Special Education in the USA - Research Paper Example

 Special Education in the USA Special education is one of the education systems that poses a plethora of challenges to school leaders and teachers. Due to the rise in number of students with disabilities in the societies, schools are left with no other alternative than to provide these students with appropriate access to the general curriculum and learning facilities. The teachers should therefore closely monitor these students progress carefully and present them through participation in assessment efforts. The principals role is pivotal in special education transformation more so to these children when they are still young. However, this responsibility may be a challenge to school leaders due to lack of qualified special education teachers. This has threatened the quality of education received by students with disabilities. This paper provides a chronological synthesis of studies investigating the impacts of accountability of teachers and students and shortage of special education teachers (Brownell & Smith, 1993). Many research has been done which has revealed that special education teachers can provide adequate and better teaching to these students if they share their experience and skills. According several research’s done, for instance, the Council for Exceptional Children revealed that exceptional children should top down multi-agency approach in order to achieve a better education. In most learning institutions, special education is a way of increasing the capacity of the system to offer all the educational needs of all students equally. It is fundamental for teachers use both the regular and special programs in meeting the needs of students with disabilities. This will enable students with disabilities to achieve the same level of educational goals as the other students. In most cases, this goals are achieved through structures that are sufficiently compatible with the ones employed by regular student’s education systems. This ensures easy unbroken passage of students across regular special education administrative channel. The primary goal of a special education administrative organization is to offer and maintain a conducive environment in schools for studies. This helps a lot of students with disabilities in concentrating since they are easily affected by external factors like noise amongst others. Under a suitable condition, education with regular school environment can render the optimal chance for most students with disabilities. The teachers should therefore work out a suitable system that can allow the incorporation of individual help and opportunities in standard education programs. The students should spend minimal time outside their classes to control learning variables that are vital to the achievement of set goals and objectives (Brownell & Smith, 1993). Special education can be transformed into a primary source of special education policy. This is attained by calculating the amount of funds to be used in implementing various systems and facilities for the students with different types or forms of disabilities. The states can also support some portions of the programs so as to enable teachers and students to acquire the required facilities. Therefore, it is imperative for the education commission to know what amount of finance special education requires. The Commission should work hand in hand with the teachers and administration is budgeting for the facilities needed in order to achieve better learning for this students. The educators should be able to identify accurately students with special needs and serve them fully with all their needs in order to achieve their learning goals just like other regular students. The commission has tremendously helped in students with disabilities as they can now be included in statewide assessment and accountability programs like the other regular students. According the various research’s that have been done previously, it has been established that special education teachers can provide better teaching if they share their knowledge, skills and experiences. This will help the inexperienced teachers to catch up on the better teaching skills so as to deliver their best when handling students with disabilities. Other than that, the newly recruited special education teachers will also learn how to manage these students and treat them in a special way depending on the type of disability each has. They can also group them according to their disabilities like the blind students should be in a special room since they can only learn well by use of brails and listening, unlike the deaf ones. Sharing is one of the most appropriate strategies that learning institutions that offer special education should adopt (Brownell & Smith, 1993). Better state policy has a tremendous role in special education tailoring. This help in meeting the set goals and the needs of various students who have different types of disabilities. This will enable students with disabilities to have equal learning opportunities like the other regular students who have the ability to access all the learning facilities. For instance, blind students should be provided with brails to help learn fast. It is also important for these learning institutions to train teacher properly on how to handle and pass knowledge to students with disabilities (Brownell & Smith, 1993). In the past, there has been a shortage of special education teachers in special schools. However, this can succumb by constructing more special education colleges that train teachers specifically on how to handle and teach students with special needs. This will reduce the difficulties experienced by these students in line with the qualification of staff. In a nutshell, it is important for learning institutions to consider the student with learning disabilities. They should provide these students with facilities and well-trained personnel to handle them. This will improve their learning conditions, and they will be at per with other regular students. It is also important that teachers with experience and skills to share with others who are yet to join the teaching staff. This will enable them to provide these students with proper education like the others. Better state policy is also another way of curbing the challenges faced by both teachers and student in special education institutions. This has been showed as one of the major strategies that is used to help students with disabilities in attaining their goals and objectives just as the others. Prior experience and skill of teachers also contributes tremendously to the overall performance of students and school in general. Reference Brownell, M. T., & Smith, S. W. (1993). Understanding special education teacher attrition: A conceptual model and implications for teacher educators. Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, 16(3), 270-282. Read More