What is being proposed is “mainstreaming” to be overseen by a Resource Specialist with 28+ kids spread over multiple sites and a freeze on hiring aides + the Resource Specialist taking on additional Gen Ed children who need support while she or he coaches the entire site(s) on how to be more responsive to Children with Special Needs. This explains why OUSD is using the terms “mainstreaming” and “inclusion” interchangeably. It really doesn’t know what it takes to support meaningful inclusion in the classroom. It is also putting the weight of capacity building on Special Ed staff who already struggle to meet the needs of the children that they serve.

It is important to note that some children do benefit from specialized classrooms and settings (mine included) and that the degree and nature of participation in General Education varies in response to the real needs of particular children. The law mandates a continuum of placements for a reason.

Finally, let’s not forget that OUSD proposed to make all of these changes over 2 months during the summer, with a new Director coming halfway through it, after laying off all Program Specialists, and before hiring the reduced number of Specialists that would supposedly oversee the entire “reform.”

For an interesting article about Special Ed cuts scantily dressed as reforms in other districts see,

http://archive.cta.org/CaliforniaEducator/v7i6/feature_3.htm

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9906.worth.scandal.html

I’m not saying that SE doesn’t have a good purpose. I am saying that SE is being used to have the schools manage an at-risk population with short life expectancies in many cases.

I see drug babies…

It’s more than a notion to be responsibility for many of these kids and they are typically not college material in the extreme.

Vocational planning is their only hope to avoid wretched and short lives.

As far as your Autism kids – Who does your district have the most of, Autism or Drug Babies?

Mainstreaming is fine for those families that want it and can benefit from it. Mainstreaming is not in the cards for many SE kids – other than in the context of Vocational Placement at McDonalds, Wal*Mart or wherever. Some kind of supervision is needed long term for the kids I see in the courts. We just transition them to Regional Services, Mental Health Court, Adult group homes and the like.

My suggestion would be that more of the SE services follow the model of the ASIP (Autism Spectrum Inclusion Program) programs. It seems to be working really, really well.

I don’t have the 2011 or 2012 graduation and college admission rates, but in 2010, when my son graduated high school on time, so did all of his ASIP peers, and *all* of them went to college in the fall. Same for the first class that started with ASIP, and graduated in 2009 – 100% on-time graduation, and 100% starting college.

Some SE services are working. It’s just a matter of looking for the successes, or of looking for the failures.

The people I’m thinking about are probably a subset of SE kids. I think of them as drug babies – They have major mental disorders usually attempted to control by psychotropics. Their death process begins when they hit puberty and reach the age where somebody tells them they really can do what they want. By the time they are 18 their parent completely loses the legal ability to protect them from themselves – usually that point starts to creep in by 16. The Brave New World seems to believe they have the right to a sex life as a minor. Sex typically involved getting real high. Girls seems to start getting beaten by their lovers during the mid teen years. It must make the sex better because they don’t want to leave those lovers.

So be careful when you gush about mainstreaming and easing their way into the world. For some of the SE babies, this is what is going to happen to them. It’s more likely to happen when they “mainstream” early. They are very ripe for predation then.

Brave New World!

http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/pa/cefcsp.asp