children out of school in america - University of Tennessee Digital ...

that the city does not experiment with helpful programs
for these children. 90 A Somerville mental
health center psychologist said, "once you get put in
a special class, you're pretty much stuck."91 And in
Somerville we learned from officials of some instances
where they felt children should be promoted
or totally integrated but were told that they could
not do that until they were re-evaluated. But the
rule in Somerville is that re-evaluation can occur
only after ten months in the program. 92
In Montgomery, an official at the Children's Center
said the state reco=ends re-evaluation every
two years and that they try to do that. But, she
noted, "that is up until a certain age, because then
the IQ stabilizes."93 Sumter County's Superintendent
and Director of Special Services said that it is not
too often that a child returns from special education
to the regular program. 94
In Portland there is no regularized retesting
scheme, nor provision for periodic review. Assistant
Superintendent Bartlett says: "I would hope that
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there is constant review by the teacher."95 He feels
such teacher review is more effective than a formalized
system. If a parent asks for a review, it is
done. But in fact a parent often does not even
know of the child's special placement. The principal
of Portland High School said, however, that the
makeup of the EMR class at his school is largely
determined at the junior high school level. Children
enrolled in Project Pace or special education at King
or Jack Junior High Schools are almost automatically
assigned to EMR classes in senior high
school.96 Even children who are properly classified
suffer the same treatment and are, like their misclassified
counterparts, often provided unsuitable
placement or segregated with slim chance to return
to the mainstream of school life. School officials
made few claims that the children placed in separate
programs were benefiting from them. And parents
we visited were often skeptical about whether these
programs were helping their children, if indeed they
knew anything at all about the program.