Special education provides essential services for children with true disabilities: the mentally retarded, traumatically brained injured, physically impaired, blind, deaf, and others. However, the vast number of students are in special education for perceived learning disabilities. Partly this rapid growth in learning disabilities came about in 1973 when the definition for mentally retarded was changed to exclude anyone with an IQ between 71-85, a range formerly considered retarded. The biggest jump in students determined to be learning disabled came about when the definition was changed to allow this label to be placed on children who had a two year discrepancy between expected ability and present achievement. Think about that. These children are not taught the way they learn. They do not have learning disabilities. They have teaching disabilities.Students are being labeled learning disabled in many districts because of a language problem (illegal but it happens), because the student was not at the proper maturational age when he/she entered the public schools, because the student is lazy, and a multitude of other reasons. The problem is that in much of Indian Country the entire school system is two years behind expectations. It is not because these children have learning disabilities, it is because school boards have hiring disabilities: They hire managers and they need leaders. They want things to stay the same. They are satisfied with the way things are. Things do not have to be this way. We can change this system and we will. We will not be stopped.

Mainstreaming

Every child has the right to a free and appropriate education. Not just students with disabilities but all students. The idea that every child should be mainstreamed into regular education classrooms may be an essential barrier to all children learning. An individual education plan (IEP) should be unique for each child. It should meet each child’s individual needs. Some students with disabilities can make it in regular classrooms and they should be there. Some children with disabilities cannot make it in the regular classrooms and their presence there deprives regular education students to their right to a free and appropriate education. These children are better served where specially trained staff can meet their needs.The nationwide drive to mainstream all students is severely damaging the educational fabric of the nation. Regular education teachers cannot spend all of their time with one or two students. That’s not fair and it creates an inequitable system that threatens our nation’s future. Regular education teachers with limited training in special education cannot provide the same level of services that a fully credentialed special education teacher can provide. All children are important. One child is not more important than the other twenty children in the room. Each child in the classroom should receive an equal and fair amount of the teacher’s time.

MDT’s or IEP’s: Who’s Minding The Store?

Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings are required by special education laws. These meetings require the presence of a school administrator, a special education teacher, a regular education teacher, a diagnostician, a speech therapist, possibly an occupational and physical therapist, maybe a psychologist, the parents, the advocate, and others. Most schools schedule these multidisciplinary team meetings during the regular school day. Each special education child has at least one meeting per school year, many meet much more often. This means that other children are not receiving their required services, that substitutes are in the classrooms, that therapy is being missed, and that the building administrator is not really available for other purposes. Who is minding the store?

IEP and MDT meetings should be scheduled before school and after school and at such times as they will not interfere with the normal educational process of all the other children in the school. If schools have to pay people more to come earlier or stay later, schools should do so. Whole days and weeks go by when special education teachers and therapists are out of their classrooms or therapy rooms. Some other students IEP is being violated. This is not fair. We need to change this state of affairs and we will. We will not be stopped.