Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Special and Remedial Education in the Case
Study Schools
There is a movement in the United States to include students with severe handi-
caps in the regular classroom to the greatest extent possible. However, we found
a variety of practices, depending on the policies of local school boards. Students
receiving special education were usually pulled out from the regular classroom for
a limited time period, mainstreamed in the regular classroom, or separated from

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regular students in self-contained special education classrooms. In one elementary
school, children with severe disabilities were fully mainstreamed into the regular
classroom, while at another school these children spent most of the day in sepa-
rate classrooms. The inclusion of students with severe learning or physical disabil-
ities in regular classrooms was a source of controversy in some schools.
The administration at Parks favored inclusion, but the teachers we interviewed at
Parks reported believing that inclusion was not working. One Parks teacher de-
scribed her experience with inclusion as follows:
There’s 28 students in this class. What am I going to do? Sacrifice the other
20 to 25 students who are supposedly normal, just for 3 or 4? It’s a no-win
situation.
Parents at Parks Elementary were also aware of the regular classroom teachers’
frustration with inclusion. One father was concerned that his child, who was in
the regular classroom, was not receiving an adequate education because of inclu-
sion.
A lot of people don’t favor inclusion. Probably a lot of the staff particularly
don’t. Because it takes away from what they’re trying to do with their stu-
dents, the regular students. I don’t think they really know how to handle spe-
cial education students. So it does take away from what they’re trying to do.
Some school districts have adopted a practice called reverse inclusion. In reverse
inclusion, nonspecial education students are brought into the self-contained spe-
cial education classroom on a periodic basis. The advantage of this practice,
according to some special education teachers, is that it allows severely disabled
children to stay in an environment to which they are accustomed and in which
they feel comfortable.
Rockefeller, on the other hand, had the resources to practice regular inclusion
without creating an additional burden on the regular teacher. Special education
resource teachers were assigned to the handful of students at Rockefeller with se-
vere handicaps. The resource teachers spent the entire day with the severely
handicapped students, who were integrated into regular classrooms. One problem
with regular inclusion that is seen by special education teachers is that it forces
severely disabled children into an unfamiliar environment.
For learning disabilities, the superior financial resources of schools in affluent dis-
tricts made it possible to provide remedial education services on a scale unimagi-
nable in financially strapped schools. At Vanderbilt Middle School, for example,
even students who performed at average levels on state-wide tests were being se-
lected for remedial programs, since these students had a relative performance

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below that of the typical student at Vanderbilt, who scored at the 90th percentile
in state-wide comparisons. As one teacher explained:
We have a really high percentage of our kids in special education. In both fifth
and seventh grades, over 25 percent of the kids are in special education.
The advantages of being classified as a candidate for remedial education are both
tangible and intangible. Tangible benefits include special tutoring and more fre-
quent interaction with resource teachers. Less tangible advantages may include a
reduction in the pressure to perform well in a highly competitive environment.
Becky, a student at Vanderbilt Middle School, was part of a school program called
‘‘resource study skills’’ that allowed her to seek help in her subjects once a day.
Math was not one of the subjects with which she was having difficulty, so she
did not normally seek help in math, but she did often seek help in social studies
and writing. Science was also a subject in which Becky was doing well. In short,
Becky was an average student who would probably not have been defined as eligi-
ble for remedial help in other districts.
A math teacher in the Rolling Hills district said that the school tends to ‘‘over-
diagnose’’ students, creating a situation where average students are defined as re-
medial or special education students:
I think a lot of the kids get referred for testing because they are at the bottom
of the class. Well, then it turns out they’re just real average kids—IQ around
110 and they are working right up to their potential. But, in Rolling Hills, that
puts them in the bottom of their class.
However, the pattern of over diagnosis may be more widespread. The director of
the special education program at Hamilton High School reported that the school
probably slightly over diagnosed, since it had the resources to do so. According
to the director, the number of students at Hamilton receiving services probably
exceeds the number one would expect in the general population.
One Vanderbilt teacher said that parents in the district are often relieved to have
their children placed in these classes, since it takes the onus of personal respon-
sibility off the low-performing child in this highly competitive district:
There’s this one parent who drives me crazy, because her third kid just got
put into special education and she says to me, ‘Look, I am three for three.
All of my kids are special ed. Yes.’ I have the oldest one in one of my classes
and I would say, ‘Learning disabled?’ No, I don’t think so.

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In contrast to schools in affluent districts, educators in poor districts indicated that
there was a tendency to under diagnose students in need of special or remedial
education services because of the lack of resources to serve any but the most
needy students. A special education teacher at the school indicated that many stu-
dents in need of special education services had yet to be diagnosed. A regular
fourth-grade teacher estimated that at least 8 of her 30 students needed remedial
help in arithmetic. The teacher further estimated that at least three of those stu-
dents needed to be tested for learning disabilities. In fact, only one had been
tested and was now receiving remedial help in arithmetic.
Furthermore, several teachers believed that the number of children needing spe-
cial education services in many communities might be growing. One teacher indi-
cated that many of the special education students in inner-city schools had been
born to mothers who abused drugs during pregnancy. The result of prenatal drug
abuse had been more severe cases of disabilities than seen in prior generations.
Also, in middle-class neighborhoods, an increase in the number of students with
problems was attributed to the increasing number of women delaying childbirth.
The process of diagnosing students for special education services is a complicated
one, according to a fourth-grade teacher who had been a special education
teacher. She indicated that the criteria changed from year to year with changes
in the school administration. According to the teacher, there was a period for 4
or 5 years when not enough students were being assigned to special education
classrooms. During this time, a special panel composed of teachers was set up
that reviewed all cases. According to the teacher, this panel had a tendency to
under diagnose. Consequently, as a teacher of a regular fourth-grade classroom,
she was seeing many of the kids she felt should have been diagnosed and placed
in special education classrooms. This illustrates how policies can affect who gets
classified as ‘‘special education’’ and the range and type of services provided.
In summary, inclusion was broad-based and not limited to the poorest school dis-
tricts; however diagnosis and support services for remedial and special education
students were more limited at inner-city schools. In addition, the criteria for diag-
nosing students in need of remedial or special education services varied consider-
ably from school to school. In general, in poor districts there was a tendency to
under diagnose students in need of remedial and special education services while
in affluent districts the tendency was to over diagnose. This was in part related
to the disparity in financial resources available to support these services. Another
factor was the greater resistance of administrators and school boards in poor com-
munities to place any restrictions on students’ opportunities to learn.

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