The different levels of ability combined with the various qualifiers of special education students present a difficulty in determining the best course of research-based learning. In addition the ability to track and report such learning becomes difficult at best, impossible at worst.
The Issue
Given the wide spectrum of students that qualify for special education services there is a demonstrable difference in the services they are provided.
The students in special education today, receive a combination of education instruction. When they are able to appropriately benefit and learn in a mainstream environment the federal government dictates that they do. If their particular disability provides the need for accommodations to that mainstream education, such as oral testing, or un-timed lessons the school has provided that as well through the use of special education staff members. With NCLB the special education educators are finding themselves between the rock and the hard place in theory.
Demanding that every educator providing lessons to special education students is "highly qualified" in the core subject in which they are providing those lessons sets up obstacles to the very individualized education methods that are currently in use, and in keeping with the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case of four past decades.
In addition the NCLB mandate is virtually unfunded at the federal level. This means that school districts across the nation are ordered to comply with the special education qualifiers with regard to "highly qualified" but there are no funds forthcoming from federal coffers to pay for such educators.
In addition, because IDEA ensures the right to a free appropriate public education, some research and policy questions (e.g., Are IEPs effective in promoting student progress?) may not be addressable through research methodologies that require random assignment to a "nontreatment" group or condition. Last, in special education, students with disabilities are often "clustered" in classrooms, and in experimental group design, the classroom rather than the student becomes the unit on which researchers base random assignment, data analysis, and power estimates (Harris, 2005)."
Just as it is impossible to achieve one definition or term that can encompass all special education student disabilities, one research method to accurately define, record and report teaching methods and qualifications of those teachers in the field of special education becomes difficult.
A central theme advocated by IES is to focus research on the questions of effectiveness and to employ high-quality research methods to address these questions (Whitehurst). The gold standard for research methodology that addresses these issues is the use of RCT methodology (Harris, 2005)."
When it comes to special education there are other methodologies including single subject design studies that might provide a more comfortable fit for the context of research.
The discovery and development of new effective practices may require researchers to work in naturalistic contexts where they may not be able to exert experimental control and/or in design experiments, or where they have the flexibility of changing certain elements of an intervention based on students' responses. Such descriptive and process-oriented research may require the use of qualitative methods (Harris, 2005). Educational researchers have acknowledged the value of mixing methodologies to provide a complementary set of information that would more effectively (than a single method) inform practice (Harris, 2005)."
The primary concern of NCLB when it comes to the benchmarking of special education efforts is that the methods being used by the schools are not measurable by research design, thereby not verifiable as to their success rates.
When NCLB was being designed there were concerns brought forth that the field of special education had yet to design a systematically measurable guideline that could specify the levels of evidence that could be used to identify practices as evidence based and effective.
Congress had the desire to see evidence that the public funding for special education was being used wisely and effectively for the special education students in its care.
The end result was the provision...
"By the 1980s, the field had moved to a functional skills model. As the evidence for this approach mounted, the field refocused on age appropriate skills and knowledge performed in authentic settings and the functional life skills curriculum became best practice. The functional, age-appropriate curricular focus resulted in these students demonstrating skills and knowledge not thought possible earlier" (Quenemoen, 2008). In the 1990s, added significant new practices were acknowledged as
Thus, efforts aimed at helping teachers to avoid harmful stereotyping of students often begin with activities designed to raise teachers' awareness of their unconscious biases." (1989) Cotton goes on the relate that there are specific ways in which differential expectations are communicated to students according to the work of: "Brookover, et al. (1982); Brophy (1983); Brophy and Evertson (1976); Brophy and Good (1970); Cooper and Good (1983); Cooper and
Special Education According to the Federal Laws of the United States of America, "Special Education means specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability [IDEA 97-300.26(a)]." The revised statutes of Arizona defines a child with disability as "a child who is at least three but less than twenty-two years of age, who has been evaluated and found to have
It would not only be time consuming and expensive for each classroom teacher to develop an effective basic reading skills curriculum but such a curriculum is also fraught with a high degree of error. There is compelling evidence that supports the use of scripted programs rather than teacher-developed approaches to teach complex skills (Benner, 2005). Second, apply positive behavioral supports to manage the behaviors of students with behavioral difficulties during
Just as physically impaired students receive the benefit of appropriate testing accommodations, so should all special needs students. Ultimately, imposing certain minimal standards of overall academic achievement in connection with graduation may, in fact, serve a beneficial purpose. However, in order to do so, it must employ standards and methods that do not unfairly penalize special education students or the educational institutions that serve them. References Bush, T., and Amundson, E. "Should
More importantly, our appreciative and participatory stance with our co-researchers has allowed us to witness and learn about the cutting edge of leadership work in such a way that is and feels qualitatively different from other research traditions we have used in the past, because it is built on valuing. Even though it is challenging at times (Ospina et al. 2002), our inquiry space is enhanced by our collaboration
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now