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

abuse laws of the state. However, the child should
remain in the regular educational program until
such time as his behavior becomes unreasonably
disruptive, or endangers his own life or that of
other children, at which time appropriate procedures
may be initiated. Adequate administrative
and judicial appeal mechanisms should be established
for both school and parent to resolve assessment
and placement disagreements.
The Difficulty of bnplementing Quality
Programs for Special Needs Children
In Regular Public School Classes
No matter how worthy the goal, old attitudes die
slowly, new procedures upset bureaucracies, and new
and improved programs require more money. Much
more than court decrees and laws will be needed to
ensure that the thousands upon thousands of children
with special needs get the educational parity
they deserve. Enforcement of existing court decrees
and state statutes is a first step. Developing good
tests and using the procedu.res we have outlined is
another. But changing attitudes toward special needs
children and preparing teachers and their peers to
deal with them are prerequisite steps if the problems
we have found are to be remedied.
Many people oppose integration of special needs
children into regular schools and classrooms. Already
pressed administrators who are constantly battling
scarce financial resources, limited personnel,
inadequate facilities, teacher resistance, and parental
fears, may not be receptive to taking on still more
children with even greater problems and demands.
For example, the principal of one of the junior high
schools in Portland, Maine feels the new special
education law in Maine will "hurt the public
schools. It's just that we don't have the facility.
We need a special school for mentally retarded kids.
Integration is fine theoretically. But imagine those
people in your class and the teachers spending all
their time with them. "99
Teacher resistance to demands to integrate special
needs children is likely to be particularly acute.
114
They already feel overworked and fear they will
receive little help. They are also reluctant to face
children whose needs they have not been prepared
to understand. One official summed up a pervasive
feeling we got in many districts:
"There has been a significant effort to mainstream
the kids but teachers do not want to be bothered
with having the special education kids in their
classes. "100
Nothing is more important than understanding
and working with teachers. In-service training and
adequate support personnel must be provided. Most
importantly, teachers should be made to understand
more about the kinds of children that are capable
of functioning in a regular school setting, and offered
the appropriate forum for voicing fears and
requesting help. They must be provided adequate
supports to meet these children's needs.
Parents may resist integration of special needs
children. Sometimes parents of special needs children
believe special placement, even separate
schools, may result in more and better education for
their children. They tend to be protective and to
assume "special" means "better." It is interesting
that their children often do not share their views.
Informal discussions with a group of handicapped
children and their parents at a special school in Massachusetts
showed parents liked "special" schools
but the children were more willing, even eager, to
go through the rough and tumble of regular school
instead of being sequestered and stigmatized.
Parents of children who do not have special needs
often do not encourage mixing the two in classes.
They fear educational quality overall will diminish.
They do not want to see school dollars stretched
even thinner for children whose needs may be greater
and costlier and, in their view, for whom educational
benefits are less evident. And they fear exposure of
their child to others with problems. Unfortunately,
people who do not have special needs children often
hold a stereotyped, monolithic image of such children.
They recall the most profoundly mentally retarded
children or those with severe physical de-
09 Interview with Dan Murphy, Principal, Lincoln Junior
High School, Portland, Maine, 10/24/73.
100 Interview with James Ingram, Head Counselor, West
High School, Davenport, Iowa, 11/8/73.