Special ed: a civil rights act or the end of due process

By Maria Ortiz

The images of Elian Gonzalez and the anti-Cuba demonstrators blocking his return to his father and his country - where there is no illiteracy, where there is free child care, with one of the best health care systems in the world - shows how this Republican right-wing driven campaign uses a 6-year-old child who has lost his mother.

These same right-wing Republican forces are stripping away support services for millions of children who have special needs. In the name of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 (IDEA 97), you wonder at the Republican right-wing forces use of children to make their political stand. It is child abuse of the worse kind for Elian Gonzalez and for the more than five million disabled children in our public schools.

To illustrate, it was the 6-year-old son of David Hoppe, Chief of Staff to Mississippi Republican Senator Trent Lott, a boy born with Down Syndrome, who became the poster boy for the IDEA 97.

It has been stated "without Gregory's disability and his dad's doggedness" the debate over IDEA 97 would still have been "embroiled" in debate.

The debate was the "leaders of the Republican Revolution who wanted to help schools cut costs and classroom disruptions caused by disabled students and advocates for the disabled who wanted expanded educational opportunities."

We must remember that this new education legislation comes out of Mississippi, a state that has a long history of segregated school systems and remains on the bottom of the list for literacy.

How does this Republican revolution legislation play out in the day-to-day lives of thousands of children in the New York City schools? In casualties.

The "reforms" in the name of the reauthorized IDEA 97 means children with special needs sit in overcrowded classrooms with teachers who have very little training to address their special needs and with very little support service or personnel to help give the special attention that many children with disabilities need in order to achieve the new standards.

IDEA '97 is couched in "civil rights law," but Republican civil rights means no rights at all, not for children, parents nor teachers, all in the name of cutting costs. Teachers are expected to raise the reading levels with children who may have a learning disability, but at the same time teach 25 to 29 children or more in the room.

Children in special education are now slated to receive only 60 percent of their services in a "regular" overcrowded classroom. When you take a closer look at the inclusion programs, the most popular is called Home Zone. A child doesn't receive the full 60 percent (formerly 100 percent) of the his/her services because the special education teacher may be asked to cover another class, the special education teacher has to service other children in the room who may be at risk.

There is no planning time given between the regular education and special education teachers. There is no time for team teaching to allow modification of lesson plans. All of this takes time, money and personnel. But the Republicans' aim is to cut costs at the expense of children.

The teacher remains accountable and can get an unsatisfactory rating and lose her or his job if the children in their class don't meet the new standards for acquiring a certain percentile on the standardized tests. Alternative patchwork programs are being devised to segregate low readers - with no guidelines or due process to protect them.

Parent referrals have been lost or have been screened and parents have even been discouraged from making referrals for evaluations. You cannot address a learning problem if you don't investigate to find out what the problem is.

Principals and teachers have been reprimanded and threatened with the loss of their jobs for making such referrals. If learning difficulties are discovered program recommendations are made, which cost money. This is diametrically opposed to Republicans' revisions of the IDEA 97, in the name of reform and inclusion.

So we have children sitting in classrooms who are in need of special services, children who can't read, children who have been traumatized and need counseling, children who need one-on-one attention, children who need speech and language therapy.

But all these services are being held back and, where they do exist, are being downsized - all in the name of a 6-year-old boy with Down Syndrome they will never meet. In actuality, children are not high on the Republican agenda. Elian will fair better with a quality education in his homeland where there is no illiteracy and where children's special needs are met.

Maria Ortiz is a school psychologist and union activist in NYC.