"Learning disability" label results in fewer students getting help
Lonnie Palmer
Math and science teacher, school principal, assistant superintendent for secondary instruction, school superintendent
The rules and costs associated with special education have prompted it to become an industry unto itself. Shortly after the initiation of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), as principals and teachers struggled to deal with severely disabled children, they found like-minded colleagues in other school districts and rented space together to serve the same type of special education students. These special schools also created a system of support services, such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, and social worker or school psychologist counseling for disabled students.
In short order the special education budget has grown to the point it is squeezing out the resources needed by the students who need extra challenges and by the students who need extra help but lack the special education label.[ii]
Some of these special schools were operated privately and others were operated by consortiums of public schools. Before long, speech therapy providers (usually working with preschool children who are slow to develop oral speaking skills) were contacting parents of potential clients, evaluating preschool children and selling their services directly to parents who then requested payment for the evaluations and services from the local county or school district. And most of us who have had children of our own at home or worked with them in schools know many children have minor speech problems from ages three to eight and they gradually disappear without a speech therapist’s intervention.
But again…once the ball is rolling.
Committees on Special Education rely on evaluations by professional speech pathologists to approve or deny services, and the providers who do the evaluations see potential clients.
Again, the special education committee can’t say “no” to parent requests, especially when a licensed provider says services are needed, and requesting new expensive evaluations by an independent professional is never popular with parents.
My superintendent’s directive to me, when I was a principal, was to give parents whatever they wanted to limit friction and avoid the possibility of expensive legal battles and bad public relations for the district with local press and with the state’s education department.[i] Once one child has his own one-on-one aide, every parent of a special education student expects their child will have a one-on-one aide.
In short order the special education budget has grown to the point it is squeezing out the resources needed by the students who need extra challenges and by the students who need extra help but lack the special education label.[ii]
PL 94-142 expands with new label
A major expansion of special education services took place post PL 94-142 in the late 1970’s with the introduction of a new category of disability – learning disabled.
During the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the definition of learning disabled morphed to include students who were performing academically at lower levels than expected. A general education student entering fourth grade performing at average levels reads at a fourth-grade level (4.0) by the end of fourth grade. A learning-disabled child would leave fourth grade reading at a second-grade level (2.0) or lower.
Once learning disabilities became eligible for special education services several unintended consequences developed.
First, if I am a third-grade teacher with a very poor reader in my classroom who also happens to be a poorly behaved student, I begin to think: “She must be a special education student.”
In the early days of learning disabilities identification, these students were most frequently pooled together in their own separate classrooms like more severely disabled students with a special education teacher and sometimes an aide in groups of 12 to 15 students.
Once the student was tested (usually by a school psychologist) and found to be far enough behind academically to warrant the special education label, they were moved to a separate classroom with the special education teacher. If I was the third-grade teacher who was certain one of my poor reading and poor behaving students was a special education student, this solution would make my life a whole lot easier. This solution also protected the job of the special education teacher and the teacher aide and grew the special education turf.
If a student is tested and shows academic performance that falls below grade level but is not weak enough to warrant special education services, the regular classroom teacher still had one arrow in her quiver: a call to the parent of the poor reader/behavioral problem student saying: “Your son is way behind academically. He should be getting special education services in a smaller class with a trained special education teacher and an aide. You should go to a Committee on Special Education meeting and request these services for your child. I can’t give them the extra help she needs for success.”
[i] Allan G. Osborne Jr., Ed. D., Charles J. Russo, J.D., Ed. D., “Attorney Fees, School Boards, and Special Education,” School Business Affairs, June 2010, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ904679.pdf
[ii] Gordon Donaldson, “Maine Schools in Focus: The Big Squeeze — Paying for Special Education Services,” UMaine News, February 18, 2016, https://umaine.edu/edhd/2016/02/18/maine-schools-in-focus-the-big-squeeze-paying-for-special-education-services/