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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.
formities to argue against all children with special needs being placed in regular classes. The fact is, however, that the great majority of children with special needs are those who could profit from schooling and become self-sufficient. A host of children have mild physical disabilities, such as nearsightedness, deafness, or physical handicaps which in no way affect their intellectual and social development. Parents, teachers and adrr.inistrators need to be educated to differentiate among special needs children and to learn what is appropriate, helpful or harmful in each case. Individual assessment is essential, as is a range of program options that would allow children to be integrated according to their needs and abilities. 'ol Resistance to integration of programs for special needs children into regular school programs may also come from some of those who perceive a stake in separate facilities and programs and who fear that their power base will be undercut with integration. Some advocate associations for handicapped children prefer to maintain separate funding because of the small resource pie within which they must compete against other special needs groups and general school expenditures. They therefore foster labeling and segregation. Cohesive pressure among special needs groups is therefore rendered more difficult. All these attitudes must be reanalyzed from the point of view of children who, after all, should be the focus of those concerned. Children in regular classes should learn to accept children who have different kinds of problems. Handicapped children should not be isolated. Segregated programs usually lack leverage on central school resources, and they make it more likely that children (1) will be dumped aside; (2) will have their handicap emphasized rather than the similarities all children have in common; (3) will be stigmatized; (4) will receive little definable educational benefit; and (5) will have greater difficulty adjusting to a larger society in which they must live. A teacher at the Baxter State School for the Deaf which is located on an island in Casco Bay near Portland, Maine, commented: "The island is beautiful, its great for nature walks and the like, but completely unrealistic. Kids live here for 12 years and never deal with the hearing world. Many of them do get job placements after. But they only live for eight hours with hearing people and then withdraw."102 The evidence of educational benefit to children from separate special classes is unimpressive. For children with profound problems - autistic children or those whose IQ is below 25 - separate and special programs may have substantial benefits. But "research concerning classes for children with more ambiguous handicaps - the educable mentally retarded, mildly emotionally disturbed and perceptually handicapped - reach quite different conclusions. Those programs do not tangibly benefit their students, whose equally handicapped counterparts placed in regular school classes perform at least as well and without apparent detriment to their normal classmates."103 Important steps are now being taken in several states that bear careful scrutiny. Massachusetts, for example, has recently passed a new Special Education law which is a model of flexibility and sensitivity to labels. Its passage is an example of effective outside advocacy combined with responsive state legislative and executive officials. This coalition's strength will determine bow effectively the law is implemented. We hope other states will follow Massachusetts' lead. Those interested in receiving more information on this state law and its progress should write to: David Liederman, Director State Office for Children 120 Boylston Street Boston, Massachusetts 02116 or to: Larry Brown, Director Massachusetts Advocacy Center Two Park Square - 7th Floor Boston, Massachusetts 02116. ---- 101 For example, special education officials of the Public Schools of the District of Columbia, in September, 1972, devised a "Comprehensive Plan for Special Education" for ten levels of programming for children with special problems ranging from regular classroom placement with supportive educational services to tuition grants to private school to institutionalization. 102 Interview with a teacher, Baxter School for the Deaf, Portland. Maine who asked to remain anonymous. l03 David Kirp, "Student Classification, Public Policy, and the Courts," Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 44, No.1, February, 1974, p. 19. 115
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CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL IN AMERICA A
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Copyright If.> October 1974 by the
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People Who Worked Oft This Report .
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Portland, Maine CDF staff Cambridge
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Foreword Introduction Chapter 1 Cha
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CHAPTER 1 Table I CHAPTER 2 Table I
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community leaders concerned with ed
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dren were suspended. The next highe
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described in this report, they can
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needed to improve and unify state c
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Bureaucratic Excuses for Inaction Y
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problems. Are teachers encouraged o
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Who Are the Children Out of School?
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vary. But while many of them descri
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Maxine, 14 Maxine Dolan is 14 and h
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until the new school year. Meanwhil
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awake until morning when the sounds
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He's had his chances, foreign or no
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Theresa, 12 Theresa Engler, a 12-ye
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34 Table I Children Not Enrolled! B
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Proportion of Minority Children 2 T
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Social and Economic Factors Poor ch
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Limitations of Census Data Our anal
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We found children out of school in
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.". 0\ Table VIII Chlldren Out of S
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VI o Table X All Children Out uf Sc
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Total % of Areas Surveyed Children
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Chapter 3 Barriers to School Attend
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TABLE I STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONA
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ter the four months because the cou
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Truancy Laws penalizing children an
Page 83 and 84: A Denver school official stated: "Y
Page 86 and 87: officers who spoke Spanish, and onl
Page 88 and 89: The principal of Lincoln Junior Hig
Page 91 and 92: For example, as of October, 1972, i
Page 93: think there is enough counseling, e
Page 97: fees required to take, for example,
Page 100 and 101: did not have books were not much of
Page 102 and 103: Consider what this would mean if yo
Page 104: no money to feed and care for all o
Page 107: Apparently a judgment has been made
Page 112 and 113: ecome self-sufficient adults are th
Page 114 and 115: In Cambridee, Massachusetts, an att
Page 116 and 117: Inadequacy of Special Education Pro
Page 118 and 119: over again for four or five years.
Page 120: Janice has not been suspended this
Page 123 and 124: ased. 56 They are modeled and norme
Page 125: chusetts counselor pointed out that
Page 128 and 129: that the city does not experiment w
Page 130 and 131: 1. The use of many kinds of people
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Page 137: Many districts still have the power
Page 140 and 141: In contrast to the majority of publ
Page 144 and 145: The same pattern of secondary suspe
Page 148: Racial Discrimination in the Use of
Page 152: One southern school official admitt
Page 158 and 159: tion of the limitation on numbers o
Page 161 and 162: hold hearings, the reaction was sho
Page 164: or programs that operate as alterna
Page 167 and 168: complaints to the federal Office fo
Page 169: APPENDICES
Page 172: • most children who are instituti
Page 175 and 176: as opposed to every second, third,
Page 177 and 178: . Census Tract 123 Census Tract 123
Page 179 and 180: newal. Every third household was mo
Page 181 and 182: -secondary school children by sex a
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10. Are his special problems/needs
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Sheet E-l SCHOOL EXPULSIONS, SUSPEN
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Maine Portland Census Tract 11 I 1:
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ALABAMA State Officials Mr. William
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Mr. Milton Ogle, Associate Director
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Sumter County #2 School Officials D
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AppendixD STATE SCHOOL OFFlCIALS' R
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Los Angeles Unified School District
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AppendlxE u.s. CENSUS DATA Table I
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State Wisconsin Wyoming GRANO TOTAL
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AppendixE U.s. CENSUS DATA Table II
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.... \C 00 AppelldixE U.S. CENSUS D
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AppendixE u.s. CENSUS DATA Table II
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Appendix 6 RANK ORDERS OF AREAS IN
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AppendbH PERCENT OF HEADS OF HOUSEH
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State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkans
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State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkans
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AppendixM STUDENTS ENROLLED IN EDUC
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Lee I 4,925 2,663 2,260 2 83 18 65
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Walker I 9,671 8,924 745 2 230 164
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Collins I 35 29 6 (82.4) (17.1 ) Co
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Junction City 1,003 584 419 (58.2)
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SI. Charles I 245 149 96 (60.8) (39
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AppendlxM STUDENTS ENROLLED IN EDUC
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Appendix M STUDENTS ENROLLED IN EDU
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App@ndblfl STUDENTS ENROLLED IN EDU
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Appendix M STUDENTS ENROLLED IN EDU
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South Pike Cons. I 2,575 893 1,677
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Clarendon #2 I 3,246 784 2,462 54 8
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Orangeburg #7 1,112 158 954 9 9 (14
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A. ppendi.'\: N SPECIAL EDUCATION I
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Learning Deaf!Hard Blind! Speech Ph
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Rhode Island Society for Autistic C
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Federal Court Consent Agreements; P
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Mr. Peter E. Holmes Director, Offic
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census figures and often did not ch
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pils who dropped out of this school
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SUGGESTED REFINEMENTS IN THE INDIVI
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I. Name of School System _ II. Name
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2 1 1 16 2 14 Cotton Plant 586 72 5
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1 1 5 4 1 Tuckerman 820 711 109 (1)
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Appelldlx R OCR DATA ON STUDENT SUS
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APPENDIXR FOOTNOTES I Unless noted
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36There were 1,763 students, suspen
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Total Students Suspended At Least O
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APPENDIX T TABLES I-II FOOTNOTES IS
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Kentucky Floyd County Total I 2 0.5
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AppendixT SUSPENSIONS IN CD" SURVEY
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Kentucky Floyd County Total Mud Cre
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Appendix T SUSPENSIONS IN CDF SURVE
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Appenllb V STATUTORY PROVISIONS FOR
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Massachusetts I Official None -Misc
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itppe",db V STATUTORY PROVISIONS FO
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Bureau is interested primarily in d
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could be collected centrally at the
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