March 30, 2007 | Volume 4, Issue 1
New Directions in Special Education: Eliminating Ableism in Policy and Practice; by Thomas Hehir
(Harvard Education Press, 2005)
‘Special education’ is the single area of K-12 education subject to the greatest degree of federal oversight and regulation.1 Unfortunately, based on Thomas Hehir’s analysis of current special education policy—in his book New Directions in Special Education: Eliminating Ableism in Policy and Practice—this extensive attention has failed to translate into a well-functioning system.
This competent, well-argued and well-supported work covers topics that are vital to any students or practitioners of education or disability policy. The author is certainly well qualified to assess special education and offer credible recommendations for improvement. Hehir’s range of experience is extensive and highly relevant, from associate superintendent of Chicago public schools to director of the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education. This allows Hehir to support his methodology—primarily comparative literature review and first-person interviews of teachers, students, and parents—with an extensive understanding of policies and programs. Each argument is substantiated by clear evidence of how the current system fails, and how certain programs have had great success by employing alternate methods of education.
At the core of this book is the concept of ableism and the detrimental effects it has on disabled students. Though most are familiar with the idea behind ableism, the term may be new. Essentially, ableism is discrimination against persons with disabilities. This discrimination may come in the form of denying disabled persons the opportunity to be educated or segregating disabled children from their peers. It may also mean trying to ‘normalize’ disabled children, even when such actions are actually counterproductive. For example, the author mentioned the tendency for educators and parents to force children with serious visual impairments to read print instead of using Braille and audiotapes.2
Many may be surprised at Hehir’s stance on many of the terms used to describe persons with disabilities, such as hearing-challenged or ‘very special.’ Hehir considers these patronizing terms to deny what makes these persons different and facilitate society’s tendency to view them in a stereotypical manner. Disability itself is a broad term that requires specification, appropriately including children that may otherwise be overlooked when discussing special education. Groups covered under this broad category include blind and deaf children, and children with physical, psychiatric, and mental disabilities.
The primary problem Hehir finds in modern special education is a lack of integration. As of 2003, only 26% of disabled children spent at least 80% of their day in a ‘normal’ classroom.3 Segregation deprives children of many opportunities, including socialization and the chance for a better education. Furthermore, when children are separated they are rarely taught by qualified special educators. All the same, Hehir recognizes that there are times in which children must be removed from the standard classroom, though only for as limited a time as possible.4 This time must not be used for treating the symptoms of disability, such as providing physical therapy.5 It is not only an inappropriate use of time, but it contributes to negative self-image. Instead, it should be used as an opportunity to augment their main classes, providing whatever additional skill building is required for students to access the content of their curriculum and become high functioning adults. This may mean helping students with poor reading skills to catch up, or helping mentally disabled students navigate life in the community.
If this book offers a single lesson for policy-makers, it is the strength of universal design.6 Originating with architecture but since applied to all aspects of education, universal design dictates that all aspects of a school be designed as if they will be accessed by a variety of disabled students. These design principles are applied with or without any real anticipation of enrollment by disabled students. This ensures that any future disabled students will be easily served without the need for special adaptations and retrofitting before children can access educational opportunities.7 This means ramps, software used for reading digitized text, curriculum materials available in formats that blind and deaf children can access, and so forth.
Yet, Hehir’s arguments are not without fault. There are two major questions that he fails to answer. The first is how to improve education for children with extreme mental disabilities. Most of Hehir’s examples involve children with physical, learning, psychiatric, or mild mental disabilities. Based on these examples, he advocates for as much inclusion as possible, and for making whatever efforts are necessary to allow children access to standard curricula whenever possible. For example, when discussing high-school students with dyslexia, Hehir claims that despite their 5th-grade reading ability, they could have handled the same English curriculum as their peers with special accommodation. By removing them from regular classes, beyond the time required for intensive help to advance their reading skills, they were not given the opportunity to reach their learning potential.8
Assuming this is true — the rest of the book supports him here, though Hehir never quite explains what type of accommodation he would have recommended in this case—one is left wondering if these same general ideas apply to severe mental disabilities. Is there a form of accommodation that would allow these children to access the curriculum of their peers? Is it possible for these children to achieve their greatest potential through integration into standard classes? With no real response to these questions, it seems that those children in greatest need, and subsequently the most likely to be deprived of education, have been virtually left out of this discussion.
The second question lies at the other end of the spectrum, concerning the average student who has no significant disability and does not require special education or accommodation. What are the effects of integration on these students? Will it limit their opportunities by holding them back from their regular rate of advancement or by making curricula easier? This may seem like a crass, dangerous question to ask, but it is the question that policy makers will most likely face when trying to enact Hehir’s recommendations. For example, many school districts fear that including disabled students in standardized testing will bring down scores and lead to a loss of funding. Hehir addresses this issue by showing that the effects on the average score were minor and outweighed by the benefits of including disabled students.9 However, he goes no further and thereby fails to defend his arguments and recommendations against potential opponents.
Still, for the most part this book functions as a comprehensive how-to manual for educators and policy makers hoping to maximize the potential of disabled students. This is not a book that will appeal only to those interested in special education or issues of disability, particularly given the wide applicability of universal design. New Directions in Special Education also addresses many issues relevant to education and civil rights policy. Hehir recommends supplemental materials regarding education of severely disabled students and the impacts of integration on other students, but for all other purposes this book is an excellent reference.
1 Hehir, Thomas. 2005. New Directions in Special Education: Eliminating Ableism in Policy and Practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press: 145.
2 Ibid, 25.
3 Ibid, 37.
4 Ibid, 44, 57, 69.
5 Ibid, 43.
6 Ibid, 63.
7 Ibid, 85.
8 Ibid, 71.
9 Ibid, 111, 137.