Ways Schools Fail Special Education Students: Systemic Barriers to IDEA Compliance
Overview
This essay examines how American schools fail to meet the needs of special education students despite federal mandates under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). It argues that systemic, physical, financial, technological, and attitudinal factors prevent schools from providing appropriately challenging education, with particular focus on how low academic expectations and resource disparities harm student outcomes.
What this essay covers
- Introduction defining special needs students and special education with IDEA framework
- Analysis of low academic expectations in special education programs with case examples from Berkeley and multi-state survey data
- Discussion of how low expectations harm student self-perception and long-term achievement outcomes
- Funding and resource disparities affecting program quality
Preview
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Ways Schools Fail Special Education Students
Special needs students refer to learners with learning disorders or disabilities that make it challenging to learn in the same way as their peers. Special education is an individually structured and methodically supervised arrangement of instruction procedures, materials, environments, and other interventions geared towards accommodating the individual learning styles, needs, and interests of students with special needs. The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) describes special education as "specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability". Unfortunately, most schools in America fail in their education responsibilities to special needs students. Less than half the states in America meet the requirements outlined in the federal special education law: some states, like Massachusetts, have a strong culture of implementing the law, while others, like Texas, are superficially committed to special education. America's current education system falls short of meeting special education students' needs owing to several systemic, physical, financial, technological, and attitudinal factors. This essay will discuss how schools fail special education students and the factors impeding federal special education law compliance.
Schools fail special education students by having low academic expectations of special needs students. Some school administrators and educators are unable to see past the learning disorders or disabilities of their students and set lower academic standards. The federal special education law requires schools to provide free and appropriate education to special needs students according to each learner's individual education plan.