REFORMS NEEDED IN SPECIAL EDUCATION LEGISLATION

Reforms Needed in Special Education Legislation

Reforms Needed in Special Education Legislation

Introduction

Reform is a complex concept. As a noun, the term is used to describe changes in policy, practice, or organization. As a verb, reform refers to intended or enacted attempts to correct an identified problem. As an educational aspiration, its goal is to realize deep, systemic, and sustained restructuring of public schooling. Beruhe (2004) mentions throughout the history of American public education, reform has been a means of conceiving and enacting visions of the collective good. From the establishment of common schools, through struggles over John Dewey's advocacy for public education as the primary method of social reform, to the far-reaching ambitions of the No Child Left Behind Act, reform efforts have responded to conditions of broad consequence that require ethically centered and future-oriented deliberation and action (Beruhe, 2004). This paper discusses that reforms needed in special education legislation in a consie and comprehensive way.

Reforms Needed in Special Education Legislation

Reform movements in American public education have been framed by declarations of crisis, with rhetoric of intolerable urgency, and visions of hope, with inspirational themes to guide principled action. What constitutes crisis and hope has been largely shaped by three competing conceptions of educational reform—essentialism, progressivism, and holism. Reform can be glimpsed in terms of the controversies raised for educational principles, policy, and practice in American public schools.

Essentialism

For essentialists, educational philosophy and policy center on providing access for all citizens to a common literacy—a core of knowledge, skills, and values applicable across time and cultures. Heavily informed by idealist and realist philosophies, the concept of learning is conceived as an individual quest for excellence. Learners are to accumulate the knowledge base and higher level cognitive skills necessary to lead an intellectually, morally, economically, and socially productive life. The learner's progress is acknowledged and rewarded by his or her achievement and maintaining of positions in competitive hierarchies (Beruhe, 2004).

Public schools, through teachers as primary agents, lead individuals along a clearly defined path by articulating, modeling, and holding learners accountable to universally held standards. Teachers, as respected authorities, skillfully guide learners to humanity's highest thoughts (e.g., Socratic method, liberal studies) and most useful methods for shaping the world around them (e.g., formal logic, critical reasoning). As all are offered the same invitation to excel (Ravitch, 2001), and variations in needs, abilities, and interests are understood and accepted as differences in personal motivation and merit. As all receive a common grounding in prevailing traditions and expectations, learners experience a sense of shared purpose and social unity.

Contemporary essentialists are critical of most aspects of public school performance. Current reform objectives and initiatives feature national standards for student achievement and teacher preparation (citing significant discrepancies in state-based standards and requirements); the emergence of a national curriculum (emphasizing advanced placement, “cultural literacy,” “numeracy,” (Ravitch, 2001) and scientific reasoning); strengthening student, school, and district accountability for academic performance (emphasizing standardized tests); expanding school choice (emphasizing open enrollment, charter schools, and homeschool-ing); enhancing connections ...