For years, parents of children with special needs have demanded classroom inclusion. They want a Free, Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in general classes, the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE).
But in Philadelphia, parents want a public school for students with autism and neurodiversity. They recognize that their students are not getting the resources or teachers they need to do their best in the general education classroom.
They should get what they’re asking for. Parents should have real public school options.
IDEA Should Involve Public School Choices
It’s important to remember that IDEA states that children with disabilities should be educated in general classes to the ‘maximum extent appropriate.’ This means other classroom environments are, or should be, just as critical when the general class isn’t the best.
The Philadelphia school district has 3,400 students who could benefit from such a school, and parents can’t afford to fight the system for outside private school placement, and they shouldn’t have to. Their children need something different, and that’s supposed to be what FAPE and IDEA are about.
While the LRE is suitable for some, and many children with disabilities can manage well in general classes, there should be no stigma or argument from school district leaders if students are better served in a public school for children with autism and neurodivergent needs.
The LRE can be challenging if classes are too large, and general education teachers might not understand the various special needs children may bring to the classroom. Diversifying instruction for many students may look good on paper, but it’s more challenging to implement.
Some parents, if they can afford it, remove their children from public schools when their student’s special needs are not addressed in a general classroom, and they place them in a special private school without inclusion, hoping for an intense focus on academic and social instruction, and where the student gets smaller classes and more individualized attention.
But private, parochial, and charter schools can be lacking when it comes to addressing the needs of children with autism and with neurodivergent needs.
Remembering the History and What It Means for Today and the Future
Special education was supposed to assist students with disabilities starting in the early 1970s. Children often confined to terrible institutions now saw the schoolhouse doors open.
Still, when the All Handicapped Children Act became law in 1975, an unprecedented change to welcome all children into public schools to meet their individual learning needs, President Gerald Ford and many lawmakers recognized that it would be costly. Ford signed the bill without a Rose Garden celebration, despite the great pride Americans should have felt for showing they collectively cared for every child.
For years, public schools built a special education system that addressed the needs of students with Individual Educational Plans, with funds that were never sufficient.
But by the 1990s many parents were convinced that nothing less than general education full inclusion would benefit their child. This was called the Regular Education Initiative (REI) and it became controversial.
Parents with children in public school also became convinced that their children deserved to master the high-stakes standardized tests without questioning whether standards or one-size-fits-all expectations might be bad for all children.
Other parents and educators continued to fight for a continuum of services, for children who would benefit from special classes or schools.
All of this culminated into the reauthorization of the All Handicapped Children’s Act of 1975 into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1998. IDEA was reauthorized again in 2004.
Many school leaders and corporate school reformers wanted to see a cost reduction for special education services. They never wanted to pay for those services from the start.
Nonprofits were set up to look for ways to cut special education costs. Remember the SPEDX scandal in Texas and Futures?
Texas led states in cutting services, denying tens of thousands of children with disabilities special education by capping the number of students with disabilities to decrease the costs. It’s was still a problem in Texas in 2020.
The New Orleans charter system has also had difficulties with serving children with disabilities, but despite a lawsuit, as of 2020, they, like Texas, continue to have problems serving children with disabilities.
Probably many parents and educators can point to problems with serving children with special needs in other states too.
So what are parents to do? Will private or parochial schools take children with disabilities in inclusion classes? Charter schools are known for denying applications to children with disabilities or counseling them out. Questions should be raised too about the quality of such placements. Are the teachers well-prepared and qualified? Parents have little to go by.
Provide Parents in Philadelphia Their Public School for Autism and Neurodiverse Students
Parents seem to recognize this in Philly. One parent, also a school counselor, said that fighting for her autistic son’s access to resources such as properly trained special needs teachers — lead her to believe that ‘the same system that was created to protect autistic kids from being institutionalized is harming them now.’
For those of us who have studied special education long term, this is a sad and troubling, albeit realistic statement. Parents of children with special needs are being driven out of public education because they’re not receiving the services they deserve by law.
Philadelphia parents scrounge around to build a nonprofit to fight for their special school, but why must they do this? Why is the Philadelphia school system so underfunded that they cannot pay for a special public school for students with autism and neurodiversity?
Look to years of driving corporate privatization of public schools by draining their funds dry and pushing parents out.
Watching Philadelphia parents recognize the importance of a public school for children with autism and neurodiversity is welcome. Let’s hope it catches on in other states and local school districts.
School districts should comply and states and the U.S. Department of Education should support such arrangements, so students will get the assistance they deserve under special education law that has been manipulated far too long to not provide the services that children were promised.
speduktr says
It was always my understanding that LRE applied to the child and not the facility. The LRE is frequently NOT the general education classroom. Some children cannot function in that setting; the LRE for them has some guardrails not available in the general ed classroom. Unfortunately, some parents want/ed their child in the general ed classroom in spite of the stress to the child and frequently the other children in the room. The general education classroom is a realistic goal for many if not most children who struggle, but it is not an appropriate starting placement for many.
Nancy Bailey says
I am not exactly sure here but I stand corrected. I agree about inclusion, which is what I was trying to get at. Didn’t both the reauthorizations of the original law push for inclusion resulting in programs like RTI?
Needless to say, these parents understand that inclusion isn’t the proper placement and the question is why do the parents have to fight so hard if they have IDEA protections? .
MG says
School leaders too often put children with disabilities in regular classrooms without sufficient “supplementary aids and services” and without adequately considering and providing what is truly some children’s least restrictive environment (e.g. a specially designed classroom for at least part of the day) because it is cheaper for the district.
A “least restrictive environment” is not necessarily a general education classroom but is dependent on the child’s needs. IEP teams should have a continuum of potential least restrictive environments to consider when determining how to provide a free appropriate public education. Parents are to be equal members of the IEP team and an IEP should not be presented to the parents on a take it or leave it basis.
Ҥ 300.115 Continuum of alternative placements.
(a) Each public agency must ensure that a continuum of alternative placements is available to meet the needs of children with disabilities for special education and related services….
****”
One wonders what schools do with all the money they claim to spend on special education students. Clearly some is spent on special education students but I wonder if some school leaders aren’t siphoning money elsewhere.
Nancy Bailey says
Excellent information! I agree with all of it. Thank you.
speduktr says
I should have added that the Philadelphia parents deserve our support. the push to privatization has drained the resources the public schools need to provide adequate services to all children, but special needs children are especially impacted because there are no viable alternatives to the underfunded public schools.
Nancy Bailey says
Absolutely, and why some parents want to exit public schools.
It’s always interesting how some parents insist on inclusion but leave and choose a special school.
Thanks.
Paula McDonald says
Absolutely correct. Even when price is no object there are very few private schools that will accept children with IEPs/special needs. And even schools dedicated to dyslexia and other needs are difficult to get into- my area has one 40 minutes away and $28k/year
Nancy Bailey says
Thank you, Paula. Like you, I believe there’s a need. I know this is a sensitive topic, and some parents feel strongly that every child should be in a general ed. class, but unless those classes are smaller and teachers are well-prepared, some children will be lost.
Paula McDonald says
This issue is further complicated by the fact that the IEP system is used to disposition children that don’t meet common core standards and invokes misdiagnosis and diagnostic inflation of ADHD and “Educational” Autism. Starts in the earliest days of kindergarten.
Nancy Bailey says
This is very interesting to me and what I’ve been worried about for some time now. Parents can’t help but be pushed to insist their child master the standards. The standards wind up ruling what and how a child learns. What might be missed in the child’s talents? It’s not just a concern for those with autism but all students. It’s a one-size-fits-all mentality. Thanks again.
Paul BOnner says
I have experienced special education practices as an administrator and a parent. Inclusion could work if it was adequately staffed. However, as that became the mandate districts and states simply expected the same number of teachers in self contained units to serve throughout the school. This often led to tracking special education students in the same classes so the special education teacher could serve them. This practice ignored the fact that students are given an IEP because they have special needs. These cannot be served collectively and in many cases require separate special education classes.. Another problem I have with IDEA is that FAPE has become an excuse to do the minimum. The best I could do as a principal is try to hire regular classroom teachers with duel certification because they at least understood that the inclusion teachers should be treated as a partner serving the classroom. This, like so many of the issues challenging public education, is an issue of funding. It costs money to serve our children and providing meaningful resources should be seen as an investment, not a burden.
Nancy Bailey says
Great points, Paul. I agree about staff and would also like to see a promise that inclusion classes would be smaller. I’ve seen big classes with 2 or 3 children getting the teacher’s attention while most of the class is taught by a teacher’s assistant.
Also, regarding teachers, I recently read that there’s a need for more doctoral students in special ed. to teach students. It all requires funding. And you’re right about it being an investment we all get behind.
Thank you!
Carrie says
Here is something my mom told me. She was a teacher and administrator at a state school for the blind. It was a community school for those living close by and a residential school for students living farther away in the state. There were lots of really good programs there that served a range of students with a range of disabilities.
It seems relevant in this discussion as we consider what IS the LRE that is best for each student. It may be something that we have overlooked–the student’s social experience.
One program at my mom’s school was for students who attended the school for the blind half a day and a local district school half a day. At the school for the blind, teens developed individual identities–the funny kid, the smart kid, the athlete, the good friend to all. But at the district school, they were known as… you guessed it… The Blind Kid.
Now, this was in the 1970s and 1980s, so maybe since then schools have worked out better how to help students with and without disabilities integrate socially. I hope so.
Thank you for your steady work on behalf of all students, Nancy!
Nancy Bailey says
Hi Carrie, It is nice to hear from you. I agree with your mom that for some children working with others who have a similar disability can be helpful, especially if the teacher has good preparation in the area. Other students might thrive in general classes with good support, and it is vital for teachers, parents, and students to feel comfortable with the placement. It would be nice if students had a continuum of services. We used to try to do this. Your illustration of your mom’s situation is a good one. In either placement, children need to learn to not only tolerate differences in others but to seek to understand the beauty in that diversity. Thanks!
Darrell David says
In this thought-provoking article, the author highlights the importance of fighting for inclusive and high-quality public education options for students with autism and neurodiversity. It sheds light on the challenges parents face in finding suitable educational environments and advocates for policies that prioritize the needs of these students. Thank you to the author for raising awareness and promoting meaningful change in the education system.