This past Saturday, a man who was, at the very least, the greatest President of the past fifty years and perhaps the greatest President in the history of this great country, finally succumbed to complications due to Alzheimer’s disease.  The truest modern conservative, it didn’t take long for the liberals in the media to begin to subtly and not-so-subtly slice away at the tremendous and long-lasting legacy of our fortieth President, a man who beat back Communism, caused the Soviet bloc to crumble, made our country safer and more prosperous, and even made the Clinton president look good with the long lasting economic boom that was, in part, started by his groundbreaking tax cuts.

As the Media Research Council points out in one of their Media Alerts, however, the liberals are already beginning to denigrate a man whose policies and presidency they abhor.  “Virtually all of the broadcast and cable network coverage, in the hours after the late Saturday afternoon EDT announcement of President Ronald Reagan’s passing, forwarded praise and admiration. There were, however, several exceptions where journalists incorporated liberal, anti-conservative spin to denounce Reagan’s policies. CNN on-screen text: ‘BY-PRODUCT OF ‘REAGANOMICS': HUGE BUDGET DEFICITS.’ ABC’s Sam Donaldson blamed the big deficit on Reagan for ‘stubbornly’ refusing to raise taxes; CBS’s Jerry Bowen highlighted ‘the nagging perception’ that in their post-White House years ‘the Reagans were cashing in on their Washington years;’ MSNBC.com’s obituary raised the Bitburg cemetery incident and blamed Reagan for the S&L scandal. The New York Times obituary ran through a litany of liberal spin points against Reagan: Ketchup as a vegetable, how cutting Social Security disability benefits ‘furthered the perception that the administration was heartless,’ how the October of 1987 stock market plunge meant ‘economists’ warnings that the administration was mortgaging the country’s future were finally heeded.’ Plus, thanks to Reagan, ‘more people were living below the poverty line, and homelessness became a national concern.’”

One must wonder what the liberal obituaries for former Vice President Al Gore, former President Bill Clinton, or Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy will one day read.

In honor of this great man, we pause here for a moment of silence to reflect upon the Great Communicator, the Gipper, and his long-lasting legacy of peace and triumph over evil.

Wherever Ronald Reagan now is, he is at peace and at rest, and he will forever hold a place in our hearts because thanks to him, we have the safety and security of knowing that no tyrannical socialist state will ever hold dominion over the people of the United States of America.

So I thank you, Mister President, for your dedication to the job and for protecting me from evil before I even knew that I needed protecting.

May you rest in peace.

Educating Special Education, Part Three

A BrianClardy.Com continuing series discussing the education of special needs children.  In today’s political climate, it is unfortunate but true that special needs children are used as political pawns on both the right and the left to accomplish whatever budgetary needs they may have.  What is necessary, but infrequently occurs, is common sense applied to this particular dilemma even while frequent studies are performed and innumerable millions of dollars wasted in pointless research that accomplishes little except to confirm the common sense methodology which should be used to confront and deal with these problems.

From Wood and Cronin’s perspective, EBD children are to be treated differently from non-EBD children, and even differently from other learning disabled children.  This despite the fact that their conclusions apply to any student of any sort – whether they are disabled or otherwise.  To be sure, EBD children may need a more structured and carefully created classroom to better facilitate the outcome, but they are no different in their needs than those who are regular, non-EBD, learners attending school.

Wood and Cronin’s article surveys the innumerable studies that have been done regarding EBD children in schools.  In their summary of the studies, they note that the “majority of these reports and findings paint a rather dismal picture for students classified as EBD. If school personnel are not adequately preparing students with disabilities, particularly those with EBD for the challenges of adult life, then the youth’s transition will, in all likelihood, be a poor one” (p. 340).  This isn’t really anything new, though.  All students should be treated like this.  If a regular student is not “adequately” prepared for “the challenges of adult life” then they are obviously going to have a poor transition into adulthood.  The fact that the child is EBD may exacerbate the problem, but it doesn’t change the fact that all students must be prepared for the rigors of the real world.  Whether or not they have a disability may effect how they are prepared, but it should not effect the material with which they are prepared.

Elsewhere in Wood and Cronin’s research, they note that students who are “classified as EBD: 1) have the highest dropout rate of any disability category; 2) have a lower employment rate than their non-disabled peers or other disability groups; 3) who have had secondary school employment experiences have more successful adult employment outcomes; 4) have a critical need for vocational and functional programming; and 5) in collaboration with teachers, counselors, social service agencies, and other school personnel re-focus efforts at the secondary level on transition planning (i.e., programs and training)” (p. 341).  The blame for this terrible result is placed on educators and schools that do not properly provide structure and education for the EBD student.  But, by this standard then, which of these statistics does not apply to an unprepared regular student?  The bottom line is, a student who is not given a proper education from the start has a significantly higher risk of dropout that the student who is well-prepared from first grade forward.  The same is true for the future employment rate of prepared versus unprepared students.  It stands to reason that any student who holds a job during high school will likely have an increased success rate once out of high school, if for no other reason than their holding a job and understanding the workings of the real world.  And given today’s need for computer gurus and skilled technicians, there is obviously going to be an increase in the rate of success by students who are given vocational training and external opportunities not found within the standardized curriculum.

The obviousness of these statements should not be ignored.  As with too many other disabilities that affect children, there is this ideology that they must be separated and be treated completely differently from their peers – as if they are in some way in need of different things in order to succeed in life.  They still need the skills and social awareness as their comrades, they just need some extra help or resources in the manner in which these social skills are presented.  The fact of the matter is, ostracizing them from their classmates will do little to help them achieve the socializing requirements that, according to Wood and Cronin, EBD children need in order to properly develop.

Wood and Cronin conclude their summarizing with five recommendations.  They believe that more research is needed, but then there is always a call for more research – even if it does confirm the common sense approach that should be taken to the problem.  Their other suggestions, however, are suggestions which should not be applied exclusively to EBD children, but rather to all children.  They suggest that society “increase employment/vocational training and experiences for students with EBD”, “develop and implement a functional curriculum that includes extensive life skills experiences”, “develop formal instruction on transition concepts, and planning for all teachers”, and to “increase/initiate ongoing transition training and technical assistance for teachers and other appropriate school personnel in all facets of transition planning” (p. 344).  They conclude their article with a foreboding warning: “Ultimately, schools and communities at large must take a long, hard look at themselves and match their expected postschool [sic] outcomes with the appropriate school and community services that are necessary to meet those outcomes. Until this happens, follow-up studies will continue to reflect the dismal picture that currently exists for students classified as EBD” (p. 344).

The simple fact is, however, that until schools and communities recognize that EBD children and regular children need precisely the same things in order to succeed, the “dismal picture that currently exists” for all students will be perpetuated.  Like most disabled children, their needs are the same.  Somewhere along the line, it seems that psychologists like Wood and Cronin decided that EBD children were too different to need the same thing, even though their own research and their own studies fail to corroborate their point of view.

Susan J. Wood and Mary E. Cronin work out of the University of New Orleans.  The article referenced in this commentary was originally published in Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 36(4), 1999.

---

| Main Page | Column Archive | Who Is Brian Clardy? | Files and Links | Feedback |

All written material on this website not attributed to another author is © 2001-2004 by Brian Clardy.
No part of this website may be reproduced in any way without the explicit consent of Brian Clardy.
All rights reserved.