I wanted to post in the two great diaries on disability (here and here) but I did not because my posts would have hijacked the threads. I was going to post that my son has a medical condition which is considered a disability, but it's probably only a disability because of societal structures and schedules. However, because of this medical condition and a concomitant learning disability, he is a special education student.
This weekend, I overheard a discussion about how disabled/special education students should not be 'mainstreamed' because they slow down progress for the 'normal' students. I'd like to start a discussion about this topic and get information from the educators and parents here who have knowledge and experience in these matters.
More information below.
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ["ADA"]:
The term "disability" means, with respect to an individual
(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual;
(B) a record of such an impairment; or
(C) being regarded as having such impairment.
My son's medical condition substantially limits one or more of his major life activities, so it qualifies as a disability. He has non-24-hour circadian rhythm sleep disorder, which causes his circadian rhythm to advance about an hour or so each day without treatment, where within a couple of weeks he'll go around the clock with his sleep/wake cycle (asleep at 2am and up at 11am one day, asleep at 3am and up at 12pm the next, etc.).
If he wasn't expected to show up at school at 8am every morning and eventually hold down a job at regularly scheduled hours, he probably wouldn't be considered disabled because then his medical condition wouldn't substantially limit his major life activities other than going to sleep and waking up at predicted times. But he is considered disabled for purposes of educational rights, and that means I've had to spend a lot of time fighting for a fair education for him while at the same time seeking solutions to mitigate the effects of his disability.
In addition to his medical condition, he has a learning disability whereby his processing speed is about half what it's expected to be compared to his other mental functions. His verbal/logical IQ scores are superior, but his processing speed is closer to the Forrest Gump range.
These disabilities, combined, have caused us both a great deal of frustration because there are no outward signs of any disability. He has very advanced verbal skills (always able to read and comprehend text at 3 to 5 years ahead of his age peers), so he uses big words and uses them correctly. His use of big words and otherwise good academic performance give the illusion that he has no learning disability. This has caused his teachers to assume that if he wasn't keeping up in class, he was simply being lazy or 'refusing to do his work.'
I've had to threaten lawsuits against school districts for excluding him from class due to his disabilities because the teachers would get angry with his lack of ability to keep up with his peers in written work and would send him to the office or out in the hallway, claiming he had a behavior problem and that he was refusing to do his work.
Fortunately, he's more or less 'fixed' nowadays with treatment for his medical condition (bright light therapy and drugs to cue melatonin secretion) so he's currently able to function well within society's time constraints. He is even flourishing at this time at school since he has a special education resource worker who actually understands his learning disability. But it took a lot of help to get him to where he now is. The wonderful doctors and staff at Kennedy Krieger Institute helped tremendously, as did doctors at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
My son is 'mainstreamed' (meaning he is educated in the regular classroom with non-disabled students). I believe he should be mainstreamed due to his high aptitude and low-impact disabilities. But I know there are kids who are severely disabled who are being mainstreamed when they may not be receiving the greatest benefit by being so because the specialized attention and teacher resources needed to teach them are unavailable, causing strain on the teachers and impairing the non-disabled students' learning. I do not know all the arguments for or against mainstreaming the severely disabled but I do know the tight educational budgets cause a lack of special education teachers and that has an impact on students.
I overheard a conversation this weekend against mainstreaming. Two teachers were saying that the mainstreaming of severely disabled students shouldn't be happening as much and it's usually the parents who push for mainstreaming. The student in the example wasn't able to communicate verbally or even to write but had to be taught calculus for purposes of testing (and I assume for reporting purposes as well).
As the parent of a child who is in Special Education, I wanted to jump in but instead I listened. All I heard were arguments against the parents and in support of the teachers. One teacher was airing her frustrations with having to teach the graduation exam to kids who don't understand it because they're disabled. The conversation was furthered by my wingnut father who declared that special ed kids shouldn't be in classes with regular kids where they hinder the progress of the regular students. My father has no experience whatsoever with disabled students so I really didn't feel he had any authority to speak, but that's beside the point and par for the course with wingnuts in general.
Exmearden mentioned in her diary how Reagan cut the Federal funding for disability education. I was in middle school and high school at the time so I didn't really notice anything Reagan did until about 1986 and then, I didn't notice very much. I'd like for anyone here who was a teacher at that time or a parent of a disabled student or otherwise noticed this trend to please give your insights into the situation.
NCLB is what has caused one of the teachers participating in the conversation to have to teach the graduation exam to students regardless of their ability to even take the test, from what I understand (please correct me if I've got this wrong). I know in my experience with my son's schools, my son has done worse since NCLB and there are less and less resource workers available to help him in the classes he needs help with. I've heard nothing but complaints from teachers about NCLB, never any praise.
My thought is that wingnuts can't have it both ways. Bush's NCLB requires all kids to be taught how to pass certain tests, yet there is no funding to help the schools teach all the kids. And, from what I understand, the special ed kids have to be mainstreamed more than in the past because there's not enough money to support a separate special ed class for each grade. Furthermore, I heard last week that science and technical enrollment at universities is declining rapidly and I wonder if NCLB and funding cuts have had anything to do with the decline or not.
I'm not sure I've got the facts right. I'm going on inferences from past experience mostly. That's why I've posted this diary--to ask those who know more about disability education for more information and where to look for even more information about disability education, educational rights and advocacy.
Thanks again to exmeardenand righteousbabefor sharing their stories and helping shed more light on the topic of disability education for me.
Update: I'm logging off for a few hours but should check back in around lunchtime to respond to any comments this diary may get before it scrolls off the page.