Comment Re:It has an acronym , so it will fail. (Score 0) 149
I didn't have time to do full-blown research with cites and datapoints, so I had to rely on relatively recent experience as an actual teacher... but then, you've proven my point admirably - thank you.
As far as special needs, that's a complex subject, but...
There are better ideas, many of which were long-abandoned. However, there is also a need to stop defining every squirming kid who refuses to sit still in kindergarten as a 'special needs' case. Most students that I've seen (secondary level) which were classified as "special needs" were most often teens who lacked any sense of discipline (9/10, it was never imposed in childhood), and were either drugged into submission after a quick diagnosis of ADD or similar (thus needing special assistance just to help them study through the chemical fog that kept them quiet), or were simply not cut out for the classes they were assigned to (or, most accurately, the classes their parents demanded they take.)
Don't get me wrong - there were definitely students who needed the extra instruction and/or assistance, usually though mental retardation or physical disability. Then again, they used to have special schools built for these needs. For those who weren;t quite that far gone, the public schools simply held back those students who were otherwise too able for special schooling, but were not quite mentally capable (or willing). They'd be held back for another year or more until their minds grew into the curricula, the progressed from there.
There were also some damned sharp students who could not only keep up, but excel - provided that they had access to something that helped them work around the disability (I had a student who was completely blind, but he blazed through class with a braille keyboard and a braille line monitor, coupled with a screen-reading device.) But, those cases aside, there are (or at least from what I've seen, were) far too many kids who were shoved onto the prozac/adderall pill mill and called 'special needs' just to get them out of the teachers' collective hair. It was convenient for the teachers, and in way too many cases convenient for the parents (it got them both sympathy and and a quiet household.)
To sum all that up? Let's try with this sentence: Not every kid who goes to school is going to graduate, let alone go to college. The sooner parents realize that (and schools begin enforcing the concept), the sooner we can restructure curriculum to teach the less able and other kids a trade that is within their abilities, and can actually give them a decent shot at a livable wage after school.