Talk:Special education/Archive 1

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A Few Questions

Sorry, I actually don't know where else to ask this, but can one be in an IEP and still take Advanced Placement classes? Is that LRE? It would seem that slight learning disabilities such as dyslexia or even ADD wouldn't prevent children from doing such things. Learning disabilities are nowhere as restrictive as mental retardation, I wouldn't think, so it wouldn't be required that a child be put in any sort of special classes, am I right?

Suggestions for future additions.

• historical background of special education
• federal law/legal precidents especially ADA, IDEA, FERPA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, etc
• Parents rights/advocacy
• Funding as provided by Federal Law v. actual funding provided

I added another section......

I added another section for people who would like to express an opinion about special education. I know this is an encyclopedia not to express opinions. I felt that the opinions are also important too. Isn't it important to hear what previous or current special education students have to say about it?

I added another section......

I added another section for people who would like to express an opinion about special education. I know this is an encyclopedia not to express opinions. I felt that the opinions are also important too. Isn't it important to hear what previous or current special education students have to say about it?

(Kyla 21:32, 18 August 2005 (UTC))

Sorry, Kyla, I'm going to have to revert your addition. The problem is that you expressed a personal opinion in a fashion that is more appropriate for a blog, a social networking site like MySpace, or a Wikicities site. Because Wikipedia purports to be an encyclopedia, it can only summarize existing opinions already published in other sources about an issue.

If you want to get partisan opinions about special education onto Wikipedia in a way that complies with the "no soapbox," neutral point of view (NPOV), and "no original research" policies, you would have to research the existing literature and then quote or cite published articles on both sides. That would be acceptable. For example, look at how the Freeway article (which I have contributed a great deal to, both in terms of pictures and text) summarizes pro-freeway and anti-freeway positions and cites several sources in major newspapers and academic journals.

If you have no idea how to start, try reading Wikipedia:How_to_write_a_great_article. --Coolcaesar 04:05, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

derogatory terms

Is there any need for this section to be included at all, as an encylopaedia entry I feel that this is uneccessary. Any comments? --Brideshead 19:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC) Noted that it's been deleted, glad i'm not the only one to feel it was out of place. --Brideshead 11:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Worldwide view

In terms of representing a worldwide view of special education I feel that the section on the United States is massively too long and detailed. I have heavily cut it down to a basic outline allowing other countries the room to write about their system and have created a new article Special Education in the United States to carry the full original USA section which is very detailed and comprehensive. --Brideshead 11:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems a bit biased

I dunno, but reading this page, the allusions to nazi germany and eugenics seem to promote a specific point of view on this?

I agree, hence I have added the verify tag and tagged the offender. Skinnyweed 23:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Removed "Acronyms" section

I removed the Acronyms section because it seemed to bloat the article; it would be better to link to such a list externally or at least split it off to its own article. It also seemed arbitrary: why acronyms in particular instead of a general glossary? - furrykef (Talk at me) 18:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

in class suppport

I originally removed this section as I fail to see the import, however have reworded it to a more general statement of additional support. The method of implementation and terminology used for support for learning in mainstream varies from school to school, region to region and country to country. --Brideshead 23:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

revert

• Special education is the education of physically or mentally handicapped students whose needs cannot be met in an ordinary classroom

I reverted this edit. it is an over simplification using language (handicapped, ordinary) which are considered inappropriate, even offensive in some areas. --Brideshead 11:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I also deleted the section on "Diagnosis" As it was an overly-detailed list of tests, which are a selection of the thousands available. The ones discussed may be prevelant in some jurisdictions (the US) but not in all. I added the section to the article Special Education in the United States --Brideshead 16:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted the alteration again. In some areas it may be common usage but in the UK and elsewhere the term "handicapped" is a very offensive term which is NEVER used in acedemic or official writing and situations. Stating that "it" has recently expanded to include gifted students is meaningless. Special Education is not controlled by a central body, this statement does not apply a worldwide view. I work in Scotland which has recently stopped using the term Special Needs in favour of Additional Support Needs, however I am not trying to edit the whole article. That would not represent a worldwide view. Please try not revert this again without discussing your reasons here. --Brideshead 20:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

REVERT INTRO

• 'Special education' is an educational alternative to the general education for those having singular needs or disabilities, as handicapped or maladjusted people, slow learners, or gifted children.

Oh my goodness, this is even worse! The appalling "handicapped" is back and now coupled with the even more offensive "maladjusted". I don't understand the need to change it at all. Perhaps if you could explain your reasons here, they could be discussed and a compromise reached. As it is this wording is unacceptable and highly, highly offensive. --Brideshead 20:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

REVERT 28th November. - unsigned edit.

I am not disputing the veracity of your amendments, or your sources of American dictionaries and research institutions. However, as my poiunts above make clear the wordds used in this introduction are disgusting, inflamatory, offensive and, in the UK and other cultures, completely unnaceptable. Words like 'handicapped' and 'maladjusted' are unacceptable. Please discuss this issue here. --Brideshead 19:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion. Special education is not an educational alternative. A student who qualifies for special education cannot say that they don't want to be in it. If they can, then I agree it is an alternative. But it is not. A student cannot refuse special education. It's either you qualify or you don't. I understand that handicapped sounds offensive. What if we used disabled instead? Would that be better? You edit twice. Why did you go back to your original one? The one you edit was just fine. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

I concede, although do not agree with your point as Alternative does not always imply choice; a vegetarian alternative to the main meal does not give the vegetarian a choice, it simply meets their needs, however it is irrelevant now. I have further edited the intro to read better and be slightly more elegant. --Brideshead 20:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Mainstreaming is a term for special education. Regular students are not in a mainstreamed classroom. They are in an ordinary classroom. Disabled and slow learners have exceptional disabilities while maladjusted people and gifted children have exceptional needs. There is a difference. Gifted children are smart. they don't have a disability...they need to be in a separate classroom because they have exceptional needs that cannot be met in an ordinary classroom. Maladjusted people are those who underachieve but do not have a disability. They just have difficulty being in the school. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

World Wide Viewpoint

These may all be valid definitions for the area in which YOU live, however these definitions are not the same everywhere. Wikipedia is an international encyclopaedia. Mainstream is the general education provided as standard to all pupils without modifications it has nothing to do with special education. All children have Additional needs of some kinds, the difference between exceptional disabilities and exceptional needs is only valid in your jurisdiction not worldwide. The term maladjusted is little known/used in the UK, except as a derogatory term. Please bear in mind that this is NOT an American encyclopaedia. --Brideshead 21:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Reason for merger

Without special education, inclusion would not be possible. Special education helps the disabled student function in the regular school. So that’s why I think that inclusion should be merged with special education. (69.117.20.128 - Talk)

introduction

This is an encyclopaedia. The introduction must be clear and unambiguous, stating general facts, not related to a particular (US) jurisdiction. I've rewritten this intro as it was a mess of someones pet viewpoints which would be unintelligble to a casual reader. --Brideshead 16:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Re-revert and edit. This is an article on special education, NOT inclusion. Phrases such as "on a happier note" and "contrary to popular belief" belong in a 15 year olds essay, not an encyclopaedia. --Brideshead 18:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Please stop the revert war immediately. Bring your disagreements here for further discussion before any more editing. Nposs 20:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

These articles were merged without any consultation. The introduction is now a discuss on inclusion in America. Someone coming to an article to find out about special education will not be any the wiser by this introduction. it should be clear and succinct. At the moment it is unstructred, amateurish and off-putting. --Brideshead 20:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Other countries have special education...it's not just America...Special education is educational programs designed to support students whose singular needs or disabilities require special teaching approaches, equipment, or care within or outside a regular classroom. Special education is known as programs of inclusion. Special education tries to include students with special needs with those that do not have special needs...It's perfectly neutral. If special education wasn't available, than inclusion would be impossible for students with special needs to be in the mainstream school. That's why there is special education to help them be more included in the mainstream school. Does that not make sense? (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

There seems to be a confusion of terms here, though. I don't see any problem with your first sentence: "Special education is education programs ..." (although I don't like the use of the singular "is" with the plural "programs"). Your second sentence is confusing: "Special education is known as programs of inclusion." It isn't really true - special education has its own history which has now become intertwined with inclusive education. Inclusion (from what I can tell) seems to be a methodology within special education and at this point in time "inclusive education" might be the preferred term for what was formerly known as "special education" - but there really needs to be some citational support for this, not just statements. Also, the Frank Bowe material really is not appropriate for the first paragraph. It is too specific, and like it or not, it does represent single point of view. The "happier note" thing as well really does have to go. Nposs 21:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by singular? Special education was never an inclusive education. Inclusive means it fully includes students with special needs...it doesn't...therefore...it's just inclusion...there is a difference....there's a reason why inclusive education is a separate article. Inclusive education is not the preferred term for special education. Inclusive education is whole different concept. It is not universally accepted among schools. And that is a fact. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

But you are the one who added the "singular" according to this. What comment are you responding to? Nposs 21:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, if inclusion cannot be equated with special education, why do you insist upon making it so prominent in opening paragraph. Isn't inclusion just one method among many in special education? Nposs 21:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

if you look up singular in the dictionary...you will find that it has many meanings....inclusion and inclusive have different meanings..Inclusion is the act of including...Special education includes students with special needs with those who do not...inclusive means including everything. Students with special needs are not included in everything. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

I've lost track of what your point is. this argument is going in circles. The article is about special education, not inclusion/inclusive education. i agree with nposs's statements. The Frank Bowe material is of very narrow application, the "on ahappier note is completely subjective and not neutral tone. I think the comments are not exploring the issue of special edcucation. --Brideshead 22:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Special education is inclusion education because it includes students with special needs but they still have to attend special education. Special education is not inclusive education because it doesn't includes them fully in the school. I hope you understand what I'm saying now....cause I have been repeating it over and over....What could you not understand? (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

I think your point is understood. However, we really need some sort of reference or citation to support your assertion. Otherwise, at least to me, it appears to be original research (see WP:OR). Do you have any such reference you can supply? Also, am I wrong in suggesting that inclusion is only one methodology among many employed in special education? (Also, please reconsider the tone of your contributions to the discussion. There is no need to be impatient or condescending.) Nposs 18:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not impatient. I am very calm. It's just when people say I'm wrong...i tend to be a little sensitive. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

This section is still HEAVILY biased in favour of inclusion instead of general special education; it is overly specific. it also contains multiple references to US-only information whcih is not appropriate in the introduction to a worldwide article. I think this needs moderation to rectify. --Brideshead 18:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about the information you feel is lacking from the article. For example: section headings, methodology, theories, etc.? Nposs 19:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Special education is inclusion. Without special education, inclusion for students with special needs would be impossible. Do you agree with this? (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

I think we need to be more careful with this terminology. "Inclusion" has a specific definition in special education and can be contrasted with "Mainstreaming" and "Full inclusion" (reference). According to the 1997 IDEA, inclusion is legally required except in cases where "the nature and severity of the disability is such that education in the regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily." ([1]) That is to say, there are other methodlogies in teaching students with special needs. According to these two articles ([2] and [3]) there is still debate about the extent to which "inclusion" is the appropriate teaching method for all students. This point of view also needs to be expressed in the article (as part of WP:NPOV). At the same time, this information is very specific to the US and this Wikipedia article should also reflect the diversity of approaches found in other countries. (I have no resources about this at the moment.) Nposs 20:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that it is fine to discuss these issues in depth in the appropriate section (one on the US) they do not belong in the introduction which needs to be general, clear and succinct. Special Education is not the same as inclusion. Special education can be provided in schools specifically for children with special needs. Inclusion is one approach to dealing with this and is not adhered to or followed on the same way in all jurisdictions. This very specific information is unsuitable for an introduction. --Brideshead 22:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

recent changes

"Special education is educational programs designed to support students whose singular needs or disabilities require special teaching approaches, equipment, or care within or outside a regular classroom. Special education is known as programs of inclusion. Inclusion is the practice in special education of placing students with singular needs or disabilities into the general classrooms of elementary and secondary schools, either all or most of the time. This is to help students with special needs adjust as quickly as possible to the mainstream of the school and community. Contrary to popular belief, students are not fully into the "mainstream" of student life because they are secluded to special education. On a happier note, inclusive education includes all individuals in all aspects of school-life. However, the concept of an inclusive education is not universally accepted."

Students with singular needs or disabilities deviate from the norm. Regular students do not have singular needs or disabilities. Regular students may have additional needs. Students with singular needs or disabilities require special teaching approaches, equipment, or care within or outside a regular classroom. Within means "push in" services provided by professionals that enter the classroom and deliver assistance there. Outside the regular classroom means they are pulled out of the classroom. Special education is known as programs of inclusion because students with special needs are being included inside the mainstream school. This is to help them adjust as quickly as possible to the mainstream of the school and community. But they are not fully included because they are secluded to special education. That’s when inclusive education comes in….inclusive education is not universally accepted…as it is stated in the article…it means schools no longer provide "regular education" and "special education" but provide a service which includes every child, no matter what he or she needs at the time. In other words, they are educating everyone together. Do you understand now? (69.117.20.128 - Talk)

We could avoid the problems of the definition of "inclusion" by modifying your paragraph from above (because, as you note in your first sentence, special education may take place within or outside regular classroom where inclusion would take place) -

"Special education is consists of educational programs designed to support students whose singular needs or disabilities require special teaching approaches, equipment, or care within or outside a regular classroom. Special education is known as programs of inclusion. Today, this is frequently implemented by placing students with singular needs or disabilities into the general classrooms of elementary and secondary schools, either all or most of the time. (Note: This second sentence is actually redundant because it is implied by the first sentence. It really could just be left out (of course it would be described in more detail later in the article. The rest of the material seems more appropriate for later in the article as well.) Nposs 03:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the frequently part...special education is including them. (69.117.20.128 - Talk)

i feel we are making some progress. however the phrasing of "contrary to popular belief" is not suitable for an encyclopaedia as it assumes that there is a generally held view. The phrSING "ON A HAPPIER NOTE" is very innappropriate and extremely POV implying that special education is miserable unless inclusive education is followed. I also feel that the intro does not cover the situation of children who are not and cannot be educated in the mainstream; those at special schools. --Brideshead 15:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I also have concerns with the phrase "singluar disabilities" as I have worked with children with additional support needs for several years and have never come across it. Does it mean that children have only one disability or is it implying specific needs? Again jursidiction specific terminology.--Brideshead 15:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Like I said before, singular needs or disabilities means those people who deviate from the norm. Singular in this case means exceptional....regular people may have additional needs but they do not have singular needs or disabilities..I don't understand your recent changes....you changed outside to outwith. i don't get that....special needs students receive special help within or outside the regular classroom. outside the regular classroom is when they receive pull out services as well as attending general education classes. Special education is all about giving special help to special needs students in order for them to function in regular classrooms....it says so in the first sentence....the regular classroom..Special schools don't have special education because they don't have regular classrooms there. Special school is only for people with special educational needs. Regular students couldn't go to a special school. Therefore special education is only carried out within or outside the regular classroom.

• Special education can be implemented by placing students with singular needs or disabilities into the general classrooms, either all or most of the time.

Special education IS implemented by placing students with singular needs or disabilities into the general classrooms, either all or most of the time. This is to help students with special needs adjust as quickly as possible to the mainstream of the school and community. That is a fact...because special education helps the special needs students become part of the mainstream of the school and community...A special school does not because everyone there has special educational needs. Those people don't get the chance to be with nondisabled students. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

You may feel like your point above is obvious, but keep in mind: inclusion, full inclusion, mainstreaming, etc. (as well as tailor-made instruction outside of regular classrooms) are all different methods within the general field of special education. This is an encyclopedic article - meaning that it should take a broad view of the subject which includes a variety of view points. To assert that "special education IS implemented by including students ..." limits what special education is or has been historically. I have provided references to support this in my above statements. Without proper references/citations, your statement constitutes original research (something that should not be included - see WP:OR). I think we are very close in agreement over what special education is, but I ask you to please consider a broader view of what the field is made up of. It is not unreasonable to request that references should be provided for strong statements like "special education IS ...". I also ask that you be more patient with the discussion here. It takes time to reach consensus. Nposs 22:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

As a teacher, I'd question the idea that special education is implemented by placing a student anywhere. It's not the placement that defines special ed; it's the service given. Those services are given in the least restrictive environment, sure, and that's a discussion that can happen on the LRE page or in the LRE section. RyanGrant 06:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, I would stress that singular needs holds that meaning...for you that is not necessarily a wildly held definition or view. The article is special education. NOT special education in mainstream classrooms so i believe that special edcuation provided in special schools does need to be mentioned. I changed outside to outwith as a purely grammatical preference as it sounds better. please do try to bear in mind that this is a community and we all have a right to edit this article will change and evolve, it will not stay as you intend it; that is the point of wikipedia. Your ascertation that special education in mainstream classes is to help students adjust quickly is NOT a fact. it is one outcome, one of a thousand possible reasons for including children and is entirely your point of view, which does not corrrelate with everyone elses. Other people have knowledge, experience and interest in this area remember; their views need to be incorporated into this article, even if they do not find within the small inclusion/inclusive area you have your mind fixed upon. --Brideshead 01:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Could we pick another word besides "outwith" or "outside" (or maybe just rephrase the sentence)? This is an international encyclopedia and no one I know in the US ever uses the term "outwith" (in fact, I think it would confuse most people. Nposs 16:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

clarification

I understand that inclusion; full inclusion, mainstreaming, etc. (as well as tailor-made instruction outside of regular classrooms) are all different methods within the general field of special education. I just need to clarify one thing. A special school is a school catering to students who have special educational needs. Therefore, special schools do not have regular classrooms. A regular classroom consists of students who do not have special educational needs. Special education is only provided when there are regular classrooms inside the school. Special schools don’t have regular classrooms; therefore special education is not provided there. And what does outwith mean? I looked it up in the dictionary and there’s no such word. I don't understand why the article can't state "outside" the regular classroom...it's just saying that services can be provided outside the regular classroom. That includes special classes and resource room. (69.117.20.128 - Talk)

I have no problem with the removal of outwith if it's a specifically British English word, see here[4] for clarification on the word which, 69.117.20.128 does indeed exist. I do however dispute your definition of special education above. Special education is simply education which is tailored to meet specific needs. The term does not imply anything about taking place only in the context of "regular" teaching. 'Special Education in mainstream' more fits the usage you are trying to construct. --Brideshead 11:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

As mainstreaming is but one type of special education, I do not support writing that "special education is implemented by placing students with singular needs or disabilities into the general classrooms". Although the "can be implemented" version is an acceptable compromise, it would be preferable to remove the sentence from the introduction. Specific approaches to special education can be discussed further down in the article sections. Rhobite 01:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Inclusive education should also be moved from the opening introduction. Perhaps the best solution would be to add a separate section in the article title "Methodologies" or "Methods" or something like that. That would be an appropriate place to discuss some of the terms above. Nposs 03:44, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

recent changes

I deleted the part that says "Special education can be implemented by placing students with singular needs or disabilities into the general classrooms, either all or most of the time". I feel that this part isn't necessary because it already says this before. that Special ed. is carried out in regular classrooms. it's silly to repeat it twice. I also added within or outside and described what it meant. I put push in services for within and pull out services for outside. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

I cannot stand it...outside makes more sense....i don't understand specialized setting......i think you should compromise with me...because I cannot understand what it says when it says specialized setting. "outside of the classroom" is not a problematic expression because it is simply stating the fact that special needs students receive specialized services in special classrooms if it is impossible to mainstream the student. (69.117.20.128 - Talk)

"Outside of the classroom" is problematic because it doesn't explain "where" outside of a classroom. We need something more specific. Like it or not, many schools offer designated spaces/resources/staff for special needs students (many people even view this as a way to complement "mainstreaming"). As we have already discussed, mainstreaming is one method among many in special education. So can we come up with something more descriptive for these settings than "outside of a classroom" or "specialized setting"? Nposs 14:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Special needs students receive special teaching approaches, equipment, or care outside the regular classroom. How could you not understand this statement? It's clear. (209.177.21.6 - Talk)

"Compromise" does not mean "get your way." The wording was reached through a slow process of discussion and cooperation. Changing it without contributing to that discussion and allowing other editors to discuss the change violates the process by which articles are built on Wikipedia. Please read Wikipedia:Consensus. It is one of the most important guidelines on Wikipedia. If you do not like the term "specialized setting" - explain why you don't like it on this talk page and propose an alternative stating why you believe it is an improvement. Allow time for other editors to discuss it, add their opinions, and potentially change it. Consensus does not mean that everyone comes to the same conclusion - rather, it means that an outcome is reached that all can agree with. It has already been discussed that "outside of the classroom" is a problematic expression. Please keep in mind, Wikipedia is not a battle ground WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_battleground. Nposs 02:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed the edit as it was unecessary and served to confuse the matter further. It did not make the issue "more clearer" [sic] --Brideshead 20:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Outside the regular classroom is the better one..

"Outside the regular classroom" is very clear to many people. It's not a consensus when there are only two people who agree. (RainingmySoul 19:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC))

Outside implies that we are still within the same building as the regular classroom; it brings connotations of perched on a stool in a hallway colouring in! The situation we are trying to describe could be in other classes, support for learning classes special schools, etc. In other words, many different situations. --www.secularism.org.uk 19:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

yes...that what special education is all about....that's why there is mainstreaming...mainstreaming is all about educating students in the same building. Special schools do not have special education because they don't have regular classrooms. If you clicked on special school, they will tell you that it is a school catering to students who have special educational needs...therefore they don't have regular classrooms...do you see what i mean? I still see that saying "outside" is clearer..People would know that special education is only provided when there are regular classrooms. It makes sense too. please compromise with me...special schools don't have special education because they don't have regular classrooms. Normal students could not attend special schools. i am changing it back...there was never a consensus. You only want to write what you want to hear. But the truth is special schools don't have regular classrooms. If you don't agree with this fact, then I don't know what else to do. (RainingmySoul 20:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)) (RainingmySoul 20:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC))

I do see what you mean but I don't agree with your ascertations. Special schools do provide special education, that is ALL that they do. What you are talking about is an individualised education in mainstream. --www.secularism.org.uk 20:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with your ascertations. So why do we have to follow your idea? It even says on dictionary.com Definition of special education. Education of disabled students whose needs cannot be met in a regular classroom--i don't like the word ordinary...We can all agree that special schools don't have regular classroom. (RainingmySoul 20:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree. You have included this phrase Special schools do not provide special education because they don't have regular classrooms several times. i disagree with this completely. Providing a special education is all that special schools do. What they do not provide is an inclusive education.

I think that if we cannot agree on outside (my reasons for disagreeing with this are clearly stated above) or special school/specialised setting then we should remove the sentence completely. --www.secularism.org.uk 20:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

So are you saying that special schools have regular classrooms? If they do, then normal students can attend special schools. That doesn't make sense. Normal students do not have special educational needs. Therefore they cannot attend special schools. (RainingmySoul 20:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC))

I don't understand your statement. I state that special schools provide special education. That is education particularised for individual children. I have never mentioned regular classrooms. i don't understand your standpoint that special education can only be provided when in contrast to a regular education int he same building. Special schools provide a specialised education for children, they do not provide 'regular' education, nor do they need to. I don't understand your view.--www.secularism.org.uk 20:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

complete change?

This is an introduction from a NZ government website. i think it is well written and concise. It summarises the basics of what special education is and does not mention locality. it is also a neutral government for this disagreement as it is not from UK or US? --www.secularism.org.uk 20:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That's copy violation. Copying word to word of it....mine on the other hand has the source...and it doesn't copy word to word...i put it into my own words...except the singular needs or disabilities part...but that's okay....it's not like i copied the whole thing...i merged the two definitions...(RainingmySoul 21:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC))

A complete change might be helpful if we keep in mind that the point of consensus is to reach a solution that all parties can abide by. That means (for example) removing elements that we cannot agree upon. I think Brideshead has provided some good supporting references for some changes that can be shaped into a very strong opening paragraph. I find that the text is still to similar to that of the NZ website. Also, I don't see how the other external links support/reference the material. Could you be more specific about what you have drawn from those sites? I also believe that it would be appropriate to mention the importance of "inclusion," since (as has been discussed to death already) this is one of the primary methods of implementing special education. I'll make some changes. Feel free to alter them (with constructive criticisms, please - do not use edit summaries for inappropriate insults or non-constructive asides.) Nposs 04:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've made some changes and I encourage you to discuss what you feel is unnecessary and what is missing before simply adding it back in. Please use references to reliable sources and maintain a civil attitude. I think we can work together to really improve this important article, but we have to be willing to lay aside a sense of personal attachment to the subject. By the way, I have temporarily removed the remaining external links added by Brideshead - these might be appropriate to add as references when it is clear what they reference. I also removed the last sentence about gifted students and bullied students. It might be appropriate for the paragraph, but I'd like to see a reference about it first. Thanks. Nposs 05:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• This article will focus mainly on the teaching of students with singular disabilities.

I don't think that this sentence adds anything. The paragraph makes it very clear that we are discussing disabled students. This sentence reads like it intending to remove some confusion? I think it unnecessary. --www.secularism.org.uk 19:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we should add it because...this article is mainly about students with disabilities...it doesn't mention anything about gifted children...or those with singular needs. (RainingmySoul 19:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

I am concerned about the terminology "singular disabilities". I don't find it used in any of the literature I have found. Can you please provide a reference for this usage? Some students might suffer from multiple disabilities - and in my mind, "singular disability" would suggest that only one disability is addressed through special education. Nposs 20:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the sentence about the "focus" of the article. Education of gifted students does not fall under "special education" and if you feel like the article has too much emphasis on "disabilities" rather than "special needs", the solution should be to add the content - not limit the scope of the article through a statement of "focus". Nposs 20:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Singular means exceptional...it doesn't mean only one kind of disability. (RainingmySoul 20:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

Thanks for the definition. But can you provide a reference for this usage. I think it is unfamiliar to most people and I have not found "singular disability" in any literature I have consulted. Nposs 20:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Look it up in the dictionary. I used that word because it best describes their special needs. It is exceptional. (RainingmySoul 22:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

I think the term might be useful in other contexts, but since you came up with it yourself, it constitutes "original research" (WP:OR#No_original_research) and should be removed from the article and replaced by a more appropriate term. I notice that the reference you supplied below uses the term children with "special educational needs". It also uses the term "children with disabilities". These could work as replacements. Nposs 23:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It is not original research. I placed the reference up. (69.117.20.128 - talk)

what is wrong with this line?

Universal special education services is the subject of some discussion internationally. This has led to the inclusive education movement.

I added this line because this has to do with inclusive education. (RainingmySoul 19:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

Why?

Special education consists of educational programs designed to support students whose singular needs or disabilities require special teaching approaches, equipment, or care within or outside a regular classroom.

Why can't we use this opening paragraph? I don't see anything wrong with it...How can special schools provide special education if they don't even have regular classrooms? Special education is named because there were students who deviate from the norm in the mainstream schools. That's why they decided to name it special education to help those people become part of the mainstream. Special schools do not help students with special needs adjust as quickly as possible to the mainstream of the school and community because they don't have regular classrooms. (RainingmySoul 20:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

I don't think you are taking into consideration the history of special education which has included (and continues to include) education in specialized settings outside of the regular classroom. "Mainstream" has a very specific meaning in special education: "Generally, mainstreaming has been used to refer to the selective placement of special education students in one or more "regular" education classes."reference. This is a general article and should take a overview of the subject. Due to your concern over placing an empahsis on inclusion, I added the sentence about the United States and the requirement by law that children be taught in the least restrictive environment. Nposs 20:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Show me one reference that the purpose of special education is to help children with special needs fit into the mainstream. just one. that is not the main purpose of special education.

Special education is intended to provide the appropriate education to meet a childs needs. it has nothing, nothing to do with making htem fit into mainstream. that is your own narrow view of the subject. You are completely confused about the difference between special education, and inclusion. --www.secularism.org.uk 20:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

References

The new term 'additional support needs' The definition of 'special educational needs' traditionally only applies to children and young people with particular types of learning needs. The new concept of 'additional support needs' refers to any child or young person who, for whatever reason, requires additional support for learning. Additional support needs can arise from any factor which causes a barrier to learning, whether that factor relates to social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic, disability, or family and care circumstances. For instance, additional support may be required for a child or young person who is being bullied; has behavioural difficulties; has learning difficulties; is a parent; has a sensory or mobility impairment; is at risk; or is bereaved. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/06/19516/39190

A child may require additional support for a variety of reasons. These may include those who are being bullied, are particularly gifted, have experienced a bereavement, or are not attending school regularly, as well as those who have behavioural or learning difficulties, mental health problems, or specific disabilities such as deafness or blindness. http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/inclusiveeducation/additionalsupportforlearning/theact.asp

Additional support needs can be short or long term. For instance, additional support may be needed for a child or young person who:

is being bullied has behavioural or learning difficulties is deaf or blind is particularly gifted is bereaved is not a regular attender. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/06/19549/39372

Special education is the provision of extra help, adapted programmes, learning environments, or specialised equipment or materials to support children and young people with their learning and help them participate in education.

Many children and young people have special education needs. This can include learners with disabilities, learning difficulties, communication or behaviour difficulties, or sensory or physical impairments. http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm?layout=document&documentid=7301&data=l

If it helps, these are the four documents I used and the sections I referred too. It's worth noting that the term special needs is no longer used in Scotland as it was felt to be negative and exclusionary. --www.secularism.org.uk 21:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Purpose of special education

Click on this link. www.cesa4.com/programs-services/special/philosophy.htm

The first paragraph says "The sole intent of special education is to insure that every eligible student has access to the general curriculum. Special education is NOT a curriculum separate from the general curriculum." Students in special schools do not have the opportunity to access to the rich core curriculum. In special schools, the curriculum is separate from the general curriculum. Therefore the purpose of special education is to help students with special needs fit into the mainstream. (RainingmySoul 21:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

It says 'a general curriculum'. it does not say where or how that needs to be implemented. A General curriculum delivered at an appropriate pace and with provisions for access is still a general curriculum as your reference clearly states. Your referenced article also makes it clear the special education is provided both by special teachers and regular teachers; implying that this organisation believes that special education is provided by special schools and regular schools.

Its a completely different thing to say that the purpose of special education is to help children integrate witht he mainstream, there is no reference for that as it is not true. --www.secularism.org.uk 22:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I find there to be a confusion of issues here. Is the issue "special schools"? This term does not appear to be mentioned anywhere in the article (it seems it was only mentioned in passing above). Whether or not "special schools" are part of "special education" does not imply one way or the other if the purpose of special education is to "mainstream" students. "Mainstreaming", as has been mentioned repeatedly, has a very specific and limited meaning in special education to suggest that the purpose of special education is to mainstream students does not follow from the references. Students may be given access to the "general curriculum" in a variety of settings and this general, encyclopedic article should cover these approaches. Nposs 23:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Special education is a term used to describe exceptional individuals in a mainstream school. Students attending special schools do not consider themselves exceptional because everyone there is ALL exceptional. How can you call a student in a special school exceptional if every student in special schools is exceptional? In special schools, there are no normal students...so how can you compare between exceptional individuals and normal students? (69.117.20.128 - Talk)

You'll need to provide a reference for this definition. Otherwise, it is "original research" WP:OR. Nposs 18:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

abbreviations

The revision from "Sped" is interpreted as an insult to Sped is comparable to "retard" is an unnecessary use of a contentious word. The revision does not add significantly to the understanding of the term and looks to be only included for "shock" value. i propose it be reverted to the original statement. --Brideshead 12:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

user 69.117.20.128

You have simply waited a while and now begun to reintroduce all of the contencious issues which were debated here above previously and an agreement reached.

• The use of the term "singular disability" has no basis in actual research, there is no evidence of its use in published research. This was discussed previously.
• The assertation that special education can only be provided in mainstream schools as "special schools do not have regular classrooms" (an argument which I, and others, failto follow) was discussed previously and the decision made that this is unsourced and based on your own original research WP:NOR.

This is a blatant attempt to stagnate an article at your own edit, which is clearly against WP policies. --Brideshead 13:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I am sick and tired of hearing that special education is only for those with disabilities. This is simply untrue. Students with singular needs are those who do not have a disability but still are having difficulty with school. For example, people with behavioral problems.

(69.117.20.128 - talk)

That is your definition and your perspective. It does not correspond to language and terminology used in references worldwide. There is no source to justify the use of the terms "singular need" or "singular disability", you just made them up, they don't mean anything to anyone else! WP:NOR --Brideshead 19:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

comment

You know, I have to agree with this user. Gifted children do not have disabilities. So where do you categorize them? They have difficulties with school. Therefore, they are part of special education. People with behavioral problems (most of them do not have disabilities) are included in special education because they have difficulty functioning in school. Is there another word you can use to describe this type of people? I know singular may not be the best word to use. But is there something else? Could we use special needs instead of saying disabilities? At least saying “special needs” is more neutral. Tell me what you think. Or anyone out there who would like to contribute to this conversation. (Heliciation 21:26, 22 April 2007 (UTC))

This has been discussed above (with lots of references provided, many of which are now used in the article.) "Singular needs" is not found in any of the literature (with the exception of the dictionary definition - which one must assume was not written by specialists). "Special needs" occurs in most of them. I would take this as evidence that "singular needs" is not a common part of the vocabulary for special education. I would also suggest that "consensus" means a solution that everyone can agree with. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that editors take exception to the unusual usage of "singular needs." It would be best if the editor who insists on this unorthodox term be willing to compromise with the other editors. Nposs 21:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

okay...so can we use the term "special needs" instead of saying disabilities? I agree with the user that special education does not include just those with disabilities. In the article, it only states those with disabilities. (Heliciation 21:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC))

Special schools do not provide special education.

Special schools do not provide special education. How can it provide special education if it doesn't have regular classrooms? Special education is to help the special needs student function in mainstream classes. In special schools, there are no mainstream classes. So how is special education provided? Someone should provide a reference stating that special education is provided in special schools.(209.177.21.6 - talk)

Please stop this type of disruptive edit warring. You are making assertions without any references or outside support. The issues on this page have unfortunately become so contentious that it is impossible to make changes without proper references from respected sources within the subject (i.e. not general dictionaries). We do not need to have the exact same discussion above again. You may believe that "special education = mainstreaming", but it has been repeatedly demonstrated that this is a narrow definition of special education inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. Your argument that special education does not include special schools is based on your own perception of the meaning of these terms - not the practice of special education as it is realized in the global context. Please do not make any more changes until you can support your arguments with reliable sources - WP:RS. Nposs 22:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Well if you just provide a reference stating that special education is provided in special schools, then maybe we wouldn't have the exact same discussion again. (69.117.20.128 - talk)

reference

I am so sick of this discussion, the statement shouldn't need a reference if you knew anything about the implementation of special edcuation. If teachers in a special school don't provide special education, what do you think they provide. But fine, here are references:

• “Contemporary special education teaching strategies are applied across a continuum of educational settings ranging from full-time inclusive general edcuation classrooms to residential treatment facilities and community placements.” The Special Education Alamanac, pp2, Edited by Elaine Fletcher-Janzen and Cecil R. Reynolds, Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc (2006) [5]

• “Schools for Special Needs explains the system and processes involved in special needs education …. With details of over 2,000 establishments and guidance from experts in all sectors of special education…”. Schools for Special Needs 2005-2006 11th ed, published by Gabbitas and Kogan Page, 2005 [6] (see list of schools covered; special, mainstream and residential.)

• Deconstructing Special Education and Constructing Inclusion by Gary Thomas and Andrew Loxley, Published by Open University Press (2001).[7] (This book uses the term special education exclusively to refer to special school settings contrasting with inclusive education.)

This ends the discussion here. Special education is provided in a huge variety of ways. You are only concerned with mainstreaming of special education, a tiny subset not the whole picture and certainly not the terminology in use in the special education community at large. --Brideshead 10:33, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

new opening paragraph?

Special education describes an educational alternative that focuses on the teaching of students with academic, behavioral, health, or physical needs that cannot sufficiently be met using traditional educational programs or techniques.

Could we use this as the opening paragraph? I tend to like this one better. What do you think? I'm going to put it up in the article for you to decide which one you like better. (Angelina - talk)

Well, "Angelina" (Jessica Liao), the current opening paragraph was reached slowly and by degrees through compromise as you well know. We are all aware of your current drive to spuriously reclassify special education as alternative education as this current attempt show. I oppose the change, Special Education is not an educational alternative in the true meaning of the term, I also feel that it uses very americentric terminology (students, programs, etc.) --Brideshead 19:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all I'm not Jessica. You can't assume that every user is Jessica. This is an IP address. I read the previous posts before..you wrote that "I concede, although do not agree with your point as Alternative does not always imply choice; a vegetarian alternative to the main meal does not give the vegetarian a choice, it simply meets their needs, however it is irrelevant now. I have further edited the intro to read better and be slightly more elegant."

So why are you changing your mind...that special education is not an alternative? (Angelina - talk)

Gosh, there are certainly a lot of teenage girls with an identical way of writing and an obsession for pushing the inclusive education agenda at that IP address aren't there?? Curious! --Brideshead 19:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the statement you propose has been copied and pasted from another source (there are several websites that use this same text.) I would agree with Brideshead that reinforces the American bias in the article. Please do not make any changes to the article without allowing other editors to reach consensus. Also, I would argue that using a "name" in your signature while editing from an IP address is an abuse of the username system. Nposs 19:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm on the IP address. I don't have a username. But why can't I have a name anyway. i shouldn't just be considered an IP address. (Angelina - talk)

Just register for an account. It is anonymous and it will keep you from being confused with other anonymous editors. Nposs 20:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

That's why I put my name on the IP address whenever I sign at the end of my message so it won't confuse with other editors on this IP address. I'm Angelina..and there's another editor Jessica...so we both share the same IP address. That's why we put names on it..

(Angelina - talk)

Well, clearly it isn't working. Nposs 20:29, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I suggest Angelina get a username to avoid further confusion. MrMacMan ^Talk 20:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)spec education

==Possible source of ongoing disagreement

Hi, I have no desire to re-open a topic that has already been beaten to death, but I think that some of the dissention over this page may be due simply to differences in how terms are used in different locations. In the interest of promoting mutual understanding, allow me to explain what I mean.

In the US, "special education" was long a *place* where schools would warehouse students who couldn't be successful in regular classrooms. Often this was in a separate wing, or even a separate building, and a single special education class might include kids with vastly divergent issues, anywhere from learning disabilities to severe autism and MR. All too often these warehouses provided little effective instruction, if any.

In the last few years there has been a huge push to change the view of "special education" so that it is no longer considered a place to send students. Rather, research, "best practices", and education law have been pushing to change this so that special education isn't a location, but a *service* to be provided to students wherever they are. Sometimes this is a typical classroom, sometimes not.

If services are provided in the regular classroom (or on the playground or in the cafeteria ...), this might be called "inclusion" or "mainstreaming," or "collaboration." Collaborative usually means that a special education teacher is "pushed" into the regular classroom to support kids with disabilities. Unfortunately, all too often the terms inclusion and mainstreaming just mean that kids with disabilities are just dumped into regular classrooms with no support, taught by regular education teachers without the training to do the job.

Please do not misunderstand me and think that I am trying to revise the intent of this article. Rather, it is my hope that this explanation of terms might help to allay conflict.

One of the things I *like* about this article is that it is trying to avoid addressing special education from a programmatic perspective. That is to say, trying to describe specialized instruction in general, rather than talking about special education *programs* as implemented in schools in the US, UK etc. It can be difficult to bridge the differences, I know.

Best, Rosmoran 22:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms section

Hi, .

I don't understand the point being made in the 2nd bullet of the Criticisms section about at-risk students being placed with special education students. What kind of disabled students are we talking about? How does that cause the disabled students to lose educational opportunity?

I'm sure there are specific cases where this could happen, but is that really a notable criticism? Someone please enlighten me.

Thanks, Rosmoran 23:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's still a criticism. I personally don't think that at-risk students (those with needs that aren't associated with a disability) should be placed with disabled students. It's not right and it doesn't provide appropriate education to the disabled. At-risk students have different types of needs and they should be served in a different setting. There's a reason why regular students aren't in special education. If regular students were in special education, then it wouldn't provide appropriate education to the disabled. The disabled needs a lot of attention unlike regular students. The regular students learn faster...they cannot wait for the disabled students to catch up..that wouldn't be fair if disabled students was put with regular students. that's the same with at-risk students. Therefore I changed "may impede" to "does not provide appropriate education". (MrsMacMan 15:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC))

Hi, MrsMacMan.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that if an at-risk student is placed in the same class as disabled students, the teacher will not be able to meet the educational needs of both groups appropriately.

Am I understanding you correctly?

Best, Rosmoran 17:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes; it's like would you place gifted children that display behavior problems with disabled children? No, because both groups have different types of needs. I am trying to find a citation for it. Could you help me? It's hard which one is appropriate. (MrsMacMan 15:41, 15 June 2007 (UTC))

I'd be glad to try to help, but I'm not sure where to look. I doubt you're going to find a contemporary, reliable source stating that non-disabled and disabled students should not be educated together. On the contrary, you're much more likely to find sources supporting the contention that they should be educated together. This would be related to the current movement toward "inclusive education."

One thing you might consider is changing the slant of your statement just a bit. For example, rather than focusing on the combination of disabled and nondisabled students, try focusing on the difficulty of teaching students with different types of needs in the same classroom. By leaving out the labels (disabled and nondisabled) I think you'd have a lot more luck.

For example, there has been significant criticism of the inclusive model (in which disabled students are placed in the regular classroom with their typically developing peers). Criticism has been expressed that with special-needs children in the regular classroom, the additional needs of the disabled kids will take time away from the typical kids and slow down their education. From the other side, inclusion has been criticized because of concerns that disabled students often need a fundamentally different type of instruction than do typical students, which would be very difficult to provide in the regular classroom.

This is along the same principle as your original statement, but different enough that it will make a significant difference in how easy it will be to find sources.

I think I can probably find citations for those. Would you like me to look, or does that not sufficiently represent your point?

Best,

Rosmoran 16:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

---

Mrs.MacMan,

You said "I personally don't think that at-risk students ..... should be placed with disabled students. It's not right and it doesn't provide an appropriate education to the disabled."

Perhaps you are not yet aware that statements of personal opinion do not belong on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and the Wiki article standards are very clear that information needs to be from a reliable source, for example, from a peer-reviewed publication. The principles also state that articles should be written from a Neutral Point of View (NPOV) and should include No Original Research (NOR). This means that all of the information in the section "Criticisms" needs verifiable sources cited, or the information should be removed.

Here are links to relevant Official Wikipedia Article Standards:

• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
• WikiPedia:Verifiability
• Wikipedia:No original research
• Wikipedia:reliable sources
• Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not

Best, Rosmoran 14:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Questions regarding section "How is Special Education Provided?"

Hi,

What is "Autism Outreach?" I'm guessing this may be a UK-specific term as I haven't heard it in the US. Perhaps we could internationalize the terminology somehow.

Best, Rosmoran 13:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Reverted the removal of "gifted" in first sentence

Hi, Someone removed the word "gifted" from the first sentence saying that it is a different type of education. This is very POV. In the first phrase of the article, we have defined "special education" as education individualized for children with special needs. Gifted education *is* specialized instruction, or modifications made in the regular classroom. Furthermore, many school districts, universities, and state departments of education handle all types of "specialized instruction" under special education.

If the article is only about educating special needs children who have disabilities, then we need to revise the first sentence of the article to state that specifically. We could say "children with disabilities" instead of "children with special needs."

Otherwise, "giftedness" should remain in the first sentence. Best, Rosmoran 00:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I removed it because the reference supporting the opening paragraph made no mention of "gifted education." I'm fine with an inclusive definition if it can be supported. Is there a better reference though than the one you currently have? It isn't necessarily a reliable source. I won't revert the change in language, but most of the problems on this page have been related to the fuzzy definition of special education. It would be best to have a more authoritative source which mentions "gifted education" as part of "special education." Nposs 04:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Nposs, Can you give me an idea of what you consider a "better" reference? Typically I go for peer-reviewed journals, but this isn't a fact that needs to be established by research, and I don't know of any scholarly journals that would do the kind of survey that would show this "scientifically."

That it is a fact can be verified by looking at education departments around the country. The other reference in that same paragraph is related to the New Zealand education system. I could cite any number of state DOE pages indicating that GT programs are handled as part of special education. Would that help your comfort level?

Here are a few:

• DOE Colorado http://www.cde.state.co.us/index_special.htm
• Pennsylvania DOE (Pennsylvania education code) http://www.pde.state.pa.us/k12/cwp/view.asp?A=11&Q=91423
• New Mexico Department of Education http://www.ped.state.nm.us/seo/gifted/index.htm

There are many states that handle gifted education through the IEP process (the "special education" process federally mandated by IDEA). The states simply piggy-back a state mandate for gifted education on the federal IDEA law.

Does this answer your question? Best, Rosmoran 06:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

There are also many states, though, where the credential to teach in a special ed enviroment is completely different from the one required to teach in a gifted ed environment. Most colleges that I'm aware of also separate out the programs into different degrees, implying that there are different skill sets needed to reach the two populations. I think it's also important to note that there is no statuatory obligation for states to use the IEP process with gifted kids, another huge difference from those kids with identified sped needs. RyanGrant 06:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Although I do not know this absolutely, I suspect you are correct WRT credentialing, at least in most states. You are, of course, correct that there is no federal statutory requirement for using the IEP process for gifted kids. The states can place the obligation on the SEA and LEAs, and some of them do.

I agree that these are important notes to include.

I think my primary objection to the first couple of sentences of the lead has to do with the use of the term "special needs." It is all too easy for our "politically correct" terms to become so vague that they do not assist with differentiating one thing from another. My assertion is that, if we're going to use the term "special needs," we need to use the term correctly and not as a euphemism for "disability." There is no question that children with "special gifts" have "special needs."

My personal preference would be to use "children with disabilities" in the lead. In addition, we could include notation that some states / LEAs include gifted education part of special education, and provide a link to a main article that discusses gifted education specifically.

Thoughts?

Best,

Rosmoran 09:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that's easily the best solution to making the opening better. This is an article on special education--we're not going to be able to stay away from all forms of the word disabled--and linking to the gifted ed article later on acknowledges the "big tent" idea of special education as being degrees of differentiated instruction. RyanGrant 18:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Dyslexia navigation template doesn't belong on Special education page

Hi, I'm removing the dyslexia navigation template from this page. Although a navigation page is probably a good idea, special education is way broader than language based learning disabilities, so this template is inappropriate.

Please, let's discuss major additions like this before we put them in place.

Best, Rosmoran 01:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

no problem. Statistically in the US a very high percentage of "special education students have dyslexia or a reading disability, so my personal perception is that they are closely connected... but I can see where others may have a different opinion. Armarshall 08:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't misunderstand me. Dyslexia definitely ought to appear on the navigation template for special education. The majority of kids in special education have a reading disability, and dyslexia is by far the most common reading disability.

The special education page would need to include references to other articles that wouldn't necessarily be appropriate on the dyslexia page. For example, it would need to include links to all of the types of issues that are served by special education --- developmental disabilities, the so-called "emotionally disturbed" related disabilities, major sensory deficits such as deafness and blindness, mobility issues, etc etc. It would also need to link to different higher-level articles, such as education, learning, pedagogy, educational psychology, and so on.

Does that make sense?

Rosmoran 17:53, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Included redirect to Gifted education

Hi,

Someone removed the redirect to Gifted education, stating that the article is not only about children with disabilities, and that behavioral problems are not necessarily caused by disabilities.

I revised the content of the redirect so that includes the "behavioral problems" clarification, and put the redirect template back into the article.

The redirect needs to be there because the lead section specifically mentions Gifted education as being a type of "Special education". This leads readers to think that the topic of educating gifted students will be covered in the current article. Therefore, we need to provide the redirect so that this expectation is not created.

If there were a section in this article that discusses gifted education, we could place the redirect there rather than at the top of the article.

If someone wants to create a Gifted education section and move the redirect to that location, please do so. In this case, we would use the Main Article template, placed immediately beneath the section heading. This template is coded as follows: {{ main|location }} and produces the following text:

Main article: Gifted education

There may be other ways of solving this problem, but if you want to remove this redirect and do not want to create a gifted education section, please bring the issue up here first so that we can come to consensus on an alternative.

Best,

Rosmoran 15:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Concerns of parents of typically developing children

Someone mentioned the need to acknowledge that parents of typically developing children may have concerns about inclusion. This is a good point --- it should definitely be included. I revised the addition slightly to separate the concerns of some parents of kids with disabilities (that their children may not receive the instructional approaches their children need to learn effectively, for example, kids with dyslexia cannot get the kind of instruction they need in a regular classroom) from the concerns of some parents of typically developing children (that the "inclusion" students may take up an inordinate proportion of the teacher's time and attention).

Best,

Rosmoran 11:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

comment about my change

Students with disabilities or behavioral problems are also known as special needs. --167.206.128.33 17:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The statement in question used to say something very similar to your revision. It was reworded because of earlier conversations on the Talk page in which some editors asserted asserted that "gifted" programs are often implemented as part of Special Education. Notice that "gifted education" is listed in the 1st sentence of the article.

Because a group of editors hashed through this a couple of months ago, I'm going to revert the "other uses" to its previous wording.

Best,

Rosmoran 19:08, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. If someone has a disability or displays behavioral problems, it means they have special needs. Someone who is gifted and displays behavioral problems will still be considered special needs. If someone is failing school but is tested and is considered gifted, why should that person be placed in a gifted class? A gifted class is for people whose behavior is respectful and appropriate. Why should a gifted class accept someone whose behavior is disrespectful and inappropriate? --167.206.128.33 22:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not addressing the question of why giftedness should or should not be handled as part of special education as Wikipedia is not intended to be a forum for discussion of the article's subject. If you look at the top of many Talk pages, you'll see that there is often a notice that states: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the xxxxxxx article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject."

Regardless of personal opinion, the fact is that many educational institutions treat giftedness as a special need. This fact is reflected in the article.

Best,

Rosmoran 11:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

That is what I'm saying. Giftedness is a special need depending on the case. I just don't understand why we can't use it as special needs instead of saying disabilities or behavioral problems. --167.206.128.33 13:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Please provide a proper citation for your viewpoint. You seem to be making an argument based on your own interpretation of what those words mean. Nposs 14:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree 167.206.128.33 is yet another abusive sockpuppet of banned User:Jessica Liao. IP now blocked. Feel free to revert her edits on sight. --Fire Star 火星 14:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

criticism section

tidied up recent addition to criticism section to make it more npov, and to remove unsupported statements. This is the same as the piece that was put into the learning disability article. --Vannin 04:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Sections describing what special education is

Uhmmm .... what happened to the sections that described what special education is, the forms it can take, etc? The article seems to have a huge hole in it without this information. There's the initial definition, abbreviations for the term, and then a bulleted list of criticisms.

Is the problem that special education is handled differently in different countries, so some editors decided to remove the information in order to eliminate conflict about how it should be described?

This article has a very weird structure now, which should be addressed.

Rosmoran (talk) 07:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal?

An editor at Mainstreaming in education first proposed merging Mainstreaming into Inclusion (education). The current proposal is to merge it into Special education. If you have opinions about this please feel free to join the discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Archive

I have archived this long talk page by pasting the text into Talk:Special education/Archive 1. Someone started this process a while ago, but never finished. All of the discussions there seemed to be old (last comment in 2007 or before), but if you want to revive one of them, then please just copy the text of that discussion into a new section on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Segregation and exclusion

Tigereyes92, you just introduced a bunch of errors, which I have reverted. Note:

• Segregation is always a full-time placement. Anything less than full-time is not segregation: it's mainstreaming or inclusion.
• It's the absence of non-disabled students, not the absence of general ed teachers, that makes a segregated student be segregated.
• What a special needs student has to do to get a normal diploma depends on the student's location. Just because New York, in your personal experience, requires passing a high school exit examination to get a diploma does not mean that every single special needs student in the entire world has to pass an exit exam to get a diploma. Every country, and every state in the U.S., sets its own rules.
• Exclusion is about the placement of the student on a daily basis. It has nothing to do with what piece of paper is given to the student on the last day of his or her entire school career. Ryan White was excluded from school at the age of 8 over fears of HIV transmission. Eight year olds are not generally eligible for high school diplomas. In fact, if he had remained excluded (eventually the courts forced the schools to allow him to attend school), and if he hadn't died, he would have received a normal high school diploma.

Please remember that you must never write from your own personal experience. Instead, let me encourage you to find books or magazine articles, and add information from them to this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

August 2008

Edburke, Thank you for your improvements today. I have some concerns about your changes to the "Provision" section. First of all, I think it's a rather American version. Secondly, a student's actual, specific disabilities really does matter. A boy with quadriplegia is not going to make the varsity wrestling team, no matter what kinds of services are available. A student with very severe brain damage, such that she cannot communicate, or even focus her eyes better than you'd expect from a one-day old newborn, cannot realistically be provided with services that will enable her to be fully included in Algebra classes. A student that cannot control his behavior at all -- for example, a disabled student whose response to every single unexpected sight, sound, person, or activity is to scream, throw things, and to try to run away -- cannot realistically be provided with services that will make full inclusion in a classroom with two dozen other children a reasonable option (at least if the safety and education of other students matters in your calculation, as I'm sure it does).

For most disabled students, the availability of services is a critical factor, and I'm glad to have that added to the list. However, for at least some disabled students, the disability matters, too, and we should not remove that information.

Additionally, I have a few minor concerns for you about other changes. The rewrite on "Exclusion" has left us with a factually inaccurate statement. It now begins with "A student who does not attend any school is said to be excluded." However, as I'm sure you'll agree, a homeschooler is not excluded, and a dropout is not excluded, and neither of these classes of children attend any school. This is why the previous language existed: it emphasized that exclusion in this context was strictly due to the disability (such as a student that has been institutionalized). I think it's also appropriate to give some indication that less restrictive environments are entirely appropriate for students with less severe disabilities, and that the most restrictive environments are only considered for the most severely disabled students. The current description makes it sound like the choice of one or the other is just a matter of personal preference.

The "Help for Parents" section is inappropriate because it is US-only. It could, however, be moved to the "External links" section. I'll do that for you in a minute. I'll also fix the formatting on the newly added refs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, Thank you for your feedback concerning my edits. I must say that, in general, this whole article needs a lot of work, and hopefully, with time, those of us who want to see a more accurate understanding of what "special education" is all about will be around long enough to do it!

You are correct: mine is an American perspective. I have been working with our federal law for over 30 years. I agree with your point that disabilities DO matter of course. After all, that's why we have something called "special education." My point, however, is that we are moving beyond the point where "level of disability" dictates the "level of segregation/exclusion" experienced by the student.

Not one mile from where I write there is a High School with 4,000 students that enrolls students with quadriplegia, severe autism, etc. No one expects them to be on the football team, but they are part of the life of the school. They receive their services in a typical school building and, yes, these services are often provided in a "separate" room. But nobody would think of having them leave town for their education.

Re: exclusion. I guess to me, "exclusion" means "You're out," and "You're out by order of/or through ignorance of some authority." I really do not see how homeschooling and dropping out (which are both "oluntary" actions) fit into this. I tried to think of other phrasings for "does not attend any school" and finally came up with (in my mind, the more accurate)"does not receive instruction." This might capture it better. Maybe not...

Finally, under the "Help for Parents..." section, the Partners in Policymaking reference is international. I'm not sure if it means we should move it back up or not.

Thank you very much for your careful reading. All the best! EdEdburke317 (talk) 18:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ed,

If "Help for Parents" is truly international, then how can it be "government sponsored" (your description)? Presumably the US federal government isn't telling parents how to interact with schools in other countries. After a brief look, I'm not actually sure that it's appropriate for this article, as it doesn't seem to say much about special education. It's about disability advocacy in general. Perhaps it should be proposed at Disability activism instead.

I think the exclusion thing will make more sense if you consider three specific cases:

• Child A lives in a rural part of a poor country and has a moderate case of autism. The local school district refuses to allow the child to attend school because he can't sit quietly in a room with sixty other children. The regional education authority does not require the school to provide alternatives, because they realize that they could teach six typically developing children for the price of teaching one student with this set of disabilities.
• Child B lives in a wealthy country, but is unable to attend school because leaving the specially constructed equipment at the children's hospital is potentially deadly. (Think David Vetter, Dianne Odell, a child in year-long chemotherapy or radiation for leukemia, or another extreme medical situation.) Instructional video programs are available, and a tutor visits the hospital three days a week.
• Child C has Conduct disorder and is serving an eight-year sentence after being convicted of a violent crime. The teenager attends class at least four hours a day, five days a week, and is on track to graduate from high school at the age of 18, but his "school" is in the juvenile prison, and his "classmates" are other teenaged convicts.

All of these kids are being kept out of the regular schools due to their disabilities (directly or indirectly). In all of these cases, the disability has a significant impact on the environment they're in. We need to recognize all three of these cases in this section. In particular, some excluded kids receive instruction, and some don't (or didn't: this needs to cover the historical exclusion as well).

In general, I think it's strange to say that we're "beyond" the point where the disability drives the restrictiveness of the environment. It very much does, but in a positive way: developed countries do not ever segregate kids with dyslexia because that disability is considered so mild -- and fifty years ago, these kids were sometimes labeled mentally retarded and isolated in special schools. So I think that the level of disability does drive the level of restrictiveness -- but in a way that drives most kids out of the restrictive environments. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing,

Thanks for your edits and thoughts. It is interesting to discuss this issue from different national perspectives. It reminds me of work on the UN Standard Rules over a decade ago now. So often so many people meant nearly the same thing, only words got in the way. In my latest edit, I went right to the top. I changed the first sentence of the article to believe what I know to be the frequency (at least in Western nations) of special education service modes.

I changed around the "exclusion" language and the language in the next paragraph to reflect your concerns, especially about the plight of children where there is no mandate for education, or where school districts can say, "This is all we offer, take it or leave it."

I have also added another reference to a nation-wide study in the US on inclusionary education. All the best! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edburke317 (talk • contribs) 14:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

My explanation

The goal of special education is to help students achieve a safe childhood. It doesn't promises students to be independent at all. The reason why special education existed is because people in the past abused special needs students. That's why in many countries has special education to help these students have a safer childhood. The reason why we have special education should be explained, not ignored. --Academiic (talk) 21:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Please, go read some sources about this issue. Special education programs don't promise anything, but in the United States, they are required to address the issue of independence and achievement -- whether that means "independently pushing a buzzer" when attention is wanted, or living in your own apartment and working at a regular job. Your personal experience is not relevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Every special education student that graduates from high school can no longer receive special education services. How does this help them achieve independence in the future? Colleges don't provide special education classes at all. --Academiic (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

This is not about my personal experience. I have provided a reference. --Academiic (talk) 18:21, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The college nearest me provides special education services. So does the college nearest you. Additionally, attending college is not a prerequisite for achieving independence, even of the "move out and live by yourself" kind of independence. A remarkable number of disabled and non-disabled people manage that. Fully 50% of current high school graduates never attend a single college class, and yet you don't see 50% of high school graduates spending the entire rest of their lives living with their parents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for providing a source. The source is acceptable. Unfortunately, the source does not say anything about providing a "safe childhood". It does not address past abuse. It therefore cannot be used to claim that the purpose of special education is to prevent child abuse. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

They were denied of an education in the past. That's abuse. --Academiic (talk) 18:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Your source doesn't say that being excluded from an academic institution because of a disability is abusive. That's just your personal opinion. Furthermore, equating "no formal schooling" with child abuse is pretty nonsensical. About 98% of the people in the world were "denied an education" in the past, because hardly anyone went to school, or more than a very few years of school, until modern times. Were 98% of the people born more than 200 years ago victims of child abuse?

More importantly, this point of history doesn't tell us what special education is. It only tells us that special education's (1) widespread use (2) in the United States (3) at government-funded schools is a (4) relatively new thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

request link to Special Education Law Blog

Hi,

I have read your guidelines, and I am requesting a link friom thie article to the Special Education Law Blog at: http://specialeducationlawblog.blogspot.com/

The blog is by a neutral, Jim Gerl, a hearing officer, and provides a balanced perspective.

The legal component of special education is growing rapidly, but it is too big to merit full discussion in this general article.

Thanks for your consideration.

Jim Gerl —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spedlaw (talk • contribs) 15:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that a blog hosted by Blogspot and run by a single person is a terribly good resource. Sorry! --ElKevbo (talk) 17:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Merger with "Special education in the United States"

having looked at the two article there is very similar content and examples and references. about 80% of this artilce is based on Special education privision in the United States, with a few extra examples from the UK to try and make it more global.

There is nothing about the various types of special education provision that may be required dependent on the variety of conditiosn whoch can create the special educational requirement, there is no attempt to expalin any legle or statutory requirements except fro tne US IDEA which only applies in the USA so waht statutes do other countries in the world have in place. Or are they expected to be clones of the USA system. If you want to be an internationally sourced article then you need to have international sources citations, and resaerch. You should not try and impose your countries culture on the rest of the world or assume that all of the world in like the USA.

So your have two choices either delete the nominal references to the UK, and merge with the Special education in the United States, OR become a truely global article with global research citations, global statutes related to this topic, which may require a section per country if you are serious in your intentions

AS i have mention before I am only trying to solve a problem on the Dyslexia project, but i seem to uncover more WIKI problems or lack of a global approach due to the lack of professionalism from so many articles and their editors who have such a small town approach to global issues.

dolfrog (talk) 04:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose merge I think that the mere fact that the article is unfinished is a wholly insufficient reason to propose eliminating it, especially since most of the information applies to the education of students with disabilities in any country in the world. WP:There is no deadline and {{sofixit}} both apply. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

If that is the case then you need to re-organise the artilces on your category page to the be arranges per country, so that visitors can seletect the wiki pages realted to their own countries Special education provision, both statutory requirements, the official Special Educatinal Needs support systems, and procedures, and the voluntary support agencies. And you need to remove all refernce to a specific contries Special education systems in this article or include examples from every country in thew world dolfrog (talk) 01:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Which "category page" are you talking about? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I am told that is article is supposed to represent the generic term "Special Eduction" on wikipedia. Well from the content over that last 2 years always makes reference to issues and opionions from the USA, there is not a global reference or contribution from any where except the USA and may be the UK. But if this article wants to remain a global article and not be move to "Special Education in the USA"; there needs to have references and content that reflects the education systems listed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Education_by_country or Category:Education_by_country which covers maninstreem education around the world, and the recruitment of some international editors. I think you have some research to do to accomplish a global article.

It may be easier and less hard work to move to "Special Education in the USA" the choice is yours, but do not take too long in making your choice.

dolfrog (talk) 13:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Dolfrog, the answer to your question about how long it takes for an article to be "globalized" is "as soon as you do it yourself."

I'm really unhappy with your negative attitude, and with your apparent inability to see beyond the end of your nose to look at the contents of the article. For example, consider the contents of Special education#Provision: It says that students with special educational needs may receive services in a regular classroom full time, in a special classroom (or entirely separate school) full time, in a combination of the two locations, or completely separate from schools. Can you tell me which part of this is "just about the United States"? Has anyone else in the world ever figured out a way to provide special education services that is simultaneously neither (1) in school, (2) in a special part of a school, (3) out of school, nor (4) some combination of the above? Or are you prepared to admit that this section -- the most important section of the article -- provides information that applies to every possible situation in every single country that provides special education services at all? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

In that case it will have to wait, I have two other article which require serious research and revision. The problems here are a side issue from the article I am mid way through editing. I have made my own provision for the article I am editing for a support by country category of its own as i can see that your article will never be able to do the job you seem to want to claim for it. There is a saying in the UK "There are more ways to skin cat than just one". What this article lacks is an editor prepared to do the required research so that it can become a global article, and an editor prepared to listen to the international needs of others.

dolfrog (talk) 22:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Spelling

Would special-needs student be the correct spelling? Sorry for being picky---I was just reading the guidelines of hyphenation and happened to parachute in to see if I was informed enough to comment on the current dispute over the wording of the first sentence. Anyway, I'll leave it up to all of you to decide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neffk (talk • contribs) 18:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, if it's two words in regular English, but not if it's a term of the art (in which case, it's considered to be a single word for these purposes, even though it's got a space in the middle; compare the hyphenation of a multiword proper noun like "New York"). I'm not sure how this term is classified these days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

POV

Please explain what in this article makes you think that it "reflects on certain people with these experiences" or otherwise isn't neutral. (Note that "neutral" is different from "polite", but I think that both are achievable in this article.) Please point out specific sentences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

"Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs." It has never address students' individual differences and needs. Tracking does not allow students' needs to be met. It may meet the higher functioning students needs better but overall it really doesn't work. In the provision section, it states inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation, and exclusion. It would be clearer if readers understood that these are the groups that special needs students are tracked in based on academic abilities. Harionlad (talk) 04:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have confused "addressing" special needs with "eliminating" special needs. The word address means "to direct your efforts towards", not "to be successful at totally solving every problem". "Addressing" only requires that you make an effort (even a small effort, even an unsuccessful effort) to do something about a special need.

The opposite of "address" is "ignore". If you completely ignore a student's special needs, then you are not providing special education. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Special education is not really about addressing the students' individual differences and needs. It's about a group of people who work together in helping the special needs student succeed to the best of his ability. Tracking allows special needs students to succeed to the best of his ability. Critics of tracking however don't agree. But that doesn't really matter as that's not the point. Harionlad (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

So your complaint about NPOV violations is basically that you want to define special education as being identical to tracking (education)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Well at least the readers can understand special education process realistically instead of special education being portrayed as being "unique" for the "special" child. Every child is special. It's not only for children with disabilities. The entire special education approach only pays attention to certain children. It's like special children are the most important people in the world. There is so much arrogance about people with disabilities. They force regular children to gain sympathy for the disabled children in the class. In order for this article to remain neutral is for it to encourage regular kids to start treating disabled kids as regular people who just need extra help. We can't have an article that encourages disabled people to feel they are more important than others. Arrogance is bad. This article should strive to have a neutral tone in writing. This way when people read it, they won't have to feel sympathy towards the disabled. What's wrong with just saying that the disabled are just like regular people but just need a little bit of extra help? That sounds better and it doesn't make regular people feel bad. Harionlad (talk) 00:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you think that "unique" and "special" mean "better"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The terms "unique" and "special" just sounds confidential which describes the special education process. It’s like they don't want regular people to know about it. The best part about Wikipedia is that it allows people to fully understand special education. It's out in the open, not in private anymore. Why not let people fully understand it? Special education is tracking because it tracks each special needs student into their own group. Kids feel left out because of tracking but their parents encourage that it’s for the better. But in reality, it's not good for them in the long run. [8] Harionlad (talk) 02:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I see. "Unique" means "different" or "not like others." "Special" means "unusual," "different," or "designed for a particular thing." I think that it is reasonable to describe students with learning differences as being unique, and to describe the education that is not the usual one, but designed for the particular needs of a student as "special" education. It does not "encourage disabled people to feel they are more important than others," as you asserted above. It simply means that the way you teach them is (a little bit) different from the way you teach typical students. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Full inclusion

This edit once again restores an error. This idea that inclusion of any student with special needs (not just those with significant disabilities) is "uncommon" and "controversial" is simply wrong. See, for example, "In 2007, 59% of students with LD spent 80% or more of their in-school time in general education classrooms." That means that most students with learning disabilities are already being "included" instead of "segregated" or mainstreamed.

See also:

• "inclusion is an accepted best practice in special education"
• "more than 99 percent of Denmark’s 80,000 learning-disabled children are educated side-by-side with so-called mainstream children, an ideal known as “inclusion.”"

There is nothing "uncommon" or "controversial" about what 99% of students with learning disabilities in one country are already doing, and more than half of these students in most countries are doing, and what is "accepted as a best practice". The only thing that is uncommon and controversial is the inclusion of students with severe disabilities, like mental retardation.

Your preferred version does not correctly indicate the important distinction between the challenges of fully including a student with severe disabilities and the triviality of accommodating mild disabilities. Please remove it again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

First sentence

The new first sentence says:

Special education is the practice, in education, of placing special needs students into different groups within a school, based...

The problem is that it isn't sufficiently inclusive. Special education is also the practice of not placing students into different groups within a school: consider full inclusion (no different groups) and one-on-one teaching (no groups). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

If students are in a hospital, homebound, or detained by the criminal justice system (one-on-one teaching), they are in an excluded setting. These students are tracked into an excluded setting. Full inclusion is a controversial practice. It would be best to put that in the inclusion article. It would not make sense to mention full inclusion into the special education article as that would just confuse the readers more. Harionlad (talk) 02:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

No, we need a comprehensive article, not a "highlights of the most common practices in my personal local area" article. That means that we don't tell readers at the beginning that special education is only a particular approach. Special education is truly any kind of education that addresses special needs, regardless of how you happen to go about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

We can state special education is a particular approach used by many but we must also state the ones that aren't as used. I made the necessary changes stating full inclusion as a controversial practice with references. Harionlad (talk) 18:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we do not have to pretend that all practices are equally popular.

But we cannot provide a "definition" in the first sentence that makes the reader believe that special education is smaller than it is.

Saying that "special education is the practice of placing students in different groups" -- when we know that special education is that, plus many more things -- is like claiming that "Students with learning disabilities have trouble reading," even when we know that there are students with other kinds of learning disabilities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Special education tracked students in inclusion, mainstreaming, segregated and excluded settings. These are the different groups. Harionlad (talk) 19:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The way this sentence is written, the reader will think that special education always puts students in a different group, meaning "other students who are physically in the same room and receiving the same kind of instruction" compared to a "normal" education program. This is wrong.

You seem to say here that you're talking about "placing students in a group", meaning "mentally classifying the student in a category that might or might not be mentioned on some piece of paperwork written by the school administrator," which is not exactly wrong, but which is completely unimportant. Whether or not the school officially classifies a student as being "included" or "mainstreamed" or something else does not tell us what special education is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: The act of classifying a student as "mainstreamed" is not the same thing as meeting that child's individual special needs for education. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You are telling me special education is nothing like tracking? It tracks special needs students into inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation and exclusion to help meet their needs. Harionlad (talk) 04:04, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm telling you that special education can be accomplished with no tracking at all. The entire state of California does it: tracking is illegal in California. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

How come there is inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation and exclusion? What is the purpose of it? Harionlad (talk) 04:32, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of that section in the article? To describe what happens in the real world.

The purpose of those programs in the real world? To provide special services to students with widely divergent needs, according to each individual's actual needs, in a series of interrelated programs that might (if we're lucky) be somewhat efficient in terms of staff time and supplies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

How come some students are segregated? Obviously, they are tracked into it because their needs require it. How can you say it is not tracking? Harionlad (talk) 04:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

(Undent) This explanation might make more sense. Here's the difference:

• "Tracking" is not the same as "getting stuck in a particular track." In tracking, I take 100% of students in the entire town, and I line them up from least proficient at academic work to most proficient, and I divide the line up according to how many classrooms I have. We'll say I have three classrooms. The students at one end of the line are placed in the "not so good at school work" class (even if normally I'd only say that about a couple of the students), the next is the "normal at school work", and the last is "pretty good at school work" (even if normally I'd only say that about a couple of them). I try to put every single student in the entire town in a classroom with other students that I believe are achieving at approximately the same level. All students attend class with students whose skills are similar to their own, and all students are placed in a class according to whether they are better or worse than the entire school's average. Tracking can be run simultaneously with special ed: You can track all of your typical students and have an entirely separate program for students with severe disabilities. Many nations do this.
• In special education systems, I ignore all of the non-special education students; if there are too many to fit in one classroom, then they are randomly divided up and the school simply doesn't care who ends up in which class.

  For those few students with special needs, I look at each individual student with special needs separately, I figure out that single student's needs separately, and I decide what kind of a program might work best for that individual student, completely ignoring what might happen to anyone else.

  It happens that in a large enough area, I'll probably have enough kids with similar needs that I can make a full class of students with matching needs (this is how alternative schools are born), but that doesn't matter: I'm placing this specific child in this particular program because this child needs these precise services.

Placing a student in a segregated classroom is not considered "tracking" because the students are placed in self-contained classrooms because their own needs can be most effectively addressed this way (special education), and not because of how they compare to other students (tracking).

Let's pretend that having green hair is a problem in school. (Perhaps it makes you sick if the teacher is boring.) In a tracking system, you'd line up the students from most green hair to the least green hair, divide by the number of classrooms you have (we'll say three), and there's your three classrooms: green, brown, and red-haired students (and we assign the most boring teacher to the red-haired class, because boredom won't make them sick). Some of the so-called "green" students might not have very much green hair, but they were closer to green than the person next to them, so they're called green and placed in the green-haired class. Some of the so-called red-haired students might have very brown-looking hair, but their hair was a bit redder than the next person down the line, so they're called "red-haired" now. That's tracking: what matters is how you compare to other students.

Now compare this to a special education system: Only those students with really obvious green hair are special ed students. All the others get randomly divided up, because we don't really care which teacher the typical students get. Then we consider only the students with obviously green hair, one student at a time: what does each individual student need? Maybe they have different ideas of what "boring" is. We design a teaching system for each and every student to reduce the odds of that student getting sick. Perhaps that means that the green-haired boys play edutainment computer games, and the green-haired girls get lots of group projects so they can talk (except for the boy that doesn't like the educational games and the girl that doesn't like group projects) -- but it's all about each child's specific, personal, individual needs, not about how the student compares to anyone else.

Furthermore, in tracking systems, it's typically fairly hard to change tracks -- because whether or not you could do well in a "higher" track is unimportant; you have to prove that you'd achieve better than someone else already in that track -- but in individualized special education programs, an individual student can change education programs at any time, so long as the change is really appropriate (which it usually isn't, since radical changes in student needs are not that common: students with severe disabilities can reasonably be expected to continue having those same disabilities from one year to the next). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The first sentence that I wrote only states tracking special needs students. It never mentioned about tracking typical students. Special education is still tracking students into groups. I don't understand your views at all. Your intro is not clear to the readers. The intro I put in tells readers that special education tracks students. If they didn't, how come people criticize special education classes for its watered-down curriculum? That's the result in tracking. The low-track students don't progress. Harionlad (talk) 17:54, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. Tracking does not mean "giving some kids a worse education". It means "putting kids in a class with other kids like them." That class could provide exactly the same education as the other classes.

Or are you asking me why none of the students with mental retardation are taking honors math classes? Because that's where those "watered-down curriculum" complaints come from -- a desire to force every child to master exactly the same material, even if that material is wildly inappropriate for the student's actual capabilities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Students with learning disabilities are in special education classes too. It's not just for students with mental retardation. They have to suffer from the watered-down curriculum as well. It really is not fair how these students are treated. In college, the curriculum is no longer watered-down. So why in high school is it like that but in college they expect learning-disabled students to learn just like everyone else? Harionlad (talk) 01:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

At this point, your complaints don't seem to have anything to do with improving the article. To get back on topic: there are students with special needs in advanced academic classes, too, and those students often do quite well in college. For example, students with blindness, deafness, and paralysis are all special education students, and none of those conditions impair their ability to succeed in college. I've personally encountered a true genius with a learning disability that meant he could not spell, two brilliant students with serious mental illnesses, and several honors students with dyslexia and similar processing disorders. All of these were "special education students" and all of them succeeded in honors-level classes and in college. Some of them had to work harder than others students, but all succeeded. These students were not "placed in different groups within a school" like you were defining special education. They were given the services they needed without placing them in any kind of group. This is why we can't define special education as "the act of placing students in different groups within a school". There are a lot of special ed students that do not have the same experience that you did. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be more neutral? It shouldn't reflect on certain people with these experiences. Special education students who are more advanced are grouped into inclusive setting. They aren't grouped into mainstreaming, segregated or excluded setting. Harionlad (talk) 21:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that it is reasonable to say that a student that gets ten extra minutes on a test because she writes more slowly -- even though this is a "special needs" student who is receiving "special education" -- is "grouped" with anybody. I do not think that it is reasonable to say that the student whose "special need" is "must have a nurse give him a pill every day at lunch" is "grouped" with anybody, even though this student is receiving services within the (US) definition of "special education." I don't think that a student who uses a wheelchair -- even though this is always a "special needs" student and therefore receives a "special education" -- is "grouped" with anybody. Do you think these students are placed in groups?

These "special education" students are all just regular students that need a slightly different service from the school. They're no more "grouped" than a typical student is -- and you certainly can't define special ed as "grouping students" if your definition of regular ed is also "grouping students". That leaves us with no difference between special education and plain old education. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not talking about the minor things such as getting ten extra minutes or the student who requires a wheelchair. I'm talking about special needs students who are judged as requiring more attention are grouped in the segregation group. Harionlad (talk) 04:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand that your focus is on the students who were segregated, because that's what happened to you. But your personal experience of special education is not the be-all and end-all of special education. These are all special education students, and you are not allowed to redefine special education to exclude those real, true, bona fide special education students. Do you understand what I'm telling you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

This is about special education students being tracked into inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation and exclusion. This is what I have been trying to tell you. I have asked a third opinion to resolve this issue. Harionlad (talk) 16:34, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for requesting a third opinion. Since there are no reliable sources that claim that tracking (as widely used in Europe; see, e.g., Education in Germany) is the same as special education, and since there is no reason to believe that providing services, such as described above, to a student who spends all day in a regular classroom and does all the normal coursework, results in practice in having assigned the student to a "track", then I suspect that the person giving the third opinion will find the issue quite simple. I hope that this will end this unnecessarily lengthy dispute over this obvious misunderstanding based on your personal experience. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

There are no reliable sources that claim that special education doesn't use tracking. I suspect that the person giving the third opinion will find much difficulty in resolving the issue. Perhaps, the person giving the third opinion would suggest other ways in providing a neutral point of view. Harionlad (talk) 20:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Tracking is not about special needs students. Let's try this differently: When my husband was tracked in the German gymnasium system -- and he was definitely tracked -- it had nothing to do with his special needs, because he doesn't have any. When the kid next to him was tracked into the Hauptschule, it had nothing to do with his special needs, because he didn't have any: he was just a kid who would rather play soccer than read a book. Nearly 100% of German children are tracked after Grundschule ("elementary school"). Nearly 100% of German children are not receiving special education.

• The purpose of special education is to meet the unique needs of children with disabilities and to provide children with disabilities access to education. -- note that this is different from "Special education is dividing students into groups."
• Special education is instruction that is specially designed to meet the unique needs of students who have disabilities. -- not one word about dividing students into groups.
• The purpose of Special Education programs is to provide a free and appropriate public education that meets the needs of Special Education-eligible students -- again, the word "track" doesn't appear on the page.
• "Special education is not tracking", four paragraphs from the end of this article in The Seattle Times.
• See also the legal definition of special education in the US federal law IDEA (20 USC 1401 §602, paragraph 29): "Special education.--The term `special education' means specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability." There's not one word in that definition that refers to dividing kids into groups. This is because special education is not a place: it's what you do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not about the US. The article is supposed to reflect every single country. We can't use a US definition of special education. This article is completely biased if we are using the US definition. The article in the The Seattle Times is based on one person's opinion. And I don't agree. The person who attacked special education has every right to comment. Some people agree with his views. It's not a matter on who is right. These are just opinions by educators. "How would he assist a learning-disabled 15-year-old reading at a second-grade level? What would he do with the student who simply lacks the mental ability to do mathematics beyond simple addition? Forcing such students into regular classrooms does them no service." You can't say that to a student who is in college. If you can't do math in college, you are still forced into regular classrooms. Colleges are not going to put learning-disabled students in special classes because that would be cheating them by giving them a watered-down curriculum. Harionlad (talk) 00:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

So? You still haven't provided a single source that says that anyone, anywhere in the world -- except you -- thinks that tracking (education) is the same thing as special education. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:58, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Ralph DeBruler attacked special education. He is basically saying that the special needs students are treated differently than regular students. He says that they failed special needs students in bringing them "up to grade". All of this is the result of tracking. He doesn't say it specifically but we know that's what he meant. It's like describing a person who gets along well with people. You don't have to say that this person is nice because the person gets along well with people. People know that this person is nice without people telling them. Harionlad (talk) 02:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

DeBruler does not say that special education is tracking. You said that special education is tracking. Your interpretation of this violates the "No original research" policy. You have also failed to provide a single source that says that what nearly every country in Europe does -- tracking (education) -- is the same as special education. We therefore cannot say this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

So you can't say that special education is not tracking based on their opinion. They haven't done any studies that show that it is not tracking.

This source [9] questions rather children in segregated environments feel it is a stigma or a gift. Therefore, special education is not tracking has not been studied carefully. If they are still questioning, obviously the issue hasn't been resolved. Harionlad (talk) 19:23, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

That source is not about special education. It's about whether or not kids that are doing poorly should flunk first grade. This article has not attempted to assert the claim that special education never uses tracking; it is possible to do both, after all. You have attempted to define special education solely as tracking (education). The WP:BURDEN is on you to provide reliable sources that define special education as dividing all kids with special needs into different groups (your made-up definition), instead just providing services to whoever needs them (the definition supported by all of the reliable sources I've seen). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The article mentioned the students as "special needs". How could you say that it's not about special education? Kids are being retained because the school did not provide appropriate services in the first time around. The second time around, these kids are segregated. They questioned rather segregation is a stigma or a gift. Harionlad (talk) 20:38, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The article said that when the school placed her son in the 1st-2nd transitional class instead of promoting him to second grade, one mother thought that the school was trying to tell her that her son was disabled. "I thought it was a polite way of saying he’s a special-needs child" does not mean that this is actually a child with special needs or that the child is actually receiving special education. There is no evidence that any of the kids in this class have any disabilities at all: they were all of them younger than average, and now have average or above-average skills. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I did not say that special education is solely as tracking. They are being tracked into different groups according to special education regulations.

Of course they are doing better now they are in the segregated class. Once the kids have proven that they have the skills, they can return to the regular class. Harionlad (talk) 21:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You most certainly did define special education as tracking: You wrote, "Special education is the practice, in education, of placing special needs students into different groups within a school." The act of placing students into different groups is not "special education". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation and exclusion are the groups. If they aren't, what are they? These groups help educators teach special needs students and to facilitate learning for everyone. Harionlad (talk) 21:14, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion

There is a lot of back and forth above so I'm going to concentrate on the meaning of the proposed sentence

Special education is the practice, in education, of placing special needs students into different groups within a school, based...

and its accuracy in defining special ed. The largest public school system in North America has this to say about special ed. In particular, I noted that the article says That means they are spending the majority of the school day alongside their non-disabled peers. and These services include interventions and strategies in the general education environment for struggling students. Note the use of 'alongside' and 'general education environment'. Both quotes point to the focus of special education, at least within the New York City school systems, as being one of inclusion rather than grouping or tracking. Since this is undoubtedly one of the largest providers of special education services in the world, there is little question in my mind that the proposed sentence is not representative of special education as practiced since it is too specific to cater to what one of the largest special ed providers does. The description in this version is far more representative. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 21:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If special needs students are segregated, they are not spending the majority of the school day alongside their non-disabled peers. I propose revising the first sentence. Harionlad (talk) 22:05, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your point. The NYC board of ed is saying that they are not segregated. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 22:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

For the higher functioning special needs students, they are included. For the lower functioning special needs students they are not spending the majority of the school day alongside their non-disabled peers. The article has this to say also They also include more intensive services provided in self-contained special education classes. Harionlad (talk) 22:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of the discussion above is that the fact that special ed includes segregation is not the issue. Rather, the issue is that there is a lot to special ed that focuses on inclusion as well. The latter part of special ed is what is not covered by the original proposed sentence. Both aspects seem adequately covered by the current lead. (To me anyway, I'll let the other editor weigh in before I comment again!) --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 23:40, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Could we say that

Special education is the practice, in education, of placing special needs students into a continuum of placements within a school, based...

Harionlad (talk) 00:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

No, because you (once again) have failed to provide a single reliable source that claims that special education is a place, instead of a service that can be provided in whatever location happens to be available and appropriate. Students might be divided up, but the actual practice of dividing the students is not what makes it special education. Special education services can be -- and frequently are -- provided without anybody ever thinking about "placing" students in a particular environment. Please look at these websites and see if that helps. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Instead of place, could we use arranging? Like this, special education is the practice, in education, of arranging special needs students into a continuum of placements within a school, based on academic abilities. Harionlad (talk) 02:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, this 'continuum of placements' term is not something that is easy to understand. Best to use language that is simple and direct. I think that Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. is perfectly clear and that the next two sentences elaborate on the basic idea quite well. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 02:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I read this link [10] The title says special education is not a place:avoiding pull-out services in inclusive schools. But special education has pull-out services such as resource room. These are needed to help students learn. Harionlad (talk) 02:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Just because special education isn't a place doesn't mean that it can't be done in a place. In fact, I'm not sure how any human could do anything while "nowhere".

Consider this: You can eat in a dining room. The room itself is not the act of eating. Similarly, you can provide an individualized education to a special-needs student in a classroom. The room itself is not the act of teaching. The teaching, not the room, is what makes something be special education. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

RegentsPark, I think that's a perfectly fine description, and it is easily supported by literally hundreds of reliable sources.

Based on our previous interactions, "Harionlad" does not believe that it is an accurate definition. Harionlad apparentlly believes that special education is the division/placement/arrangement/classification of students into different physical locations. So if you put these students in this classroom, and those students in that classroom, and the other students in this other classroom (and the students have special needs), then the very act of dividing them is what makes it special education, even if you provide exactly the same education to each and every student in the entire town.

By contrast, if you don't divide/place/arrange/classify special-needs students, but you do provide each student with specific services carefully chosen to correspond to individual special needs, then that is apparently not special education, because you skipped the "critical" step of deciding whether the paperwork should say "mainstreamed" or "self-contained classroom", or whatever. This may be based on a belief that students who aren't sufficiently stigmatized by being placed in segregated classrooms aren't "real" special education students. There are no reliable sources that support this POV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

There are no studies that show special education is not tracking. The links you show me are a bunch of people who believe inclusion is the key to educating students with special needs. The links are biased and doesn't represent special education as a whole. Harionlad (talk) 03:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course there aren't any "studies". That's because you don't run an experiment to determine a definition. If you want to include your (erroneous) definition, then you must supply reliable sources to WP:PROVEIT. You haven't done so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:15, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Special education is the practice, in education, of providing a continuum of placements to special needs students within a school, based on academic abilities. This represents special education as a whole. When we say continuum of placements, we are referring to the variety of placements in special education. It transitions well to the provision as it begins to describe the various placements. The current intro doesn't really transition well to the provision. Here is a link that says "continuum of placements": [11] Harionlad (talk) 04:15, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

No. Special education is educating students. It is not placing students. Special education is what you do, not where you do it, or what the kid sitting next to you is like. And your source does not say anything even close to "special education is placing students" or "special education is providing students with a placement." It's not: it's providing students with services they need to get education. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Special education classes have been criticized for its watered-down curriculum. [12] Therefore, proponents believe that de-tracking also eliminates the possibility that unprepared students will receive a slower-paced and inferior-quality instruction. Is de-tracking then really the answer? [13] Clearly, special education uses a tracking method as it results in a watered-down curriculum. Harionlad (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Many schools use both tracking and special education. That does not mean that special education is tracking. People that want to eliminate tracking of special education do not propose eliminating special education itself.

You requested a third opinion. The editor who kindly responded to your request did not agree with you. Are you prepared to end this argument? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I provided a reference. Can you at least look at it? Full inclusion is not for students with significant disabilities. The book I read only said disabled students as a whole. There are no reliable sources that states "People that want to eliminate tracking of special education do not propose eliminating special education itself." Full inclusion has NO special education programs. Harionlad (talk) 19:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The person who provided the third opinion only wrote about what he knew. He was completely biased. He did not respect the views of the other side. I am completely upset by the lack of knowledge in the special education field. I have been patient by providing references and the only response I get is an attitude that my references don't make sense. Harionlad (talk) 19:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Your continued insistence that only people with your type of disability are "real" special education students is both extremely offensive and entirely inaccurate. Deaf students are "real" special educations students, even when they are fully included. Blind students are "real" special education students, even when they are fully included. Please stop spreading this nonsense about special education is only for students that are segregated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I never said that only segregated special education students are real. Harionlad (talk) 19:50, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

(Undent) Stop ignoring what I am trying to tell you. You said that full inclusion is only for students with significant disabilities. That's not the case. Full inclusion is for all special needs students. Your continued insistence that only students with significant disabilities are served in the full inclusion model is both extremely offensive and entirely inaccurate. Harionlad (talk) 19:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

"Full inclusion of students with significant disabilities is controversial and uncommon." That's what you wrote instead of the one I wrote "However, full inclusion is a controversial practice, and it is not widely applied." Harionlad (talk) 19:58, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I have never said that full inclusion is only for students with significant disabilities. It would be entirely inappropriate to not fully include students with mild disabilities. Full inclusion of some special education students -- e.g., those with mild cognitive disabilities and those with physical disabilities like diabetes -- is not uncommon and not controversial and is a widely used model.

But what does this have to do with whether or not special education is "the practice of dividing students into groups", instead of the practice of educating them? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Fine, then I'm changing it back to what I said since you agree with me. Harionlad (talk) 01:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I have moved on. Let's just not talk about the "intro". Harionlad (talk) 01:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand how anyone could interpret my comment that it is not uncommon and not controvesial is support for your statement that it is uncommon and it is controversial, but it doesn't matter, since your account has been blocked for evasion of a community ban. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

History

Special education, in its early days (and even now, to a great extent), was not an international movement. Consequently, the history section necessarily will report what happened in this country or that country. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

My real issue here is two fold, all of the content in this section relates totally to the USA and should therefore be in the Special Education in the United States article, and may be there should not be a history section in the more Global Special education article, because Special education has developed in different ways in different countries, and we may be to close the events time wise to provide global historical perspective.

May be there is a need for a sub article for the abbreviations, not only for the the names of the professionals involved, but also for the conditions etc, I have a few such lists in my own archives somewhere on my computer system.

Where does the Criticisms section come from, what is that about? Again nearly all from the USA, so it again should be moved the the Special Education in the United States article if they will have it.

This article needs to become the main article for the "Special education by Country" Category, so it needs to reflect an international perspective, may be a picture of Special School not in the USA.

Just had a look at the The Civitan International Research Center (CIRC) http://www.circ.uab.edu/ just another USA organisation with international pretentions.

No International investment. No centres abroad, that I could see mentioned, to provide the require support to administer an internationally based project. I could very well be wrong, but it seem to only train volunteers, which all full of god intentions but does not provide a network of international or global Special education Centres. I have never heard of them before i read this article in the last couple of weeks dolfrog (talk) 03:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Please indent your comments to make it easier for other readers to figure out where my comments stop and your comments begin.

It is entirely reasonable for this article to contain some information about history. Major changes to special education that affect a large number of people in the world, and that are reported around the globe, are always appropriate for inclusion in the global article about special education. Global articles are supposed to be a bit of "one-stop shopping", not just brief definitions that direct readers on to country-specific articles. Since readers of the English Wikipedia are most likely to care about English-speaking countries, this section should (ideally) include the highlights of the history of special education in all major English-speaking countries, as well as some information about non-English-speaking countries. Among other benefits, this allows the reader to do a bit of compare-and-contrast, by (in a complete article) discovering that the US has had a national policy on special education for decades, and that most developing countries provide zero services to disabled students. Only details/minor events are relegated to the country-specific articles.

Let me give you an example: Imagine that the EU has banned a chemical. We don't say "Oh, the EU banned this chemical, and we know their action was reported in the news everywhere in the world, but the EU isn't actually the entire world, so let's leave that out, unless we're writing an article solely about 'This chemical in the EU'." We include the information -- along with, ideally, information about what other parts of the world have done, if that information exists -- in the main article because it's important.

Importantly, Wikipedia is an incrementalist project. This means that you add what you know, I add what I know, and other editors add what they know. If everyone does his (or her) bit, then we'll end up with the whole history. Apparently, the only editors that know anything about the history of special education in the world knew something about about the US's role in the overall history of special education. The fact that non-USA editors have not added their bit is no excuse for deleting the accurate and verifiable information that we have.

The Wikipedia editing policy (specifically WP:PRESERVE) also applies here: if information really belongs in a different article, you should copy it over there, not just delete it entirely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

you are totally missing my point, for reasons i do not understand, May be if i lived all of my life in the USA may I would understand your point of view more. A global article is supposed to be a summary article to present a global or put another way an international view. There are the sub pages which can be created to provide more specific information on the same topic for a specific country. Personally I have not much interest what happens in the USA regarding Special education, we do not have the same constitutional structure, and there are at times vast cultural differences. I would be more interested in our immediate European neighbours say France, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Spain the Netherlands and Italy. many of whom can also speak English as s second language, and read English web pages, and with the ability to translate a web page at the touch of button, the need for globalisation becomes even greater.

What happens in the USA for the most part is of only interest to those who live in the USA, and is not report much ourside of the USa unless it has some global significance. So if you wish to add a reference to the US then you should be able to do some research to find some information about the same topic in other countries to balance the article and so as to generate an interest from potential editors even from other English speaking countries. We get fed up of all this internal USA references only stuff. We all know that the US is a very inward looking society, which is why you appear to only want to have US information when discussing international issues, but that is life unfortunately dolfrog (talk) 19:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's try this again: This article should contain some information about the history of educating disabled students around the world.

• Good: lots of information, naming major events in lots of countries.
• Bad: information from one (or two or three) countries.
• Very bad: zero information.

So here's the challenge: How do we reach the point of having "lots of information"?

A few years ago, the article took a baby step in the direction of achieving the ultimate goal: a tiny fraction of the desired historical information was added. Your response to that information is, "I'd rather have zero information than to have information about that country" (a response, by the way, that I've only seen one other time in education-realted articles, and it was someone in mainland China that was determined to remove any mention of Taiwan).

Deleting information about a single country takes us farther from the ultimate goal. Why don't you add some of the missing information yourself? Perhaps your addition of what you know will inspire another person to add what s/he knows. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction

The article explains special education very clearly. But the article contradicts itself. What is the purpose of special education when opponents criticize special education classes for its watered-down curriculum? With that being said, why would any parent consent to special education for their child to be taught in a watered-down curriculum? Colleges do not provide a watered-down curriculum. They actually expect their students to learn just like everyone else. Struggling is a part of life but it is the person who needs to get help from teachers to succeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eivmeidwl (talk • contribs) 17:20, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Two facts may address your issue:

• Not all special education programs employ a watered-down curriculum. A student that uses a wheelchair is (always) a "special education" student.
• Not all students are capable of completing the normal curriculum. A student with severe mental retardation may not be able to learn how to read, no matter how many resources you provide, and no matter how much the tudent struggles.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is what this editor was saying. It is true that special education classes are watered-down for students that don't have mental retardation. The school system is corrupt. That's the real reason. In college, there is no more special education. These students are pretty much on their own. Esthertaffet (talk) 21:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

reason for removal

I removed these lines "Inclusion of students with mild to moderate special needs is accepted as a best practice" and "For example, in Denmark, 99% of students with learning disabilities are educated in an inclusive setting" because it was not necessary as the reference did not state rather the inclusion was regular or full inclusion. It only confuses the readers more. Esthertaffet (talk) 13:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. The sources are not required to draw the distinction you care about, using the precise language that you want. The fact that the sources don't distinguish between "full inclusion" and "regular inclusion" is why they should be listed as being about "inclusion" (not otherwise specified), instead of shoved under "partial" or "full".

I am restoring this obviously relevant information from these obviously reliable sources, and ask that in the future you not delete properly sourced facts simply because they don't line up with your personal preferences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, just FYI, your change broke the list formatting, which is irritating to people that use screen readers and therefore an WP:ACCESS issue. Restoring this information to the general summary of inclusion at the top solves this problem. I think that pages about special education and disabilities have a particular duty to be friendly to readers with disabilities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

What does my changes have to do with the list formatting? It is clear. Esthertaffet (talk) 12:50, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

List formatting requires that every item (paragraphs beginning with a bullet (marked by *) or number (marked by #) be listed with no blank lines between them. When you moved the statement about the US (a statement about inclusion in general, not full inclusion) into a paragraph below the description of full inclusion, your addition of a blank line made the list break. Instead of one list of four items (and two sub-items), it created one list of one item (and two sub-items), a new paragraph, and one list of three items. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I did that. And I realize it was wrong. I fixed it in my later edits that you reverted. Esthertaffet (talk) 09:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes I made

Full inclusion is different from regular inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation, and exclusion. Full inclusion does not have separate special education classes and must be clear to readers. It is not appropriate to put it with the rest when they are two completely different ideas.

Inclusion: Regular classes combined with special education services only confuse the reader even more. Students in partial inclusion are in regular classes for every subject. They receive outside help during the day or sometimes within the regular classroom. This needs to be emphasized. The first sentence of inclusion looks exactly like the first sentence in mainstreaming.

Partial inclusion is not about special needs students being educated with "typically developing peers". It's about being educated in regular classes.

I also added a new term to the article "integrated classes". Back when I was in school, they had integrated classes for the students who needed more help that could not be met entirely in a resource room.

Best, Esthertaffet (talk) 16:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

break

"Full inclusionists, who generally advocate for children with mental retardation, cannot seek their policy agenda only for children with mental retardation, as such a qualification would be construed as support for special education placements and their children may be the ones so placed."

This means full inclusionists support children with disabilities, not only those with mental retardation. If they only support those with mental retardation, it would be construed as support for special education placements. But they aren't. So the source is not a contradiction. Esthertaffet (talk) 20:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Where does this statement come from? It's never been in this article. Why are you talking about it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The reference is mentioned in the article. [14] Esthertaffet (talk) 16:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

And why are you talking about it? Who cares whether this is a politically viable marketing strategy?

More pointfully, why are you using a ref that firmly opposes full inclusion to make a claim about the superior morality of full inclusion? You misrepresent the source dramatically by citing it in support of full inclusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The ref does not firmly oppose full inclusion. It supports full inclusion. Read my explanation above. It does matter, otherwise Inclusive school would never have been an article. It explained in Inclusion (education) the differences between full inclusion and partial inclusion. I don't understand why you refuse to add it. Esthertaffet (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The authors oppose full inclusion. See "Consequently, we are "inclusionists," not "full inclusionists"–a critical distinction." Doubtless their opposition to full inclusion is why the title of the article is "Separate Is Sometimes Better". It's silly to quote someone as saying "separate is inherently evil" when the case they make in this paper is "separate is good". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Just because the title says separate is better doesn't mean we can't express the other minority view. We should let readers know both sides to keep the article neutral. Esthertaffet (talk) 19:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The authors who oppose full inclusion are those who are inclusionists, not full inclusionists. If they were full inclusionists, they would not oppose full inclusion. Anyway, both sides need to be said. They mentioned the special education placements in the article. That's the inclusionist's view. It's also important for full inclusionists to state why they don't like it. Wikipedia wants a NPOV so there is no reason to remove it. Esthertaffet (talk) 19:25, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The entire article says that full inclusion is not the best choice for a substantial number of students. To quote the Fuchses as saying that full inclusion is the moral imperative is to misrepresent their view -- and to misrepresent their actual opinion as badly as the person who quotes the Psalms as saying "There is no God", when the entire sentence says "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

In this instance, I'm not convinced that the sermonizing of a tiny minority of activists is appropriate to this article (which is not focused on inclusion), but I am convinced that (1) if we include a statement like that, it should not be sourced to someone that explicity and directly rejects this view and (2) it should not be at the very beginning of this section, which gives it an inappropriate appearance of importance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I will justIt is inclusion. Have you seen Educating Peter? [15] The boy has Down syndrome and he is fully included. Usually these kids are in special school, not in a regular school. Should we find another source or just forget it? Esthertaffet (talk) 23:27, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I recommend leaving the sentence out entirely, as being not really an appropriate level of detail in this (very general) article as well as being off-topic in the particular section (which is more like "please name the five settings for providing (or failing to provide) special services to students", not "compare and contrast the moral and ethical advantages of the various settings"), but if you are determined to include it (either here, or in a more appropriate article), then you really must find a source that supports this view, without quoting half a sentence out of context. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

break 2

The source does not say that full inclusion is only strictly to those with significant disabilities. I removed this statement. Esthertaffet (talk) 14:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

What statement are you talking about, and who ever made that claim? This article has never said that full inclusion is common or restricted to kids with severe disabilities. This article has consistently said the opposite: Full inclusion is common and widely accepted for kids with mild disabilities, and full inclusion is extremely uncommon and highly controversial with students who have significant disabilities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Full inclusion is not common and not widely accepted for kids with disabilities. It is controversial. I think you are getting confused between full inclusion and partial inclusion. Esthertaffet (talk) 16:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

We apparently agree, although you don't seem to have noticed that my word choice (uncommon) means exactly the same thing as your word choice (not common). So why did you delete this statement?

Full inclusion of students with significant disabilities is controversial and uncommon.

This says FULL inclusion is CONTROVERSIAL (we agreed on this point) and UNCOMMON (meaning: NOT COMMON, and we agred on this point, too). Supposedly you believe this statement to be true, but you've repeatedly deleted it. Why are you deleting it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

No, you said full inclusion is common and widely accepted for kids with mild disabilities. This is not true as students with mild disabilities are educated under partial inclusion. All I was trying to tell you that full inclusion and partial inclusion are different. You can read it for yourself. See Inclusion (education) for more information on the differences.

I deleted the statement because it only was talking about people with significant disabilities. Full inclusion is not about them; it's about people with disabilities in general. In order to make this article as neutral as possible we must tell the readers that people with disabilities are not being treated fairly. Esthertaffet (talk) 14:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Most schools aren't inclusive schools. You need to accept the fact and move on. Esthertaffet (talk) 15:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Most American schools provide a range of services, from full inclusion (which is absolutely normal for students whose "special need" is mild ADHD, diabetes, and food allergies) through complete segregation in self-contained classrooms (typical for students with severe disabilities). Three reliable sources say that full inclusion is not common for kids with severe disabilities. The fact that three separate sources address this distinction means that we need to include it. Full inclusion is about them, too, just like "equality" is about people that are unfairly discriminated against. If the fact that these kids aren't fully included were actually unimportant, then we wouldn't have three separate sources talking about it. Wikipedia's policy on due weight requires that this article reflect what the experts are talking about, not what you personally think is important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

This is coming from Inclusion (education): Bowe argues that inclusion, but not full inclusion, is a reasonable approach for most students with special needs. He also cautions that for some students, notably those with severe autism spectrum disorders or mental retardation, as well as many who are deaf or have multiple disabilities, even regular inclusion may not offer an appropriate education.

Bowe says that inclusion, but not full inclusion is a reasonable approach for most students with special needs. He never said that full inclusion is a reasonable approach for most students with special needs. This is not coming from me, but from an expert. Esthertaffet (talk) 19:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

So why do you keep deleting the sentence that says this? The sentence in question says "Full inclusion of students with significant disabilities is controversial and uncommon." You apparently think that this sentence is verifiably accurate, and you apparently think that nearly all experts agree with this statement, and yet you have deleted it repeatedly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You said that full inclusion is absolutely normal for students whose "special need" is mild. I responded saying an expert said that inclusion, but not full inclusion is a reasonable approach for most students with special needs. That being said, full inclusion is not a reasonable approach for most students with special needs. You are twisting everything I say into something else.

Like I said before, I deleted the statement because it only was talking about people with significant disabilities. Full inclusion is more than that; it's about people with disabilities in general. Esthertaffet (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

So since the experts make an accurate statement about a small group of students, instead of a wrong statement stereotyping every single student as needing and commonly receiving exactly the same treatment in every school, then we can't include the accurate information? Because that's how I understand your refusal to include this specific piece of information: a refusal to include information that the experts think is important (important enough for multiple reliable sources to mention) solely because it doesn't talk about the specific group of people that you're most interested in.

You keep saying on this page things like "full inclusion is not a reasonable approach for most students" with significant special needs. So why can't we say that in the article? You have repeatedly deleted from the article exactly what you say is true on this page. Are you trying to hide this information from the reader? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I never said on this page things like "full inclusion is not a reasonable approach for most students" with significant special needs. The experts said that full inclusion is not reasonable for most students with special needs. They didn’t say significant special needs. Esthertaffet (talk) 23:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Please review your comment above, specifically the line that I've underlined for you, where you say, "full inclusion is not a reasonable approach for most students with special needs". I add the word "significant" because I doubt that a trivial special need, such as needing to wear eyeglasses, counts as a "real" special need in your mind -- nor do any experts advocate "mainstreaming" or "regular inclusion" of kids with insignificant special needs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Schools that practice full inclusion are controversial. I don't know why you keep saying that it is common for students with mild disabilities. Students with mild disabilities are still subjected to special education placements. Full inclusion does not have special education placements at all. Full inclusion has never been accepted. You are clearly getting confused between full inclusion and regular inclusion. Esthertaffet (talk) 13:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I keep saying that inclusion of students with mild disabilities is common because it's verifiably true. For example, 99% of students with learning differences in Denmark attend regular classes full-time, exactly like the source says. If it were "uncommon" and "controversial" everywhere, then 99% of these students wouldn't be doing it.

It is possible to fully include "this" student while segregating "that" student in the same school building. An inclusive school does not do that -- it fully includes everyone, regardless of whether that's the best choice for each individual student -- but full inclusion of selected students happens in every single US and UK school. Johnny, who spends his entire day in the general ed classroom, does not quit being "fully included" simply because Sally spends most of her day in a self-contained classroom. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

An inclusive school educates ALL students, not selected students. Esthertaffet (talk) 23:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Full inclusion also happens in non-inclusive schools. The difference is that in an inclusive school, everybody is included; in the vast majority of schools, only some students are fully included. This section needs to reflect the more common use, which is full inclusion of "Johnny" in a school building that is perfectly satisfied with not fully including "Sally". WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:10, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Just in case this is helpful: This bullet point is about inclusion (education) as practiced in the most typical schools, not about inclusive school. The rare inclusive school deserves (barely) a mention here, but that's all it deserves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:20, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

In most typical schools, special needs students take resource room. They are not fully included in the regular classrooms. They have to go out to another classroom to compensate for their disability. Full inclusion is when kids are fully included and are not subjected to special education placements. Esthertaffet (talk) 08:54, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

So? This does not change the fact that full inclusion happens in places other than an inclusive school -- for selected students. I've met students that have been fully included (receiving exactly zero services outside the general education classroom) in normal, typical, everyday public (and private) schools -- the very same schools that send most students with special needs to a resource room or a self-contained classroom. Full inclusion for students with mild dyslexia and other mild learning differences is actually pretty common after about fifth grade in the United States. As you may have noticed from other complaints on this page made by a student with more significant disabilities, full inclusion is the sole option for students at the university level, as there is no "resource room" or "self-contained classroom" at major universities, even though there are many students with learning differences and physical disabilities attending such schools. There are remedial classes at some schools for students that have not mastered the necessary material, but these classes are offered irrespective of disability, and they are thus not "special education": they are general education for people that haven't taken enough classes in a specific area (pre-algebra at the local community college), and you receive no credit for passing them. There's no "English literature with lower reading requirements for dyslexic students" or "Physics for people that can't do math" in a college catalog: There's English lit, and if it takes you twice as long to read this book, then that's not the professor's problem.

Your recent changes have tended to conflate full inclusion (of a specific student) with inclusive school (all students). Making these two different things sound identical is inappropriate. I oppose your attempts to confuse the reader on this point. Most noninclusive schools fully include some students with disabilities.

Am I correct in guessing that your experience is limited primarily to your family's elementary school experience? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

You make it sound that full inclusion is offered at the college/university level. The goal of full inclusion is the avoidance of special, segregated special education classes. I've met special education students who said that they received a letter from their high school saying that the minute they graduate high school they are ineligible for special education services. This is a sign that special education is no longer offered beyond high school. Colleges and universities do not provide special education, which makes it vital for special needs students to learn to advocate. In high school, they never had to do that. Colleges don't offer special education so how can they practice full inclusion? They don't need to avoid special, segregated special education classes when they don't even offer special education.

This has nothing to do with my family's experience. It's about revealing the truth about the corrupt school system. The foster care system does not provide special education or gifted classes, just the minimum education for kids. That's it. They don't care about grade retention. Why should they? It cost too much money. Why open public schools? It's expensive and people still complain about how bad it is. Honestly, why should people without kids have to pay school taxes? It's a waste of money. I'd rather have the kids be educated in the orphanage, than in the public school system. Esthertaffet (talk) 16:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

(Undent) American universities offer a remarkable number of special educational services to students with disabilities, including hiring someone else to take notes for you during class, the loan of recording equipment if you need to hear something more than once, special software to make computers more accessible, extra time on written tests, hiring someone to proofread your essays, machine readers for textbooks if you can't see, providing in-class sign-language interpreters for Deaf students, and so forth.

What's different from younger grades is that no student is ever removed from a regular college class to attend a separate "special education" class on the same subject or skill. This is the definition of full inclusion: the disabled student is never removed from the regular classroom, but still receives necessary services.

Like most people, I think that some aspects of education could be improved, but Wikipedia is not a place to advocate for your personal views of what "ought to be" or to right great wrongs. This is an encyclopedia: we summarize what's relevant experts say is important. If that's not what you want to do, then you might want to start a blog or your own website, where you can write whatever you want instead of writing what various experts say. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

American universities do not offer special education. I have never heard of such a school that did. Universities are required to accommodate students with disabilities by providing support services. Support services are different than special education services. Esthertaffet (talk) 09:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

So providing a sign-language interpreter in a high school lecture class is "special education", but doing exactly the same thing in college is suddenly not special education? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Special education is "special", all right

- Sorry, but I'm getting quite a guffaw from watching you guys fight over various categories of inclusion, which from my perspective seems incredibly petty. From personal experience, I view all inclusion as a joke that simply wastes the time of gifted and average children in the class in which the special child is to be integrated, with little benefit to the special child. Special education should be kept separate. There is no need to distract mainstream students while a special ed teacher struggles to enlarge a disabled child's lifetime occupational possibilities from merely cleaning toilets to taking fast food orders. Anyway, turning back to the inclusion issue, both of you guys might want to back off for a while and calm down. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:49, 13 September 2009 (UTC) + I removed the insult regarding lack of "return" for the investment of time and energy teaching student with special needs, particularly with mental retardation. Insults don't have a place in a discussion. I do think it is good there is some debate about what inclusion is, however. - :It may be petty the way we are fighting. But sometimes it's important to argue to make something better. I just learned something new from it. If I never express my views, the article would suffer. We can never turn away from an article until there is some peace to it. Just like people who constantly fight in relationships and end up having a divorce. Divorce is not a solution. Cooperation is the solution to what makes Wikipedia and everything else successful. If we never cooperated, there would be no Wikipedia and no harmony among human beings. Esthertaffet (talk) 17:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Denmark

The source says:

As a consequence, more than 99 percent of Denmark’s 80,000 learning-disabled children are educated side-by-side with so-called mainstream children, an ideal known as “inclusion.”

We cannot twist this into "full inclusion" or "partial inclusion" or anything else, because we simply do not know what the author is counting as "inclusion"0 here. For all we know, some of these kids could be receiving a small number of services outside the regular classroom. We must stick very closely with what the source actually says, which is just the word "inclusion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:17, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the source is not very clear, maybe we shouldn't use it. Esthertaffet (talk) 08:48, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

The source is perfectly clear; it just makes a distinction that is less specific than what you apparently want. We cannot use the source to make a claim that is more specific than what it actually says.

Think of it this way: You want to assign this statistic to either "tigers" or "cheetahs". The source says "big cats" -- a class that includes both. Since the source gives a general name, we can't say that it's really talking about either "tiger" or "cheetah". We simply have to limit our statements to "big cat", because that's what the source says. What's important is that "big cat" (inclusion (education)) excludes mainstreaming), segregation, and exclusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

If they are educated side-by-side with so-called mainstream children, it is full inclusion because that's what full inclusion is. They may not clearly say full inclusion but the actions describe it. Many educators use the general term inclusion. The actions of what they say are perfectly clear in determining full inclusion.

Think of it this way: In the United States, three out of five students with learning disabilities spend the overwhelming majority of their time in the regular classroom. Can we determine rather they are doing regular inclusion or full inclusion? If the students spend the overwhelming majority of their time in the regular classroom, it's clear they are doing regular inclusion. We don't need sources that are already clear enough. Actions speak louder than words. Esthertaffet (talk) 10:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You can only go by what the source says. If the source says "inclusion" then that is what the Wikipedia article must say too. I'm not sure that I fully comprehend the differences between regular inclusion and full inclusion, but it is presumably a distinction which applies only to the US and is irrelevant for the Danish school system. Dahliarose (talk) 15:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I did go what the source says. Inclusion is the general term meaning either regular inclusion or full inclusion depending on the context of where it is used. Esthertaffet (talk) 16:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Regular inclusion is when students with special needs are educated in regular classes for nearly all of the day, or at least half of the day. Full inclusion is when students with special needs are educated in regular classes for all of the day. Therefore full inclusion does not have special education placements at all. They want special needs students to feel included with their mainstream peers. I was confused at first between the two but now that I know the difference, it's pretty simple. I think that the distinction between the two can be applied to the world. Every country benefit from it, not just the US. Whatever they do to educate special needs students can apply to regular inclusion or full inclusion. Esthertaffet (talk) 17:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Dahliarose is right. We have to stick with the exact word choice provided by the source. Furthermore, some people think that "side-by-side" and "goes to a different room for speech therapy class for 20 minutes each week" are essentially the same thing, because the removal of the student from the regular classroom is insignificant compared to the overall picture. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Esthertaffet is adding her own layers of meaning and interpreting the material in a different way. We are not supposed to be interpreting the data, but merely reporting on what is stated in the sources. Sources need to be found to support these claims and the use of this terminology. If not they cannot be used. Dahliarose (talk) 23:48, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If I am adding my own layers of meaning and interpreting the material in a different way, then why if is full inclusion and regular inclusion both mentioned in the article? Clearly, it has some meaning and should be included with the correct definitions. Esthertaffet (talk) 01:29, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I added another source and it does say that Denmark uses inclusion to a certain extent. They don't use full inclusion at all. Esthertaffet (talk) 01:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted your changes, again, and once again ask that you stop making changes that you think are likely to be contested by other editors. For the time being, you'd be very safe assuming that I'm going to object to any change you make that involves anything more substantive than correction of simple spelling errors.

Your source simply does not say that they use (or don't use) inclusion/regular inclusion/partial inclusion. It describes (without naming or classifying them) some typical situations, including some that might be full inclusion (all standard teaching, plus additional "supplemental" services). Contrary to your assertion, it does not claim that situations not described or named on this page do not happen. You're reading the source, and applying your own personal views to it, and twisting it into something that it does not say.

Additionally, the page is a primary source within the meaning of the WP:NOR policy, which means that it's doubly important that we not say in the article anything that isn't perfectly plainly stated in the source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice if the educators of Denmark or other countries would clarify on how they do their inclusion. That way we wouldn't need to write a small section about general inclusion. We could have just dived into regular inclusion and full inclusion without first talking about general inclusion. The general inclusion is personally just confusing to the readers. I guess education systems are just not developed well. Esthertaffet (talk) 15:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

full and regular

I am beginning to agree with Dahliarose that full inclusion and regular inclusion don't belong in the special education article. These terms are confusing to the readers as it applies to the US only. The progress for this article has not been improving since WhatamIdoing and I have been disagreeing. I suggest putting these two terms into the "Special education in the United States". What do you think? Esthertaffet (talk) 02:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I suggest putting the more general inclusion into the special education article rather than the subtypes. Esthertaffet (talk) 02:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

In principle, I don't object to reducing the amount of detail (and therefore emphasis upon) the various implementation styles for inclusion.

I would object to saying that these styles are merely in the US in the absence of a high-quality source that plainly states this as a fact. Wikipedia editors are certainly in no position to review and classify the practices and terminology in every single jurisdiction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say that the terms regular and full inclusion shouldn't be included in this article, merely that if these terms are to be used they must be backed up by reliable sources. For instance, the whole section on regular inclusion in this article is currently completely unreferenced. Without sources there is a danger that an editor will generalise from his or her knowledge of the system in his own country and try and make it apply elsewhere when the terms might have very different meanings in different countries. Dahliarose (talk) 10:41, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Like Dahliarose said, the whole section on regular inclusion is currently completely unreferenced. Like I said before, the two terms in the article is confusing. It should be removed but I'm not completely sure. I'm just going to let another experienced editor do this. I have already put them into "Special education in the US" which apparently WhatamIdoing and I seem to agree. Esthertaffet (talk) 07:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I added the Bowe reference for the regular inclusion just to let you know. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Inclusion is so confusing. But with the proper references, everything is clearer. Esthertaffet (talk) 19:28, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Estertaffet, can you explain why you have once again deleted the properly sourced (to Bowe) and obviously true statement that "Most schools practice full inclusion only for selected students with mild learning disabilities or with physical disabilities"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The Bowe reference doesn't state that most schools practice full inclusion only for selected students with mild learning disabilities or with physical disabilities. Bowe argues that inclusion, but not full inclusion, is a reasonable approach for most students with special needs. In other words, he states that full inclusion is not a reasonable approach for most students with special needs. Esthertaffet (talk) 14:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Here is a passage taken from the article of Inclusion (education).

Other authors, such as Stainback and Stainback, by contrast, propose that placement in general classrooms is a civil right. These advocates believe that schools should be restructured so that full inclusion can be provided for ALL students with special needs, including those with the most severe disabilities. I capitalized all for emphasis.

Bowe distinguish regular inclusion and full inclusion. He believes that regular inclusion is appropriate for most students with special needs. He also said that students with severe disabilities would not benefit from regular inclusion. He said that full inclusion is not a reasonable approach as it puts special needs students in general education classrooms all the time without giving them the services they need. Full inclusion puts students with mild and severe disabilities in the general classrooms all the time. This means that students with mild disabilities could not go to a separate classroom. It wouldn't be fair to them. Students with severe disabilities could not get the more intensive services that they need. Bowe is saying that full inclusion is not appropriate at all for all special needs students. He is not saying full inclusion is only for selected students with mild learning disabilities or with physical disabilities.

If he is saying what you believe he says, then why does other authors, such as Stainback and Stainback propose that placement in general classrooms is a civil right? Obviously, they argue that placing special needs students in special education placements is wrong. They believe that schools should be restructured, so special education placements are not needed. Esthertaffet (talk) 15:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Your response suggests that you are confused by the unrelated purposes of these authors.

• We are using Bowe's description of current reality: If you take his book as a whole, he's saying 'this is what is done in practice: a lot of kids with mild dyslexia, diabetes, epilelpsy, and paralysis are fully included in most (American) schools, because they just don't need that many services. However, kids with Down syndrome, MR, severe fetal-alcohol syndrome, conduct disorder and severe autism are not fully included in most schools.'
• Stainback and Stainback do not describe current reality. They advocate change. They say why their favored approach should be the only approach.

To give you an analogy, Bowe is saying "If you survey a bunch of people, most people say that they wash their dirty dishes every day." Stainback and Stainback are saying "Dishes should be washed immediately after every meal to reduce diseases." Stainback and Stainback aren't debunking Bowe: they also agree that full inclusion isn't the current normal practice for kids that need significant special services.

In this section, we are not trying to advocate for anything. We are trying to describe what's happening, right now, in a typical Western school. Bowe tells us: kids with mild disabilities, and kids with non-cognitive disabilities, are fairly often fully included.

You know, from your own personal experience, that kids with physical disabilities (like wheechair users and people with epilepsy) are not assigned to special education classrooms: they spend their entire day in the general classroom, because the only educational service that a wheelchair user needs is a desk that the wheelchair fits under. You also doubtless know, from your own personal experience, that people with mild dyslexia are commonly found in regular classrooms. They may be a bit slower at reading, but they're not excluded. This information is factually accurate and properly supported by the source. So why do you keep deleting it? Do you want readers to think that kids who use wheelchairs are routinely sent to self-contained classrooms? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Full inclusion is the integration of ALL students, even those with the most severe educational disabilities, into regular classes and an avoidance of special, segregated special education classes. It doesn't integrate only selected students. Do you want readers to be confused what full inclusion is? Esthertaffet (talk) 18:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. You have misunderstood. It is perfectly possible for "Johnny" to be fully included while "Susie" is completely segregated in a self-contained classroom in exactly the same school building. Putting "Susie" in a self-contained classroom does not change the fact that "Johnny" never leaves the general education classroom. This is why "inclusive school" (which fully includes all students) is not the same as "full inclusion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. I did not know that inclusive schools did not practice full inclusion. Thank you for educating me on this. Esthertaffet (talk) 17:47, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

You are once again mistaken. Inclusive schools do practice full inclusion; however, other schools also practice full inclusion. Your misinterpretation is like saying "California is part of the United States, and therefore it is the only state, and none of the other 49 count." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I have not found any reliable sources that say inclusive schools do practice full inclusion. Esthertaffet (talk) 14:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have, but I've also found others that indicate less precise use of the term. It might be best to merge inclusion (education) with inclusive schools. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Even if you did find reliable sources for it, we still couldn't use it because full inclusion is not used in some countries. Wikipedia articles must represent a worldwide view of the subject. It would be best to keep it general.

I must say I agree with the merger. I don't understand why there were two articles to begin with. Esthertaffet (talk) 21:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)