Education is Special for Everyone
How Schools can Best Serve all Students
By (author) Janet Mulvey, Bruce S. Cooper, Kathryn Accurso, Karen Gagliardi
Not available to order
Publication date:
07 July 2014Length of book:
180 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781475807653
Reform in education has focused mainly on development of new programs and procedures to increase the achievement of the student in the classroom. Teacher evaluations are now based on how students perform in their classrooms on yearly standardized tests. The advent of integrating students with special needs into the regular classroom has brought both benefits and concerns for average and above average students.
Special education in the United States has evolved from institutional and segregated environments to inclusion in the regular education classrooms. We examine how the practice has affected all students and question whether this change has created equal opportunity for those students without special education needs.
This book researches and reports on issues of current practice: e.g., teacher preparation, placement of students with special needs, implications for the average and above in the classroom and the financial costs driving placement decisions in the education system.
We examine the lowering of standards so all can pass tests, report on loss of engagement of students by middle school, and mourn the squandering of creativity to appease a mandate.
Sir Ken Robinson relates that, “Education is meant to take us into a future we cannot even grasp.” Yet we continue on a road that lowers our educational ranking internationally.
We recommend to provide services for all students, and take the system from its current state to one that provides a “Free and appropriate education for all!”
Special education in the United States has evolved from institutional and segregated environments to inclusion in the regular education classrooms. We examine how the practice has affected all students and question whether this change has created equal opportunity for those students without special education needs.
This book researches and reports on issues of current practice: e.g., teacher preparation, placement of students with special needs, implications for the average and above in the classroom and the financial costs driving placement decisions in the education system.
We examine the lowering of standards so all can pass tests, report on loss of engagement of students by middle school, and mourn the squandering of creativity to appease a mandate.
Sir Ken Robinson relates that, “Education is meant to take us into a future we cannot even grasp.” Yet we continue on a road that lowers our educational ranking internationally.
We recommend to provide services for all students, and take the system from its current state to one that provides a “Free and appropriate education for all!”
This book by Mulvey and Cooper is a much needed call to action for those interested in genuine educational reform. It challenges us as parents, students and citizens to reflect on the empty promises of the past decade with endless testing protocols, mind numbing curriculums and prescriptive teaching. The book prods all concerned to seek a future direction for education based on schools that are learning organizations with engaged students and teachers as facilitators of understanding. It is a rallying call to concerned individuals around the country to reassert the American tradition of local control and the restoration of the school as the center of local communities. For educational professionals and public policy leaders it is a thought provoking, welcome conversation about finding solutions for the future viability of our public schools.