Separation Of The Classroom By Ronald Corwin 's Article, The Case For Specialized Schools

It has become common today to dismiss the lack of education coming from our impoverished public schools. Jonathan Kozol an award winning social injustice writer, trying to bring to light how our school system talks to their students. In his essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal," Kozol visits many public high schools as well as public elementary schools across the country, realizing the outrageous truth about segregating in our public education system. Kozol, cross-examining children describing their feelings as being put away where no one desires your presence. Children feeling diminished for being a minority; attending a school that does not take into consideration at the least the child’s well being. Showing clear signs of segregation in the education system.

America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s

The inclusion of children with learning disabilities into normal classrooms has proved to exhibit both positive and negative effects on children with and without disabilities.

Students with special needs need deserve the same education general education students are presented with. The philosophy of “ Disability Inclusion” concentrates on creating a safe, loving, and effective learning environment for students who suffer from physical, learning, and behavioral disabilities. When a student with disabilities is placed in the same environment as a non-disabled student, the results show wonderful improvement. When we are able to discover the strength of the student we are able to see just how much the student can improve in an inclusion classroom. Disability Inclusion not only sets a new beginning for an equal education of special education students, but it allows for more interaction with the child, and a more hands-on assessment.

It has become common today to dismiss the lack of education coming from impoverished schools. Jonathan Kozol an award winning social injustice writer, trying to bring to light how our school system genuinely ponders their students. In his essay “Still Separate, Still UNEQUAL," Kozol visits many public high schools as well as elementary schools across the country, realizing the outrageous truth about segregating in our public education system. Kozol, cross-examining children describing their feelings as being put away where no one desires your presence. Children feeling diminished for being a minority; attending a school that does not take into consideration at the least the child’s well being. Showing clear signs of segregation in the education system.

Segregation and inequality remains prevalent within schools across the United States. The Secretary of Education Betsy Devos, is prominent for her support of school choice and the use of school vouchers. School Choice programs have only been found to exacerbate school segregation and make it worse for minority students.7 (Wilkerson-Bridge Magazine) Urban public schools have been struggling for a long time and white parents have had the opportunity to leave those districts. They have moved their families into suburban neighborhoods with better schools. This trend has been called “White Flight”. White Flight has led to an increase of segregated schools as the white and higher income students leave, urban school districts perform at even lower rates.5

Full inclusion or mainstreaming classrooms is when special needs students are assimilated into a general classroom setting. On the other hand, the special needs classrooms are set aside to allow disabled students to learn at a different pace with a certified teacher. The census has reported “Of the 53.9 million school-aged children (aged 5 to 17) in the U.S. civilian no institutionalized population, about 2.8 million were reported to have a disability in 2010 ”(Brault, 2011, p. 1). These children require special attention from properly trained teachers who can help them succeed. Since the number of special needs students is on the rise, full inclusion has become a popular topic among education reformers. The full inclusion of a class can mean the difference between passing

School assignment by socioeconomic status is not without its problems. When students are assigned to schools dependent upon the location and value of their neighborhood, it may not always be accurate. Some families rent homes, live in apartments, have two or more families within the home, or may even be homeless. Creating schools with students of different economic status creates an environment of the “haves” and “have nots.” In Milwaukee, seventy percent of students were from low-income households, making economic integration difficult in that school district (Bartels and Donato, 2009). In this situation, creating schools of economic diversity would be almost impossible. Some students, due to their location of residence, spend much more time being transported to their school by bus, causing

Many teachers automatically assume that their disabled students are less capable that other students in their class. This has lead to the disabled students being placed in lower classes than there actual ability which has failed them to reach their fullest potential. (Ehow.co.uk)

There are millions of children that are passing through the United States school system every day, not all children possess the same traits, and not all children can learn at the same rate, and do not perform at the same ability. The fact that all children learn differently and some have difficulties learning in general classrooms, special education was put into place to try and take care of these issues. Special education programs were put into place to help all students with disabilities. These children range from general disabilities to more complex and severe disabilities. There has been a revolution occurring in the past several years with education systems, and special education. There have now been several laws that have been

Education is a crucial and necessary skill everybody needs to succeed in life, but what happens when students have special abilities. According to the State of Learning Disabilities report “5 percent of our nation’s school-age population whose learning disabilities have formally been report” (ncld.org). According to the IDEA act there are 13 different disability categories that can be identified and referred in a special education classroom. Ncld.org stated that in today’s society, there is, approximately 2.4 million school-aged children in the U.S. are identified as having specific learning disabilities. By contrast, classroom assignment once a disability has been identified has developed controversy among educators and school administrations. There are two possibilities for classroom placement: in an inclusion classroom or in a self-contained classroom, and there is also the resource room that can help special needs students succeed in school. Whereas, in both classrooms all students should be able to achieve school success the best placement option should be determined on each individual special needs.

On the other study conducted by Waldron, the results show that children with learning disabilities did poor on math compared to children without learning disabilities. Programs to help children with learning disabilities improve in math should be enforce in every school to help these children succeed. The dropout rate on children with learning disabilities was 14.1 percent on a longitudinal study conducted by Doren. The reason for dropouts was that children with learning disabilities felt they were not compatible academically as children without learning disabilities. They felt disadvantaged compared to the other children. This shows that children with learning disabilities are in greater danger to dropping out of school. Programs designated for children with learning disabilities to help them on their reading, math, and writing would drop the rate and help those students graduate

According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with disabilities should be placed in a “least restrictive environment.” One of the main ideas of this act was to improve the learning experiences of students with disabilities by giving them learning opportunities outside of a special education classroom. The number of students with disabilities being placed in their general education classrooms is increasing more and more each year. The U.S Department of Education’s 27th annual report to Congress on the implementation of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2005) indicates that the number of students with disabilities in general education classrooms has risen to almost 50 percent. This is about a 17 percent increase from the 1997 U.S

When these children are brought into the normal classroom, the strategy that many schools take on is usually called a "collaborative teaching" approach. This is where special and regular education teachers team up together to collaborate ideas and instruct students with disabilities in general education classrooms (Martson, 1996). Studies have shown that not only do the learning disabled students gain the potential to reach a higher academic standing when mainstreamed (Logan & Malone, 1998), but they also are able to develop positive self images and improve social development when included in the classrooms of normal children (Klinger, Vaughn, Schumm, Cohen, & Forgan, 1998; Martson, 1996; Shinn et al., 1997). The increase in ability for learning disabled students to recognize and identify words is one of the examples of an academic gain when included in the normal classes (McCormick & Becker, 1996). When learning disabled students are incorporated in the normal classroom, self-esteem and feelings of self-worth are believed to develop more because these students are less likely to be identified as "slow" by their peers or to feel stigmatized (Klinger et al., 1998). By being in the normal classroom, these students are also able to have more time to develop and keep friendships that are created with the normal class children (Klinger et al., 1998). Also, advocates of

Finding research on if students should or should not be separated can be compared with other things that can affect a student’s ability from race to athletes. In New York in Rockville Centre after five years of introduction a high school with an accelerated curriculum the passing rate went up. Before only 32 percent of black and Latino students passed after the five years it