# How is the "success" of special ed programs assessed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 2, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403 "2019-07-02T16:37:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/61 "2019-07-10T14:41:22Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Your own first hand experience of working in claims may not be the best reference point for this discussion, either. > > Yes, you are going to have to make choices. The public schools are dedicated to attempting to educate all children. They are required to take all children. > > I have a couple of IEP children myself. I wish they were not on IEP, but they are what they are. They are not discipline problems. They simply need more help than what the normal teacher can easily provide. IMO the IEP system allows staff more specialized in special needs kids to work with the special needs kids more efficiently than the regular teacher, who is focused on other things. This actually helps the more gifted students as well, since the teacher can address more advanced subjects when the IEP kids are with their specialists. It certainly seems like a more efficient system than loading everything on the single teacher. Ok, I neither work in claims nor do have I ever had a child with an IEP- but the above is what I think \*\*Dinsdale \*\*is talking about. You see something questioning whether the effectiveness of IEP/Special education is measured and you immediately start talking about your children who “simply need more help than what the normal teacher can easily provide”. Nobody is talking about denying those kids, or blind kids, or kids in wheelchairs the help and services they need. But there’s another group of kids, who might need services and who may benefit from services - but it’s hard to see why those services should come from a school system rather than elsewhere. For example, it’s not clear to me why toilet training or teaching how to swallow or occupational therapy should be the responsibility of a school system. Do some kids need that- absolutely. But if an adult needs those things ( after an injury or stroke , for example) they wouldn’t get those services from a school- they’d get them from a rehabilitation center. But from what I can figure out , IEPs can include any service that does not need to be performed by a licensed physician. And some of this group of kids won’t benefit at all from what we traditionally consider to be “education”. Now I’m sure part of the reason for this is because some people don’t have medical insurance, medical insurance only covers rehab services for a limited amount of time - but that still doesn’t mean the best way to provide those services is in a school ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/62 "2019-07-10T15:35:47Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I think there is at least SOME element of the overdiagnosis of some mental/emotional conditions. Societally, I think there is SOME tendency for SOME parents to seek extra resources/accommodations for their child, or expect the schools to provide what ought to be provided at home. ISTM that SOME parents don’t like to face the fact that their kid is just below average in all respects, and likely faces a tough row to hoe in this economy. Of the one out of six students or so who receive services from the Special School District, a whole lot of them are of “normal” or even higher intelligence, but have a reading problem like dyslexia, or a physical problem like cerebral palsy or even blindness or severe hearing loss, that requires a little extra assistance. In my area’s case, all those students are labeled “special needs,” and receive the resources needed as set out in their IEP. I asked my wife students on the other end of the spectrum and she replied, rather curtly," I was never assigned a vegetable, and I don’t know any teacher who was." Those children are generally instutionalized at a young age, or after a severe injury. They need lots of resources, but those aren’t “educational” resources and aren’t really a part of this discussion. I suppose somewhere there are parents whose children are “vegetables” who insist on them being enrolled in school, and can fight hard enough and long enough to win that argument, but that is such a small subset of total enrollment that the cost of warehousing them in a school represents a rounding error in the overall budget. Small rural districts often say, “We don’t have the resources here to provide your child with the services they need, so we will pay tuition to send your child to X school, which does have those resources.” That’s expensive, but at least it doesn’t take a teacher’s time away from other students. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/63 "2019-07-10T19:50:06Z")
Yeah - I don’t think I was limiting my question to “vegetables.” I think I referred to profoundly impaired “students” as extreme cases in which I might disfavor some expenditure of school funds. But even with more routine cases - say an “average” ADHD child. Or maybe BIF w/ IQ in low 70s. I was thinking about what level of services such an individual ought to be provided throughout the entire course of their lives. It seems as tho my view is incorrect. I tend to be very outcome oriented. I could imagine approaching a situation to say, “What can be done to get this kid to where they can live by themself, and hold down some job.” But it seems as tho the school focus is more along the lines of, “Let’s make sure they make measureable progress towards short- and long-term goals.” Then I wonder what society does/ought to do re: that kid when they turn 18 - or 21. At some point do they continue to get public services, or are they essentially on their own? Or are accommodations expected from employers. I guess in my ignorance I was wondering if a kid is going to get $x amount of education services, but $0 after, would they be better served to receive some of that amount in the form of adult services. These are the sort of questions I had. Not pushing any agenda. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/64 "2019-07-10T20:10:00Z")
Outcome oriented? Seriously? The one thing you have entirely avoided addressing is the people telling you, repeatedly, without early intervention, educational aids, integration, 100% of these kids will be lifelong dependents. Initially on their family, but eventually, on the state. Something north of 30%, who receive this early assistance DO manage independence of some measure. So which would you rather fund? The assistance that sees some segment achieve a good outcome? Or deny them services guaranteeing they are ALL fully lifetime dependents. This shouldn’t be that hard to understand, especially for someone outcome oriented, as you claim to be. Or are you just politely avoiding saying you want to decide who’s worthy of getting aid and who’s not? We offer chemotherapy to everyone with cancer and some people it doesn’t benefit, but we’re not turning people away. Or making them demonstrate they’ll respond well, before we decide they’re worthy. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/65 "2019-07-11T00:39:04Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > . . . Then I wonder what society does/ought to do re: that kid when they turn 18 - or 21. At some point do they continue to get public services, or are they essentially on their own? Or are accommodations expected from employers. > > I guess in my ignorance I was wondering if a kid is going to get $x amount of education services, but $0 after, would they be better served to receive some of that amount in the form of adult services. > > These are the sort of questions I had. Not pushing any agenda. Since 1975 [Federal law](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-89/pdf/STATUTE-89-Pg773.pdf)has required states to provide all students “a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs” At some point, age 18, 19, 20, or 21 the child becomes an adult and the question of services has nothing to do with the public education system (except maybe state-funded schools of higher education, but in my experience, they follow the Americans With Disabilities Act). What should happen after students become adults is a separate question. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/66 "2019-07-11T03:49:25Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Small rural districts often say, “We don’t have the resources here to provide your child with the services they need, so we will pay tuition to send your child to X school, which does have those resources.” That’s expensive, but at least it doesn’t take a teacher’s time away from other students. I have a distant relative for whom this is being done. This is a teenager with autism, which is most likely simply a component of a more complicated genetic disorder, who will never live independently. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/67 "2019-07-18T03:47:44Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > From a macro perspective, treating all children as potentially educable has born fruit: for example, today, most kids with Downs Syndrome can read and write. It used to be that no one bothered to even try to teach them. And a great many techniques developed to help students with learning differences have found their way into general education practice and have been very successful . While public school is great for kids with things like down syndrome, autism, FAS, fragile X etc., not all kids actually _are_ educable. I spent several years supervising people in the glamorous field of educational assessment, and many states do separate special education assessments. Some of those states video tape kids as they take their version of the tests. In these states the kids were required to “take” the tests no matter what, even several kids who were only minimally conscious during the testing process because they spent their days having constant seizures, which more than one teacher remarked on film is how every day goes for these particular kids, so we weren’t seeing an especially bad day. Yet they make them go to school where they couldn’t possibly be getting anything out of it because the law requires it. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/68 "2019-07-18T04:38:09Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > While public school is great for kids with things like down syndrome, autism, FAS, fragile X etc., not all kids actually _are_ educable. I spent several years supervising people in the glamorous field of educational assessment, and many states do separate special education assessments. Some of those states video tape kids as they take their version of the tests. In these states the kids were required to “take” the tests no matter what, even several kids who were only minimally conscious during the testing process because they spent their days having constant seizures, which more than one teacher remarked on film is how every day goes for these particular kids, so we weren’t seeing an especially bad day. Yet they make them go to school where they couldn’t possibly be getting anything out of it because the law requires it. There is a post earlier in this thread that references a special ed “class” that is little more than an nursery. I used to work with a woman whose son was in a class like that; for example, “art class” consisted of the teacher putting a crayon in their hand and moving it over a piece of paper. These people weren’t even capable of socialization with each other, because they were all nonverbal and completely incapable of any self-care. However, the law requires that they attend school, and this is what is done for them. Really, it’s more for the parents than it is for the kids. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403/69 "2019-07-18T08:02:38Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Really, it’s more for the parents than it is for the kids. On behalf of the kid let me point out to you that some number of these kids have no family involvement, and some got their special needs because of their parents. The showbiz visuals of “handicapped children” generally don’t include the ones who are learning to pull themselves to a sitting position in the “seventh grade” classes. Learning to feed yourself may not seem like it’s for the kid. But it matters a whole lot to the actual kid. Among the most important benefits of special education is the opportunity to experience socialization which your own developmental level makes at least less likely, and in some cases impossible. Tris * * * [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-success-of-special-ed-programs-assessed/836403.md?page=3)