Some quietly remove their kids from public schools.

Can this be anything but very bad for America?

Damn straight it can, if it gets people to take their kids out of public schools and start homeschooling instead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Only_Move_Twice

For the Simpsons fans out there
Bart: Let me get this straight: we're behind the rest of our class and we're going to catch up to them by going slower than they are? Coo Coo!

If you had asked me about mainstreaming Deaf students, I would say, by all means. The school can hire interpreters and there's nothing inherently wrong with a deaf person's ability to learn. Moreover, the deaf and hearing have contact with one another, and learn to coexist. Because as adults, they will have to coexist.

Mainstreaming the mentally challenged, however, is another problem. They simply don't learn with the same methods or at the same rate.

In the same schools, yes. But not in the same classroom, unless the class is Phys. Ed.

Great. All we need to excel is to put a kid in a class that the teacher has to concentrate on.

Not. Sorry, cupcake, the real world doesn't slow down for ya.

The tribe only moves as fast as its slowest member. If you're not going anywhere, well...

Patrick is exactly right. There are a lot of people who are tagged as "disabled" for the simple reason that one of their senses or a limb or something is missing but can otherwise stay on track with a little extra effort from teachers.
I am hearing impaired, as are my brother and sister. We were all mainstreamed, despite considered part of "special ed" and thank goodness, because I am a dental student, my sister is a nurse and my brother is academically gifted. If the teachers didn't wear special microphones and spend a little extra time with us, we probably wouldn't have lived up to our full potential. I am all for it. Teachers should be trained to manage a classroom of children with ranges of academic ability. There are plenty of non-disabled children who are slower than others.

It depends on the reason they are "special ed". Our neighbor has Downs Syndrome. Not high functioning, either. He's a life skills student and will never be able to live alone. I went to high school with a high functioning Downs kid who could function in a regular class. I'm pretty sure Autism and Dyslexia get a kid labelled special ed, too, because it qualifies them for services like tutoring and things like extra testing time, even though they may be gifted mentally. I definitely think there are benefits for all kids in learning inclusiveness-that these kids aren't weird freaks but are people too.

So my answer would be the schools should use common sense as to who is mainstreamed and who isn't- but that's asking way too much of most schools today.

I co-taught I special education students in a regular education middle school classroom. One of the qualifying conditions was that the student had to be at least two years behind academically. We were not allowed to teach rrmedial skills per se. I have always felt that that this was a grave injustice. I was labeled as gifted, yet if I had to be in a classroom that was years ahead of me, I would be incredibly frustrated. Students are identified as special education for a reason. Still, we put them in a fast-paced classroom when they do not even have the pre-requisite skills.

I was told that it should be no problem because the students can use accommodations such as calculators and mnemonic devices. Those don't help students who have not mastered basic concepts such as multiplication by 0 and 1 and addition by 0 - 10. Yes, they can use a calculator, but it they won't know how to utilize it without basic understanding.

My mother was a special ed administrator and mainstreaming was a disaster.

I had friends who removed their son from public school because mainstreamed special ed kids overwhelmed the teacher.

One of the ways around that is to get your child placed in a G and T program because the disruptive ED, and special needs kids wont be in that class.

As far as mainstreaming deaf kids who can cope, A regular classroom is fine in theory but it comes at a cost.
That personal interpreter doesnt work for free. Most come at the price more than a teachers aid.

So that doubles the cost to the taxpayers of educating a disabled child, when an on line education might be more effective and certainly cheaper. And that is certainly the trend for small numbers of kids in locations where it is not cost effective to provide the whole public school support structure.

Parents of special meeds kids need some skin in the game. If they want their kid mainstreamed they should at least have to cough up their SSI disability payments for that child to the public school to defer those extra costs.

"Our schools thrive only with ..."

Interesting POV. Policy revolves around what is needed for "schools" to thrive, NOT the students.

This POV is why people protect their organizations instead of following the intent of the organization's purpose.

This POV is why people w/in organizations must crush individuals that point out where people running the organization have done wrong.

THE ORGANIZATION MUST SURVIVE TO CONTINUE TO DO GOOD! LONG LIVE THE HIVE!

How about taking the time to evaluate each student and place them in classes appropriate to their current level?

That way the teacher's extra attention could be focused on their needs - advanced tutoring for the gifted or studious, remedial help for the learning impaired or, ahem, casual.

Re-evaluate every semester and change assignments accordingly.

But as Bob says, it's about the school, not the student, so it'll never happen.

Besides, imagine the furor when a parent's special snowflake is put into a class with developmentally-disabled kids, simply because they didn't do the work and Mom/Dad refused to discipline them.

Fireworks!

I was a teacher. I worked with special needs kids. The problem is that the question spans a wide group. A blind/deaf kid, a kid whose legs don't work or was born without arms or something like that, no problem. Reasonable accommodations are easy to make.

For kids who have learning difficulties, behavior/emotional problems, or kids with severe issues like serious autism, down's, etc., PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF HEAVEN, NO! It's not fair to the disabled kid, the regular-ed kids, the teachers, anybody. And parents who think that their kid should be mainstreamed under those conditions are, in my experience, parents who want to pretend their kid is "normal."

When my daughter was in grade school I helped during classes in a number of ways. There were a handful of special needs students, with a teaching assistant watching two at a tmie ( at great expense), however, that was even insufficient, I was sitting next to one girl as she tried to cut my daughter's arm with her scissors, the assistant was not able to respond in time and I was chastised for intervening.
Useless and dangerous PC BS in my book.

Well, my son has Downs Syndrome and not ONE OF YOU has even a partial concept as to the reality: Special ED kids are mainstreamed into appropriate class levels to avoid disruption to both the class and the special ed student. Each SE student is evaluated individually and accommodations are made based upon skills, levels and needs. All teachers have to teach a wide variety of learning types, speeds and levels within ANY classroom, so a mainstreamed SE student would be no different. And, I can confidently say that there are SE kids both with and without mental challenges who function better and faster than their "high function" peers. And for those of you who bring this down to issues or cost - I pay my taxes, too. My child has a right to an education and mainstreaming is a benefit to both SE and non-SE kids alike! It teaches tolerance and acceptance, friendship, empathy, leadership and a host of other things for EVERYONE involved. There is absolutely no difference in isolating kids because of their handicap than in isolating them for race - of course, if we did the latter everyone would be in a complete uproar, with lawsuits, picketing, etc. So, part of education is to learn not just from books, but from life experience. Very few people in the public school system would say they "learned" anything real until they got to college where natural selection occurs and those that cannot keep up are kept out.... so, talk to me again when we are at a college level where a student has to keep up with the pace or face getting out and it's all on the student - not the teacher. Until then, it would help if you would realize that learning isn't just pace, books, tests, etc., it's a host of other social and psychological skills that are basic prerequisites to life in a modern society. Mainstreaming is a way to to expose everyone to people, skills and things which they would not otherwise know. Anyone here that thinks society doesn't benefit from mainstreaming in ways other than mere learning is just a bully in sheep's clothing.

Really, Lee? Not one of us?

Even though my suggestion matches your mainstreaming experience?

Reading. It's what's for breakfast.

Gog...: I didn't see your post when I started mine... so yeah, apologies! Thank you for getting it.

And for the teachers who have posted here, please get a clue: It's your job to teach and help kids learn - not just from books. Until kids get to college, school has much less learning impact in their lives anyway except for socialization and life lessons, than we would like to socially acknowledge.

Further, "The Original Kit" implies that I'm probably one of those parents who wants to treat their kid as normal. HELL NO! I celebrate my son's differences and embrace them. By no means do I try and make him "normal." That would just make me look stupid and insensitive and put insane pressure on him... now, there are actually parents who use surgery to "hide" their kids physical traits - TELL THEM what you think... they are few and far between. Not one parent of a SE kid I know pretends their kid is "normal." That type of behavior is adolescent coping skills at their finest - let's hide our eyes and pretend it doesn't exist...

Sorry - I would like to see Amy's thoughts on this - a psychologist who actually "gets it."

I was one of very first disabled kids who they mainstreamed into "regular" classes way back in the mid-60's. first off, please note that during this period - at least in the few schools (in my native Miami, Fl) that even had disabled classrooms - most of us were all lumped together, regardless of physical disability. only the blind and deaf students had separate classrooms. in my class alone, you had kids in wheelchairs, some with severe cerebral palsy who couldn't walk or speak well, along with kids that used crutches and braces or ones missing a limb or had flipper hands, but had no trouble communicating. my first mainstream class was band. I took up an instrument (cornet) just to be out of the madness of special ed. for even an hour. worked great, but those were different times. nobody mocked or bullied me - we were all there to play our instruments. not sure how it would be today though - kids do seem meaner than back then and nowadays it's all about coolness and cliques, but exposing so-called "regular" kids to disabled ones can tend to open their eyes. however, if a kid has serious learning and behavioral issues, then they definitely need a more specialized, separate program. it doesn't mean that they shouldn't be mainstreamed into say, an art class if possible, but there's no sense in trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

I have tutored privately many special needs students and by that I mean those with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and autism. I have also been in classrooms where some of these children were mainstreamed. I have talked with teachers privately as well. For extracurriculars such as PE, Music, and Art these students can usually participate at some level in these activities and that gives reg ed students time to interact socially with disabled students. However in a physics classroom or geometry classroom this is a disaster! The disabled children are frustrated and often act out the regular ed students are bored. It really doesnt help anyone and the teachers who are not concerned with being PC because they actually want to educate children are honest about it. My brother in law is autistic and his parents fought like hell to mainstream him at a pretty high cost. While intellectually he is very high functioning going to dinner with him is a task, his interpersonal relationships are a disaster he is often sad and depressed because instead of learning many life skills they forced him in to a regular classroom where they all pretended he just had "some issues" and nothing was ever addressed.

"I was bored senseless in mainstream classes as a person who was tested as "gifted." Am I gifted? I'm gifted at figuring out what is required on a standardized test and in guessing the answer if I don't know it. Luckily, one thing I was gifted in was developing an intuitive understanding of grammar because I was sent out to label trees for a project as a gifted kid while other kids too grammar. I wouldn't know the subjunctive if it slapped on a latex glove and...I'll stop now."

LOL! Yeah, thanks for visual. I was bored as well, figured things out like you and also tested "gifted." I was placed into a Gifted Magnet school and AP classes in High School. That being said, it was all useless except at keeping me more engaged/entertained. Slowing down a class because a few students learn slower is silly - SE kids who are mainstreamed aren't always there to "keep up." As long as they aren't disruptive, they are there for social reasons, for life lessons. We can't fool ourselves into thinking that classes are made up of a single type of learner, a single level, etc. My step son tests HORRIBLY but is brilliant and it takes him 2-3x as long as some other children without labels to read the same book or do the same assignment. Does that make him SE? Nope! He's in the same classes.... so the reality is, unless a school is creating the world's biggest delta between capabilities when they mainstream, it doesn't have any greater impact than the various levels of "normal" kids without SE labels already in those classes....

Oh - one last comment (maybe). Mainstreaming doesn't necessarily mean every class, every day, all day... it's assessed based on skills. I fear that those who have had bad experiences with slowing down overall learning have been exposed to mainstreaming done badly.... I think addressing a better way to mainstream (e..g., fixing it) in those cases would serve everyone better.

It's tricky because, as many people have pointed out, "disabled" is a pretty broad stroke to paint a medley of physical, learning and behavioral challenges.

My friend is a teacher in a district that mainstreams, and the results are mixed. On one hand, it's great that the special-ed kids aren't being basically quarantined in a separate classroom as they were when we were kids.

On the other ... whenever she gets a kid with severe behavioral issues in her class, she tends to think it's not fair to the other students. She's had kids bite her (and others), try to set fire to things via cigarette lighters they smuggled in, tip over giant bookshelves, squeeze themselves behind bookshelves to "hide," and cut themselves and others with scissors. When you turn around from helping one student to find a kid has scraped off his own fingernail and is smearing the blood on his desk, you need to find the instrument he used (in this case, it was a picket knife the kid had brought into school in the finger of his winter glove and hidden behind the classroom garbage can), escort the kid to the health room, quiet down a room of kids who are now totally distracted by the ordeal, and clean up the desk of blood. Repeat this about once a week for a year, and that cuts into some valuable learning time for the other students.

Public schools suck. They are outmoded, outdated, and in no way prepare anyone for success in the world beyond. They suck for gifted students, they suck for special ed students, and they suck for average students. Anything that helps one group will increase the suck for the other two. Any test that is "fair" or standardized is a lousy method of testing whether the student can actually think.

The entire American scholastic model is based on turning out kids who will be really good at factory work. 150 years ago that was a brilliant idea. Factory work was some of the best you could get. But the model for education has not changed since then and we are most definitely in a post-industrialization society.

"Should special ed kids be mainstreamed?" Is a red herring. Complicated enough that you feel like you've come to an actual solution when you've set a system in place one way or the other. The entire system needs to be pulled up by its roots and reworked if it's going to teach kids how to be the creative thinkers and innovators that are going to thrive in the next century.

I fear that those who have had bad experiences with slowing down overall learning have been exposed to mainstreaming done badly

I agree. In my post above, I'd say this was a case of mainstreaming done badly -- ie, putting kids who can't handle a classroom setting in a regular classroom all day.

At the tail end of my elementary school career, they started putting special-needs kids in regular classrooms for the morning only and then separating them, and the GT kids, out for the afternoon. In addition, my school would allow kids who were advanced in reading or math to get bumped up to the next grade in the afternoon for those classes. It was a very fluid system that worked great.

Oh - one last comment (maybe). Mainstreaming doesn't necessarily mean every class, every day, all day... it's assessed based on skills. I fear that those who have had bad experiences with slowing down overall learning have been exposed to mainstreaming done badly.... I think addressing a better way to mainstream (e..g., fixing it) in those cases would serve everyone better.

Posted by: Lee Ladisky at September 18, 2013 8:11 AM

Unfortunately in government run schools, paid for with tax dollars, doing mainstreaming well, or education well for that matter, it always going to take a back seat to the interests of employees, and their unions.

The government needs to get out of the business of delivering an overly bureaucratized product, in the most expensive way possible.

There will be no quality control and generally good outcomes, until each parent can chose an education for their child and pay for it themselves.

Don't want to be harsh here, But no one with Downs syndrome, is destined to be a rocket scientist, a doctor or an engineer if we just educate them well enough.
Their severe limitations as employees and productive citizens will follow them for their entire life.

Frankly, spending forty thousand dollars a year for the special education necessary to mainstream a severely handicapped child, merely so they can "feel good about themselves". Is a criminal waste of public money.

Education needs to be about preparing people to be independent and productive members of society. We have seen how government money thrown madly at education has done nothing but produce a a flury of college diiplomas where the barely literate, obtain degrees in subjects that prepare them for essentially nothing.

Our entire social welfare system, is unsustainable, and one of the many things that needs to end, is the free babysitting service for kids who will never be either independent adults or taxpayers.

My daughter had a kid in her class who was on a gurney. School was basically respite care so his mother could have some time off. He was a sweet kid but not engaged in the classroom.

Isab nailed it. Lee Ladisky simply sounds like one of the many deluded and entitled parents of intellectually disabled children who demand the schools structure everything around their kids' deficiencies, typical or gifted kids be damned.

My wife runs the special ed department at a very large elementary school that practices mainstreaming, often even for the kids with the worst behavior ("emotional disability") issues. Her stories are frankly frightening, at least from the perspective of a parent with a (now grown, thankfully) "gifted" child.

I read somewhere that the public schools spend 17 times more on the intellectually disabled than the gifted. Basically we're spending piles of taxpayer money turning out a bunch of marginally or minimally functional citizens while ignoring the people who could actually improve our society and quality of life. It's a recipe for disaster.

But the system is way too entrenched to change at this point. We'll just keep throwing more and more money at the intellectually disabled, because their parents are always the squeaky wheels and will lawyer up at the first sign of the school's resistance to giving their kid the services and learning environment the parents demand. There's an entire industry of "advocates" who will threaten and cajole school administrators - sometimes for years - into bending to the will of entitled and demanding parents of SPED kids.

My wife and I have had many long conversations about this. We basically decided that since there's no fixing this, if she can't beat 'em she might as well join 'em. She's getting another Masters to continue her career in the field. Resistance is futile, at least in the decades she has left in her field. But at least she's making good money, will make even better money with the second Masters, and there's even a remote chance of getting the retirement she's been promised.

Mainstreaming the mentally challenged, however, is another problem. They simply don't learn with the same methods or at the same rate.~ Patrick

I agree, mostly, with Patrick on this one. Isab does make a good point about even deaf children causing cost overruns or delays for schools. However, I've worked with some deaf folks and didn't not find they slowed things down, so....

If mainstreaming the special ed student slows down the rest of the class, you may be doing a service to the special ed student, but you're doing a disservice to the rest of the class ... and to the community at large.

A classroom full of students who have become bored with the subject matter or do not complete the material by the end of the year because of constant delays mandated by a student or students who cannot keep up means another group of ill-educated people joining society - either after graduating with a less-than-grade-level education or dropping out; more Honey Boo Boo fans.

While it may teach those students to accept mentally challenged folks in society, it leaves them less-than-well-equipped to deal with a high tech, fast paced changing knowledge economy. That means more economically illiterate burger flippers demanding an ever-increasing minimum wage.

I'm glad we pay more attention to special ed than we used to. My sister in law is severely dyslexic and the El Paso school district put her in with low IQ kids in the 70's. My mother in law finally opened a school that specialized in dyslexia to educate her, but that is not going to work for most.

On the other hand, it is very expensive. My neighbors were talking a few months ago: one has a special needs kid (low IQ, speech impediment, physically ungainly) and the other teaches special needs kids in the school district. The teacher talked about placing an autistic boy who needed a special education and a classroom with windows (else he freaked out) and the mother talked about how the district cut off the one counselor who helped her son and I was sitting there wondering how much all the one-on-one teaching models cost in toto.

Isab and Mike are right. Far too much collective money is wasted on minimal benefit to society and definitely at the expense of other children. The elementary school I attended shut down their gifted program that I, and five others, were in. They did this because they got ONE special needs child that was mentally challenged. The parents fought it and lost. The administrators said it cost 8 times as much to hire a personal teacher's aide just for him than it did to run the gifted program, not including the special curriculum and teaching aids they had to buy to help him learn. On top of that he was mainstreamed into my classroom but doing his own thing in the back. He'd scream and disrupt the class regularly. The result of all this money is an adult that lives in an adult foster home unable to work or do a lot of his basic skills like preparing food for himself. But you know, they need to be educated too. Mommy and daddy pay taxes so they're entitled! *insert giant eye roll here*

On the other hand, I had a deaf friend growing up. She attended public school in a regular classroom with no problems. She could read lips and talk (she had some hearing with hearing aids). She'd likely be labeled special needs in today's school environment, but required nothing more than having the teacher look straight ahead when speaking so she could read lips.

"It's your job to teach and help kids learn - not just from books."

There is a problem here - in that lots of people forget that parents have a burden to teach.

It's your offspring. Hey, if you don't want to raise a bullet stop, lend a hand.

My sister is currently in an M.Ed. program (her undergrad school didn't offer an elementary education program), and one of her first classes pushed mainstreaming ridiculously heavily. Lectures on how mainstreaming was the same thing as racial segregation were common. A mainstreamed student with severe Down's (who would never function independently) was brought in, but none of her more able peers were brought in to discuss how it affected them. No one explained why they felt the need to waste time putting this girl in middle and high school math, science, and history classes when what she really needed weree life skills classes.

Her experience has driven her to want to teach only at private schools. They make less money, but at least they don't have to put up with such stupid, ideologically driven policies.

For those who still don't understand why mainstreaming of mentally handicapped people is a bad idea,

Imagine how you would feel as both a parent, and a student, if, in the interests of equality, and the right to an education,

The school decided to put an active two year old, into a classroom filled with normal 11 year olds?

Do you imagine, even for a minute it would benefit either the two year old, or the 11 year olds?

And yet, this is exactly what the mainstreaming proponents are advocating.

I have a teaching certificate, and substituted once in a skills class in high school for the mentally handicapped.

They were sweet kids, really, but we spent the day learning how to set a table, and bus the dishes.

All of the kids were over 16 and would never drive or live independently..
Why is it considered appropriate for the schools to spend their time doing this, as opposed to the kids learning this task hands on as a minumum wage employee at a restaurant?

I had an experience the other way. In middle school, I (and a few others) spent one period in the special ed room. We were somewhere between teachers and students. We helped the kids with things (remember to put your name on your paper), ran errands for the teachers, etc. This gave the kids in the class some time with "normal" (if any middle school kid is normal) kids and helped them form relationships outside the classroom. I think that was good for everyone.

I agree with the other comments about it depending on why the child is special ed. Are they dyslexic? Color blind? Have a lisp? Missing a leg? Or are they severely handicapped? Prone to repetitive ritualistic behaviors?

Yes, some accommodations are expensive, but if the child is mentally and socially able (meaning they won't hit/scream/or be really disruptive) I think the regular classroom is best. If the child is severely phobic, even if gifted, the regular classroom is not a good match.

As for the impact on gifted kids, if you put a special ed kid (special by nature of mental ability for whatever reason) into a regular classroom with a very gifted kid - frankly I don't think it will impact the gifted kid. The gifted kid is already bored out of his or her mind. A kid who is 130 IQ is just as far from 100 as the kid who is 70. Now the teacher has a wider range of issues, but any slowing won't slow down the gifted kid. That kid is already going nowhere. If the teacher accommodates the gifted kid, then it won't impact because the kid will be doing his/her own thing (reading harder books, programing a computer, whatever).

I know a guy who had a severely hearing impaired son. He told me the school was wonderful and had all sorts of accommodations, but his kid did better at a private boarding school. He learned more skills he would need (whole classes on reading lips, for instance) and it didn't impact his ability to socialize in the same way.

I was another kid who was bored to tears in normal classes, without special needs kids mainstreamed in. I remember a teacher grabbing a book out of my hands that I had been reading semi-concealed in my desk during math. This was in a private Catholic school with smaller class sizes and students from relatively affluent families (tuition certainly cost a fortune), and so probably at a higher academic level than your average public school. I was still quite often bored until I was placed in the advanced eighth grade math class, at that time algebra.

Students were put in either the large normal pre-algebra class, the small advanced algebra class or the small remedial math class. The small classes were taught by a very strict but excellent teacher who happened to be my mom. I got no favors from her--she wouldn't let me address her as "Mom" in class, and that was the year my dad helped me with all of my math homework because she refused to answer even the simplest question related to the class at home. But I loved it because she was great at her job and I felt challenged for pretty much the first time, like all my fellow algebra classmates. The kids in the remedial class tended to flourish too, they needed a lot of focused attention and extra help and they got it. After eighth grade I was accepted into a public magnet high school and was finally exhilarated and challenged by all my classes. It was such a joy!

Once I entered high school I became more privy to the behind the scenes of my mom's teaching job at my old school, the politics and PC thinking that made it so difficult. Everyone wants the best for their kid, but how is putting a kid in a class that they can't understand best for them? Or forcing a kid to be bored while the teacher expends most of their effort trying to reach students who have huge difficulties learning in a regular classroom?

My cousin is developmentally disabled, at 35 years of age he's about 10 years old intellectually. He's very loved and no less of a person than anyone else, and I would never want him in an academic class of mine or my child. My aunt and uncle fought constantly to get him all the help they could while he was growing up so that he can work and have a fulfilling life (they still do), but I am pretty sure they would never have wanted him in academic classes with regular students either. He got and continues to get special needs schooling and training. He needs to be taught with material and instruction catered to his circumstances in order to actually learn and, better yet, use what he learns.

If we have public magnet schools we should have public special needs schools. I know, there's not enough to pay for everything everyone needs and the public school system is wrecked anyway. But keeping the special needs, regular and super smart students together all the time hinders EVERYONE'S ability to learn, which in turn diminishes their ability to achieve their potential and contribute to society.

Those are my thoughts and experiences. I've got no practical solutions.

For what it's worth, here are some stories (foul language ahead):

http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,279506

And there was another thread about how it's grossly unfair to make neuro-typical students help the mentally disabled with their paperwork, since that's the teacher's job and so the kids are doing unpaid work that SHOULD be paid, but I can't find it right now.

"always going to take a back seat to the interests of employees, and their unions."

I'll say! Just look at the double-dipping military retirees sucking down lifetime benefits after 20 years of drinking coffee and eating donuts behind a desk.

And no, I'm not talking about Joe Bob Gruntslogger who got his legs blowed off in Iraq, I'm talking about the ladder-climbing officer corps and lardass senior enlisted who push paper for a living.

For shame. Union of the worst sort, led by politically-connected Academy types. Barf.

“When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.”

That notorious quote was from Albert Shanker, President of the Teachers Union (United Federation of Teachers) from 1964 to 1984 as well as President of the Teachers Union (American Federation of Teachers) from 1974 to 1997.

Lee Ladisky, I'm not talking ugly about anybody. Having BEEN a teacher, and seen how difficult it is for the special needs kids as well as the regular ed kids, it is my professional opinion based on my education and experience that children with severe mental or behavioral disorders, disabilities, or differences need an environment other than the regular education classroom.

A severely autistic 7-year-old child, for example, when put into a room full of 20 other 7-year-olds will be miserable. Again, I'm not talking about mild differences, I'm talking about severe issues, ones that a regular education teacher is NOT TRAINED IN. It's very easy to say "it's your job to teach the kids."
But education degree programs are not designed around making sure every teacher who leaves with her sheepskin knows how to work with every child with any physical, mental, or emotional issue, and of any severity. There are too many of them. Special education programs are designed for that, and it's a hard, usually thankless job. We burn out. Quickly. And then we leave and there are not enough new teachers to take our place.

I could tell you horror stories about classrooms with double the number of allowed mainstream kids, special education team teachers who never showed up to team teach in the regular ed classroom. It's a bad situation. The public schools are BAD. That's why I left, but it doesn't change the fact that if you put children with severe problems in a regular ed classroom, it often causes THOSE children more harm than good.

And parents who think that their kid should be mainstreamed under those conditions are, in my experience, parents who want to pretend their kid is "normal."

Reminds me of a new story I read where a mother had filed a wrongful death suit against a school when her kid died. Seems the kid was allergic to peanuts, but she never told any of the kids teachers, or the school, or even the kid himself because she wanted him to have a 'normal childhood experience'

All teachers have to teach a wide variety of learning . . . speeds and levels within ANY classroom

And thats half the problem. I was in 7th grade pre algebra, I would get to class and finish the evenings homework before the teach had even got a quarter of the way thru the lesson, so would another student. We got so bored we'd race each other to finish the assignment while doing all the calculation in our heads never writing down any figure other than the final answer. But the algebra class was 'full' and it would have beenn 'unfair' to their learning experiance, never mind the fact half the class was getting D's and probably should have been made to retake the lower class.

So screw you and your kid. Why are your childs need more important than that of the other children? Especially when those other kids will be paying the taxes that support your kid when you are dead and there is no familly to support him when he is older?

The Goddess writes: I was bored senseless in mainstream classes as a person who was tested as "gifted." Am I gifted? I'm gifted at figuring out what is required on a standardized test and in guessing the answer if I don't know it.

I asked my mother if I was gifted, and she said, "Well, I certainly wouldn't have paid for you."

You need to decide the purpose of the public school system before you answer the question. If it's indoctrination to create an orderly society, you get one answer. If it's to create the advances that will improve the future, you get another. I lean toward the lujlp opinion, but I don't suffer the delusion that life will ever be fair.

I am too lazy to go back and find who wrote it, but trust me, kids were just as cruel back in my long-ago school days. The difference is that we had manners, at least in public, or paid the price. You can thank my generation, the boomers, for their demise. I did say life was unfair.

I knew a mom with a retarded step kid many years ago before they started mainstreaming here. She took him to his school every day, and she said they always started acting stupider together, having a ball laughing and putting on each other's jackets and stuff. But they were definitely "bad" influences on behavior in the minds of the adults. So, now the normal kids are expected to raise them up, but instead everyone is dragged down. Also, I knew a very borderline student in HS and she was miserable because she knew she couldn't keep up but there she was.

Between mainstreaming, disciplinary no-no's, NCLB testing, and all the other things teachers have to endure, I understand why their unions are so intransigent nowadays.

Between mainstreaming, disciplinary no-no's, NCLB testing, and all the other things teachers have to endure, I understand why their unions are so intransigent nowadays.

Posted by: carol at September 19, 2013 12:32 PM

From what I understand the unions are quite in favor of mainstreaming. Why? Because it is a hook that they use to lobby for smaller classes and more teachers aids.

smaller classes and more teachers aids, equals more union members, more power for the union, and more money flowing to the union leaders.

I'll say! Just look at the double-dipping military retirees sucking down lifetime benefits after 20 years of drinking coffee and eating donuts behind a desk. -- Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 18, 2013 4:56 PM

What does that have to do with any of the rest of this conversation?

I'll say! Just look at the double-dipping military retirees sucking down lifetime benefits after 20 years of drinking coffee and eating donuts behind a desk. -- Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 18, 2013 4:56 PM
What does that have to do with any of the rest of this conversation?

Posted by: Jim P. at September 20, 2013 7:35 PM

It only makes sense if you assume Gog is the new. moniker for the old Assholio, who has two drums he likes to bang. One is farm subsidies, and the other is military retirement.

He also probably assumes since my husband is a USMA grad, that he is a double dipper. In truth, my husband has yet to collect even one retirement from the feds, and when he does, it will be less than what my mother gets from the state teachers retirement fund, for a job she retired from in 1985.

By the way, I am not anti union. I am anti public employees unions, because there is only one side to the bargaining table, and the tax payers never get a real say in what they are on the hook for.