Education is Special for Everyone: How Schools can Best Serve all Students - Hardcover

Mulvey, Janet; Cooper, Bruce S.; Accurso, Kathryn; Gagliardi, Karen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1475807635 ISBN 13: 9781475807639

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014

Synopsis

Reform in education has focused mainly on development of new programs and procedures to increase the achievement of the student in the classroom. Teacher evaluations are now based on how students perform in their classrooms on yearly standardized tests. The advent of integrating students with special needs into the regular classroom has brought both benefits and concerns for average and above average students.

Special education in the United States has evolved from institutional and segregated environments to inclusion in the regular education classrooms. We examine how the practice has affected all students and question whether this change has created equal opportunity for those students without special education needs.

This book researches and reports on issues of current practice: e.g., teacher preparation, placement of students with special needs, implications for the average and above in the classroom and the financial costs driving placement decisions in the education system.
We examine the lowering of standards so all can pass tests, report on loss of engagement of students by middle school, and mourn the squandering of creativity to appease a mandate.

Sir Ken Robinson relates that, “Education is meant to take us into a future we cannot even grasp.” Yet we continue on a road that lowers our educational ranking internationally.

We recommend to provide services for all students, and take the system from its current state to one that provides a “Free and appropriate education for all!”

About this title

About the Author:

Janet D. Mulvey Ph.D., is the Educational Director in a College support Program and Assistant Professor in School Leadership at Pace University in New York City.

Bruce Cooper is a full professor at Fordham University, New york City Campus. He teaches in the Doctoral Educational Leadership program, and mentors aspiring school leaders.

Kathryn AccursoEd.D., has been an elementary school teacher in the Lakeland Central School District for 22 years. She also teaches in the Mercy College School of Education.

Karen Gagliardi, Ed.D., is in her eighth year as principal of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in the Lakeland School District. She has also served as an assistant principal and a fourth grade teacher

Review:

Since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, public schools are required to provide a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment for children with disabilities. Education is Special for Everyone questions the consequences of inclusion for students learning at average and above average levels. . . .This book takes a hard look at the impact of current practices regarding special education programs in public schools across the country. The authors are highly critical of increased demands on public schools as funds become more difficult to secure. They urge the educational community to consider the impact of special education programming on the total school environment before it is too late. (School Administrator)

A useful, interesting addition to efforts to provide equal opportunity for all students with special needs, particularly gifted students. The authors contend that we do little to meet the educational needs of higher achieving students, since they pass the tests anyway, and as a consequence may fall further behind in international educational performance and economic productivity. (Lance D. Fusarelli, Ph.D., professor, North Carolina State University)

This book by Mulvey and Cooper is a much needed call to action for those interested in genuine educational reform. It challenges us as parents, students and citizens to reflect on the empty promises of the past decade with endless testing protocols, mind numbing curriculums and prescriptive teaching. The book prods all concerned to seek a future direction for education based on schools that are learning organizations with engaged students and teachers as facilitators of understanding. It is a rallying call to concerned individuals around the country to reassert the American tradition of local control and the restoration of the school as the center of local communities. For educational professionals and public policy leaders it is a thought provoking, welcome conversation about finding solutions for the future viability of our public schools. (Arthur T. Maloney, coordinator of the educational leadership program, Pace University, School of Education)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1475807635
• ISBN 13: 9781475807639
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 180