DISABILITY ISSUES
Vol. 20 No. 1

From the Center              J. Archer O'Reilly III, Vice President

Concerned about the cost of Special Education, the Massachusetts legislature is discussing ways to reduce both the number of children eligible for special education and the standards of education to be offered. The House Speaker, Thomas M. Finneran, has won House support for eliminating 30,000 students from the rolls and replacing the Massachusetts standard of "maximum feasible benefit" with the less meaningful Federal standard of "free and appropriate" education.

Every parent in Massachusetts whose child has a disability should watch this debate with great concern. Indeed, every citizen should be aware that they have a vital stake in the outcome of this effort. It is true that Massachusetts has the second highest ratio of students in special education. It is also true, according to the McKinsey report, that these students in Massachusetts have higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates, and higher return rates to regular classes than in other states. Are not these the results that society wants to see from special education? Would it not be reasonable to conclude that the Massachusetts approach to special education is successful and, therefore, its budget appropriate and money well spent?

The question should not be what is wrong with special education. Rather the question should be what is wrong with "regular" public education. If all our schools operated on the standard of providing the maximum feasible education benefit to each and every student there would be no "special education." If we made an honest effort to determine how to best educate each student as an individual and then committed the resources necessary to help them achieve, there would be no power struggle between the parents of children of different abilities.

There is no natural law that says "special needs" students and "gifted" students and "vocational" students and "average" students should be at war with each other in our schools. It is the misguided belief that all students can be served by a cookie-cutter model of education which leads to the dissatisfaction and underachievement of too many students today. Rather than water down the standards and objectives of special education, we should raise the standards and expectations for all students. Rather than compare the cost of various elements of our education program, we should consider the cost of failure in our schools. Rather than pitting various segments of our society against each other in a fight to do the best for their children, we should join together in order to do the best for all our children and for ourselves.