Prepping for disaster with the state's ESE children

From the Pensecola News Journal's editorial board

Here's a five-step method toward making education better in Florida, brought to you by . . . well, we're not really sure:

Step I: Take most of the special-education kids and put them in general education classrooms.

Step II: Don't add any funding for more special-ed teachers.

Step III: Test the special-ed kids the same as the general-ed kids.

Step IV: Don't really tell anyone what you're doing, how it's going to work, or whose idea it was.

Step V: Don't get any public input.

Oh, and we'll add a final step:

Prep for disaster.

This morning, PNJ education reporter Erin Kourkounis begins a three-day series on what state-mandated inclusion of ESE (Exceptional Student Education) students into general-education classes will mean to Florida. Here's an abbreviated version.

It will radically change how your children are educated.

It will force schools to make ESE students be evaluated on FCAT the same as general-ed students and have that score count against the school's ranking and the teacher's salary.

The plan is despised by many teachers.

It is criticized by many parents, even those of ESE students.

It has no blueprint for success. Different schools and different school systems have varying knowledge of what is going on.

Other than that, it must be a great idea.

We have no claim of expertise on the issue of ESE students and the benefits, or lack thereof, of inclusion.

But the concept of taking ESE children and mainstreaming them without the support and/or counsel of teachers, within a cloud of confusion and with the goal of ending ESE education as we know it is not just a bad idea, but one that borders on the insane.

Whoever thought of this needs a week's detention. Maybe more.

Every day teachers are challenged with different levels of learning, to be sure. But the addition of ESE students, in many cases without a second, ESE-certified teacher in the room, presents problems far beyond the norm, from learning capabilities to discipline problems.

And who can blame the teachers who believe this is yet another attack on public education? An attack on them individually?

The irony of this is that the inclusion strategy is linked to the state getting a waiver from "No child left behind,'' the federal government's education initiative from the Bush Era.

There will be plenty of students left behind.

But whose?

Yours?

Will it be the ESE student? Not necessarily, as they might demand all of the teacher's attention.

Will it be the general-education student?

Perhaps so.

Will it help education get better in our state?

It's hard to see how.

But with this plan, it's hard to see anything.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20120422/OPINION/204220303/Editorial-Many-child-left-behind?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7COpinion