Thoughts on Special Ed students

Anne LaTarte, Managing Director of Program at TFA, wrote the following and gave me permission to share it:

I'm writing in  response to your email about the Supreme Court ruling on tuition for Special Education students.

First... I  don't think that sending students with special needs to private schools is necessarily the answer at all (no matter who pays for it). Our country has a chronic problem of lowering expectations for IEP students regardless of what community they come from. Sending students with special needs of to separate, private environments isn't an inclusive approach. I'd love to  see a special education program, public OR private, that actually works to meet the needs of our students in a way that recognizes their ability (not their disability) and does not isolate them from peers who may not be at such a disadvantage.

I taught special education through Teach for America for two years in Washington Heights, and for three years on TFA staff I've managed and supported over 500 teachers, about half of whom are special education. I've also been into the classroom where my younger sister is fulfilling her student-teaching requirement in suburban Michigan (at a well-off public school). The same problems that existed in that classroom with high expectations for special needs students are the ones that I see every day in our poor, urban schools.

Special Education is the gap within the achievement gap and I don't think the solution is to outsource our support of special needs students but to ensure that the public services they receive are actually doing the job. The will to ensure that those pubic services occur will only come from a society that believes in our special needs students.

That's  actually my larger sentiment about vouchers... I have a hard time seeing the solution ever being "send them to another school." The only long-term solution I can really get behind is fixing the broken public system. I think our notion of "democracy" depends on it.

Anyway,  thanks for your time. I've never responded, but special ed. is my passion.