Multicultural and special education

1. Kionne Sterling
LaKeisha Weber

2. • A lack of equity and equality in public schools has driven
the policies and laws implemented by policymakers
• The history of special education has progressed through
the years (U.S. Department of Education, 2007)
1. Paying little to no attention to the needs of students with
disabilities
2. Accommodating their basic needs
3. Program and services for the children and their families
• Prior to the federal mandates involving students with
specials needs, state mental institutions were overrun
with individuals with disabilities

3. The Past (1950-1999)
• 1950-1960s: Citizens
began to call for
assistance in educating
individuals with disabilities
• 1970s: Major moves
made by politicians to
improve special
education
Key Federal Laws
(Gargiulo and Kilgo, 2005)
• PL 87-276 (Kennedy 1961): Funding became
available for training teachers in the education of
children who were deaf or hard of hearing.
• PL 89-10 (1965) Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA): The onset of Tilte1 -5
funding aimed at education underprivileged
students and those with special needs
• PL 93-112 Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section
504): first federal civil rights law specifically aimed
at protecting the rights of individuals with
disabilities
• PL 94-142 Education for All
Handicapped Children Act (1975):
Offered a free and appropriate
public education (FAPE) for all
children Act with disabilities ages

4. 1990- Present
• 1990s: Laws concerning
the welfare of individuals
with disabilities evolved
greatly.
• Mandates were extended to
public and privately own
businesses and educational
institutions.
• Vocational Training
• IDEA
• Increased student accountability
• 2000s: Major educational
reform ensued.
• NCLB
Key Federal Laws
(Gargiulo and Kilgo, 2005)
• PL 101-476 Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA):
• “people first” language.
• Added two new categories of disability
eligible for service: autism and traumatic
brain injury.
• Included social work services and
rehabilitation counseling as related services.
• Allowed state to be sued in federal court for
nonconformance.
• require school districts to place students in
the least restrictive environment (LRE) aka
inclusion
• PL 105-17 Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act
Amendments of 1997:
• Greater accountability of students with
disabilities
• offered mediation services to parents in an effort
to resolve disputes
• PL 107-110 No Child Left Behind

6. How Inclusion came about
• Although still rare in many school districts, real
special education inclusion began in the 1990s when
children with physical disabilities gained access to
neighborhood schools. For children with
developmental disabilities in 1993, though, separate
classes remain the norm. The reauthorization of
IDEA in 1997 guaranteed more than access to
education for students with disabilities; it ensured the
rights to a quality education and quality outcomes.
Another reauthorization of IDEA occurred in 2004 to
align it more closely with the general education No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001, while retaining,
expanding, and clarifying important elements of the
1997 law.
• The onset of inclusion has resulted in over 90% of
students with disabilities receiving education in
typical schools and almost half were included in the
general classroom 80% of the day during the 1999-
2000 school year. An increasing number of students
with disabilities are graduating from high school, with
over half earning a diploma. Full inclusion is still
years away, though, as millions with disabilities learn
in special education classrooms.
•
Has Inclusion been used
effectively in classrooms?
• Inclusion is used
differently in every school
state, district and
classroom.
• Effectively using inclusion
in the classroom looks like
but isn’t limited to:
• Including the students with special needs into a
general education classroom with the assistance of a
regular education and special education teacher.
• Students with special education needs are included
in regular education extra curricula activities, sports,
program etc.
• Having the regular education and special education
teachers to collaborate and plan for the needs of the
special education students.
• Having students pull out of the special education
classroom at least have the instructional day.

7. Because the federal government does not directly
address the term “inclusion,” many educational
institutions were tasked to develop their own method of
educating students in a least restrictive environment
(LRE)
Fortunately, many schools have developed inclusion
models that demonstrate equity and equality in the
general education and special education classroom.

8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8TnKi_YblQ&feature=y
outu.be
• Identify the factors that set Coralwood School apart from
schools you have seen

9. • Non Co-teaching from general education and special
education teachers
• Non collaboration to plan, to meet the needs of special
education students
• Special education and general education students not in
the same setting or working collaboratively together
• Special Education student not being included in the
regular education classroom at least 80% of the school
day
• No support from administrators, school and staff non
engagement in the education of all students i.e.
(administrators, teachers, cafeteria workers, counselors,
janitors etc.)

10. • What does effective Inclusion looks like in a school
• http://youtu.be/NRR67_osT-Q
• Is inclusion used like this in your school? Discuss
• What are some ways you can Included Special Education
students into your classroom?

12. Journal Article Summary
• To summarize the article on Equality and Equity in
education one must understand that the Inclusion
practice does not adequately give fair and equal
education to students with disabilities. Although we
are striving to achieve fairness in education the
barriers still exist.
• So the phrase ‘educational equity’ helps people to
evade the long philosophical discussions about
exactly how to understand “educational equality.”
This makes sense because prospects for
achievement in America are radically unequal, much
can be done to make them more equal without
violating other values, and schools could not make
them completely equal even by violating other
important values.
Journal Article Summary
• All this helps us to understand why education
scholars and administrators started talking about
“educational equity”. Scholars seem to use ‘equity’
as a kind of signal that they are concerned to
promote educational equality but that they are not
monomaniacal about educational equality,
recognizing that it is just one important principle
among many, and also signaling that they don’t want
to get into a deep philosophical debate about exactly
what the other principles are or about how much
weight they should have. It means, in other words,
something like this:
•
Children should have roughly equal prospects for
educational success, but there are all sorts of limits
on what we can, and all sorts of limits on what we
are permitted to, do to achieve this, and it is very
hard to articulate or get agreement about exactly
what those limits are so we’re not going to try and
get much more precise, because right now there are
some quite practical measures we can and should
pursue to make things somewhat more equal than
they are.

13. • Behavior of students with disabilities
• Time
• Collaboration between the general education and special
education teacher
• Administrators understanding of special education and
support
• Parental support
• Willingness by the general education teacher
• Acceptance of the special education students by general
education students

14. Archived: 25 Year History of the IDEA. (2007, January 20). Retrieved January 18, 2015, from
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/idea/history.html
Gargiulo, R., & Kilgo, J. (2005). Young children with special needs: An introduction to early childhood
special education (2nd ed.). Albany, NY: Thomson/Delmar Learning.
Obiakor, F. (2007). Multicultural Special Education: Effective Intervention for Today's Schools.
Intervention in School & Clinic. 42, 3, 148-155.
Obiakor, F., Harris, M., Mutua, K., Rotatori, A., Algozzine, B. (2012). Making Inclusion Work in General
Education Classrooms. Education & Treatment of Children. 35, 3, 477-490.