The litigation-enforced “mainstreaming” of disruptive special-education students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is not only adversely affecting general-education students, but increasing teacher turnover. (John Hechinger, “‘Mainstreaming’ Trend Tests Classroom Goals”, Wall Street Journal, June 25). More: Another relevant investigative piece from the Journal: Robert Tomsho, “When Discipline Starts a Fight”, Jul. 9.
More unintended consequences from IDEA
The litigation-enforced “mainstreaming” of disruptive special-education students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is not only adversely affecting general-education students, but increasing teacher turnover. (John Hechinger, “‘Mainstreaming’ Trend Tests Classroom Goals”, Wall Street Journal, June 25). More: Another relevant investigative piece from the Journal: Robert Tomsho, “When Discipline Starts a Fight”, Jul. 9.
3 Comments
I wonder how much quality work would be done in any work setting if every office was forced to ‘hire’ (along with aid, of course) a disabled person who was disruptive?
As a layman, I just wish that occaisionally, lawyers (and legislators)had to suffer from the consequences of their actions that they inflict on the rest of us.
“mainstraming” was itself a response to the complete isolation of the “special” kids, a significant number of whom have benfitd greatly from mainstreaming (and without serious classroom disruption, generally).
Th problem is that “mainstreaming” is now overly popular and “enforced” in places it never should have been used in the first place – there’s really no replacement for individual judgement calls.
Please don’t include links to the Wall Street Journal on stories on this website. If you try to read their story, you only get so far before they ask you to subscribe, something I do not wish to do. Such “for-pay” links are a total waste of time.