on that teacher.
But what if this teacher DID TRY... was not making any headway... and so as not to neglect the other NT kids, she decided to "sacrifice" one for the benefit of many... SOUNDS CRUEL... I know, but wouldn't that be the picture we get from this article?
And honestly, there are some special needs kids who are VERY DIFFICULT to handle... more so if the teachers are not educated on it... That's why I was so glad that THIS MORNING, during my boy's parents-teachers day to collect the report book, his Science teacher walked up to me and requested for some books on autism !!! THE VERY FIRST TEACHER WHO MADE AN ATTEMPT to understand our kid better.
So, it's really very PERSONAL & INDIVIDUAL... Do you want to make mainstream work??? Then the system must be in place, personnel must be educated, parents must be ready and the child with his classmates must also be ready.... ready for the challenges ahead... the ups & the downs...
Oh my god - I read that article OVER and OVER again. (The WSJ is my out -of-autism-mode reading every night!!)..And yes, its sad but the teachers defi have a point...
They did away with aides in classrooms and a lot of ppl lost their jobs (my therapist was lucky not to but a lot of her collehues did lose their jobs)... this way EVERYONE is paying the price.
On a personal note, I never thought articles like these would affect me so directly.Tests Classroom Goals
SCRANTON, Pa. -- When school started last August, veteran first-grade teacher Patricia McDermott made sure to place one student, 8-year-old Andrea Gavern, in a seat beside her own desk.
Andrea suffers from a rare genetic condition called Williams Syndrome, which causes learning disabilities and medical ailments such as heart problems and difficulty eating. Knowing that Andrea had disrupted her kindergarten classes a year earlier, Ms. McDermott wanted to keep her new pupil under close watch.
The strategy backfired. One morning, Andrea swept an arm along the teacher's desk, scattering framed photos of Ms. McDermott's family across the classroom. A glass frame shattered, and another hit a student in the arm. Though no one was hurt, Ms. McDermott says she lost hours of instruction time getting the children to settle down after the disruption.
From the first weeks of school, Ms. McDermott found Andrea's plight heartbreaking. "No! No! No!" she remembers her student screaming at times. "Want Mommy! Want Mommy!"
"She looked at me, like she was saying, 'Help me,' and I couldn't. How could I possibly give Andrea what she needs?"
Years ago, students like Andrea would have been taught in separate classrooms. Today, a national movement to "mainstream" special-education students has integrated many of them into the general student body. As a result, regular teachers are instructing more children with severe disabilities -- often without extra training or support.
This year, Ms. McDermott counted 19 students in her class at Whittier Elementary School. Five had disabilities, including attention deficit disorder and delays in reading and math. The teacher worried that she was failing all her students -- especially Andrea. "It used to be a joy to go to work," she says. "Now all I want to do is run away."
In Scranton and elsewhere, the rush to mainstream disabled students is alienating teachers and driving some of the best from the profession. It has become a little-noticed but key factor behind teacher turnover, which experts say largely accounts for a shortage of qualified teachers in the U.S.
Each year, about 16% of teachers quit their jobs, either leaving the profession or moving to another school, according to recent U.S. Department of Education surveys. Of those, 35% cite difficulties with mainstreaming special-education students as a main reason for their dissatisfaction, according to an analysis of the data by Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
"It's a red flag," Prof. Ingersoll says. "Mainstreaming is putting pressure on teachers... and the proponents of this reform are going to need to address it sooner or later."
Neil Hunt, a seventh-grade math teacher in the Fairfax County, Va., public schools, recently quit his job in part because of mainstreaming. "I don't feel I can do what's necessary for these kids," says Mr. Hunt, a former Navy lieutenant who plans to return to the service in a civilian job. "And some of the kids' behavior is such a distraction for the rest of the class that they're losing a lot of time, too."
In Arizona, Tom Horne, the state's superintendent of schools, says mainstreaming special-education students with behavior problems can be "extremely destructive" to teachers' morale and "a big factor in teachers' leaving."
Also known as "inclusion," mainstreaming reverses a once-common practice that Congress determined was unjust: the segregation of disabled children in settings without proper instruction. Many educators say children learn more through mainstreaming because they are taught by better-qualified teachers and gain valuable social skills from their peers. By 2005, about 54% of special-education students were taught in "fully inclusive" settings -- spending 80% or more of the school day in a regular classroom -- up from 33% in 1990.
Pennsylvania has been a major battleground in the national wars over special education. Litigation here helped lead to the 1975 federal legislation now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires a "free appropriate" public education for children with disabilities. The law fostered mainstreaming by mandating that disabled children, when possible, be taught in the "least restrictive environment."
Despite its key role, Pennsylvania was slow to embrace inclusion until 2005, when the state and the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia received court approval to settle a decade-old class-action case brought on behalf of 280,000 special-education students who demanded inclusion in regular classrooms. Districts that aren't sufficiently inclusive risk losing funding.
But even some advocates of inclusion say it isn't working as they had hoped. Judith Gran, the plaintiffs' lead attorney on the case, says that some districts aren't mainstreaming but "main-dumping" -- packing classes with disabled children without adequate staffing. "You hear a lot about it from teachers," she says. "They are the ones on the front lines, and they aren't getting support."
The Scranton district has 9,800 students, 16% of whom are in special education. About half have learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. Others struggle with problems that include intellectual impairment, autism and emotional disorders.
Until 2004, most of these students were set apart in about 70 special-education classes. By last year, the system had eliminated most of those classes, which generally had 15 students, a special-education teacher and an aide. Last year, 75% of students with disabilities in the Scranton School District spent 80% of their day or more in regular classrooms, up from 28% in 2003.
The shift has sparked fierce opposition from the Scranton chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, which has long been critical of mainstreaming. The issue is expected to be an important part of negotiations next year, when the teachers' contract expires. In a recent union survey of Scranton's 750 teachers, two-thirds of those responding listed inclusion as their No. 1 or No. 2 complaint, outranking all other concerns. (The survey didn't ask about pay and benefits.)
"Inclusion doesn't work unless class sizes are greatly reduced," wrote one teacher. "Children are suffering due to lack of support," wrote another. "We need more help!" added a third.
Janet Strelecki, president of Whittier's Parent Teacher Association, says she was inclined to favor inclusion because she runs a home for the developmentally disabled. But when her own daughter, Miranda, who has no special needs, was placed in Ms. McDermott's classroom last year, Ms. Strelecki changed her mind. She says Miranda often felt frustrated because she didn't get much attention from Ms. McDermott, whom she calls "a wonderful teacher."
Ms. Strelecki says as many as 40 Whittier parents have complained about inclusion. "The general consensus is that it doesn't work having all these kids together," she says.
Some, however, praise inclusion. Sarene O'Malley says her dyslexic daughter Jessica felt "ashamed" when she was in a separate special-education classroom. Educators say that's a common sentiment among children with learning disabilities. Through the inclusion program, Ms. O'Malley says Jessica, who just graduated from Scranton High School, won new friends and confidence and plans to go to college next year. "She never would have gone on this path" without inclusion, Ms. O'Malley says.
Michael Sheridan, Scranton's school chief, says he sees only "pockets of resistance" to inclusion. For evidence that the policy is working, Mr. Sheridan cites the system's overall results. Last year, Standard & Poor's, the bond-rating agency, listed Scranton as one of only 29 Pennsylvania school systems that were "outperformers" in state tests of reading and math proficiency for each of the preceding four years.
Mr. Sheridan says that President Bush's No Child Left Behind law requires that all students take the same state tests and be instructed by a teacher "highly qualified" in each subject. In his view, inclusion is the best way to meet the demands of both No Child Left Behind and the federal disabilities law.
| Patricia McDermott teaches first grade at Whittier Elementary School in Scranton, Pa. |
Still, many teachers complain that they lack training and support. When Scranton started the program three years ago, teachers say they received about three days of training, primarily in "differentiated instruction," which often entails breaking up classes into several groups and using different sets of materials for each. Administrators say principals often provided more training, including sessions on autism and other disabilities.
Special-education instructors assist in regular classrooms and pull students out for extra help, but there are few to go around. Scranton has 86 specially trained instructors, along with a support staff of 30 speech and language experts, psychologists and others. Together, they must serve roughly 1,600 special-education students in 18 schools.
Under the teachers' union contract, the district is supposed to place no more than two disabled students in each classroom "where possible." But, despite that wording, principals often use their discretion to place more special-education students in certain classes.
Ann Langan, a ninth-grade teacher at Scranton High School, teaches a basic science class. This year, she had 16 children in one class, 12 of whom were in special education. Another of her classes had 20, 14 with disabilities. Jennifer Zaleski, a fifth-grade teacher, had 16 students, half of whom were in the special-education program. She says the IQs in her class range from 50 to 150. As far as understanding how to teach disabled children, she says, "How much knowledge did I have? Probably zip."
Last October, the union filed a grievance with the school system, alleging a violation at the high school of the teachers' contract. Administrators told the union they would divide special-education students more evenly this fall.
Few have struggled more with inclusion than Ms. McDermott, who teaches at Whittier Elementary, a century-old red-brick building perched on a hillside with views of downtown Scranton's faded storefronts and factories.
Ms. McDermott tries to maintain a bright, welcoming classroom, with shiny laminated paper apples hanging on strings from the ceiling, a "birthday train" marking each child's big day with a cake and a candle, and a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. by the door.
The daughter of a fireman and a Scranton schools' secretary, Ms. McDermott wanted to be a teacher since she was in kindergarten. In 1974, she graduated from Penn State with a degree in elementary education, then worked as a substitute teacher until she won her own classroom a decade later. "I ran to work," says Ms. McDermott, now 54 years old. "I couldn't wait to get there. I loved being in charge of this world of learning."
Whittier, which is housed in two buildings several blocks apart, has only one special-education teacher -- and two aides -- for the entire school, leaving Ms. McDermott largely on her own. Larry Miner, Whittier's principal, says he tends to concentrate special-needs students in one classroom for each grade to make it easier to schedule services. He acknowledges that Ms. McDermott has an unusually large number. But to handle those children, he says he looks for the most capable instructors. Ms. McDermott "is a very gifted teacher," he says. "She is very patient."
From the start of this year, Ms. McDermott's biggest challenge was Andrea. Along with Williams Syndrome, Andrea has sensory processing disorder, also common among autistic children. The first-grader, who gets nourishment from a feeding tube in her stomach, hit other children, screamed for hours, pounded computer keyboards with her fists and tore up worksheets, according to the teacher.
Mr. Miner says the school system offered to have her attend one of the district's few separate classrooms for the severely disabled. Her parents, Philip and Johanna Gavern, recall no such offer. Based on the report of a private psychologist they hired, they believed that Andrea could make academic progress in a mainstream classroom, as long as she had a full-time aide trained in special education. They asked the school system for one, but were refused.
Mr. Miner maintains that the approach wouldn't have made "much difference." The school's special-education aides, he says, have only high-school diplomas and scant disability training. Andrea did get full-time classroom assistance from a local mental-health agency, paid for by the state. But that aide has no education training and was present only to help Andrea stay focused and perform basic tasks.
Andrea received 6½ hours of special services a week. These included speech and language support and occupational therapy -- mostly in half-hour or one-hour pullout sessions, according to Andrea's individualized education program, or IEP, the legal document that outlines what the district must provide. After school, Andrea's family privately arranged for her to spend afternoons receiving a variety of physical, music and social-group therapies.
Ms. McDermott has no expertise in handling Williams Syndrome or any of the other disorders she must manage each day. So she improvised, finding a number board with tiles that engaged Andrea, and, with her own money, buying kindergarten reading primers.
Soon after the start of the school year, Ms. McDermott started keeping a journal, recording her time with Andrea to document what she considered an intolerable situation.
Ms. McDermott wrote of Andrea touching and hitting other students -- albeit gently, with a kind of slapping motion that didn't pose any threat. Andrea also threw papers and tore up assignments.
Her behavior could be unpredictable and unnerving. "At story-time, Andrea turned to children next to her on either side and was making forceful spitting sounds into their ears," she wrote in an entry for Aug. 31.
"I can't listen because of Andrea," Shaun Hopkins, 6, a general education student, said recently.
Andrea, who can be quick to smile and laugh and wears a neat part in her short blonde hair, loves computers and, at home, enjoys listening on headphones to the Lion King and other Disney movies. But, even when happily ensconced on a terminal in the back of the classroom, she could grow frustrated. On Sept. 7, she banged the keyboard with her fists, took off her headset and threw it down on the keys. Her aide from the mental-health agency took her out of the room.
On Sept. 27, Andrea, who had been moaning quietly, launched into a full-throated scream, which lasted from 1:25 p.m. to 2:15 p.m., according to a journal entry. Ms. McDermott didn't know why. Andrea's aide moved her into the hall and then to a room in the basement, though the class could still hear muffled cries, the teacher says.
The school called her mother to take her home. Ms. McDermott says she still remembers Ms. Gavern picking up her screaming child and carrying her, legs dangling, past other parents gathered for pickup. Ms. McDermott says she later learned that Andrea was feeling pain from her feeding tube.
Through December or January, Ms. Gavern says she would have to pull Andrea out of school and take her home once or twice a week, usually in the late morning. Ms. Gavern used to work as a property manager for the rental units she owns with her husband, a real-estate agent. The couple had to hire others to do her job, so she would be available to pick up Andrea. "I couldn't do anything because I was waiting by the phone," Ms. Gavern says.
Tensions grew between teacher and parent. Ms. Gavern says she became convinced that Ms. McDermott didn't want Andrea in her class and, at a fall IEP meeting, expressed her concerns.
"I don't think she has the knowledge," Ms. Gavern says of Ms. McDermott. "I don't think she has the support. It's not entirely her fault. She was overwhelmed. The school system was not there to back her up. I blame them, too."
Ms. McDermott says she agrees with that assessment, adding that "the system was not set up for children like Andrea."
On May 3, Ms. McDermott planned an art project painting flower pots for Mother's Day. "Oh, no! Oh, no!" Andrea shouted, stamping her feet and waving her arms, before being led out of the room. Andrea had wanted to spend more time on the computer.
With the art assignment finished, Andrea, dressed in an embroidered blouse, a pressed khaki skirt and pink sneakers, returned to her place in the back of the classroom, where she sat next to her mental-health aide. The two worked on their own, while the class did a reading lesson.
"Do you know six minus three?" her aide asked. "No!" Andrea replied. With the help of her attendant, Andrea copied the numbers 16, 19 and 20 from a workbook. "Very nice 20," her aide said.
Later, Andrea briefly rejoined the class. Andrea raised her hand, volunteering to read a book out loud in front of the class. "All fall down," Andrea read, clearly, though from a book simpler than those of her classmates. "Good job!" Ms. McDermott told her.
Despite such glimmers of hope, the Gaverns have given up on Scranton. This month, due to their dissatisfaction with Andrea's school, they sold their house and moved to nearby Clarks Summit. The family had heard positive reports from other parents about the school system, which may put Andrea in a separate class for at least part of the day.
"It just hasn't worked out at all," says Mr. Gavern, surrounded by packing boxes. "Inclusion sounds great on paper. But the [Scranton] school system isn't prepared."
With the school year just over, Ms. McDermott says she feels tremendous relief, and the migraine headaches that once afflicted her almost weekly have disappeared. But she is still struggling with her own future. Ms. McDermott has decided to stay through the end of next year -- her 31st as a teacher -- when she can quit with full health benefits and start a new career.
"It's the end," Ms. McDermott says. "I don't have it in me any more. I used to think I'd stay forever until they kicked me out. It's sad. It's too sad."
Write to John Hechinger at john.hechinger@wsj.com
< src="//sphere_api.js" =text/> < src="//sphere.js" =text/> < =text/> var x = document.getElementsByName("pagename")[0]; var st1 = (x == null) ? '' : x.content; var index = (st1 == null) ? '' : st1.indexOf('_'); var articleId = st1.substring(index + 1);SAD to read through the article... It's like a double-edge sword cutting both ways.
One one end, parents who have championed for their special needs child would rejoice to see their child in an inclusive education environment (mainstream edu).
On the other end, it would be the teachers who are "burdened" with the task of managing special needs kids & NT's. If you have a managable class size then maybe the teacher can bear with it. But more often, a public school system will have huge classes of maybe 30 to 40 kids (at least that's how it is in Malaysia). That's why teacher aides are vital. The Edu Ministry started a pilot project here 2 years ago, having autistic kids enrolled with NT kids in a mainstream class. Each class is assigned with a teacher aide to deal with issues that crop up with the autistic kid.
I am basically doing that myself as my boy is not in that programme. But with the consent of the school, I pop in the class 10 minutes before break and before dismissal to catch up on any work that my boy missed out...Thus there is less burden on the existing teachers.
Mainstreaming can work...but parents play a MAJOR role here. We cannot leave it to the teachers alone. BUT on the other hand, there are special needs kids who will not be able to fit into mainstream. That's where special ed becomes the safety net. At least the mainstream edu option still remains open to ALL.