Special ed. classes don't always educate

The March 16 editorial "Panel on school mandates flunked," stated that school mandates "help handicapped children get the education they need." Where are the facts to support this statement?

For a large number of special education students, reports about their development exist but are not made public.

Special education students are individually evaluated every three years. At 21 years, when these students "age out," information on these tests should be collated according to the handicapping classifications of the students. We would then know their IQ, mental age, reading and math grades.

Numerical data for students in special education is plentiful. When I was teaching, I read the results of the triennial evaluations with great care.

Consider a 19-year-old handicapped student who matures at the rate of three months a year. Say his education in a BOCES special education program costs $90,000 for a 10-month school year. His mental age is equal to that of a child 6 years and 9 months old, and his previous evaluation gave him the mental age of a student 6 years old. So for $270,000, we have bought nine months of mental growth.

One time, when I mentioned to a psychologist that a student's IQ score had dropped, she said the student had reached his optimal level of functioning and his scores would most likely continue to drop as the required tasks involve higher levels of reasoning and comprehension skills. The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not recognize ineducable children. This is good for the educational bureaucracy, but not so good for these students. There are students in special education today who will need a lifetime of care and support services, cradle to grave.

These students should get all the services they are now getting, but the services should not be labeled and funded as education. Special education for profoundly handicapped students puts them in a caring, concerned and stimulating environment. It is a remarkable accomplishment, but it does not educate them.

When an editorial states unequivocally that school mandates help handicapped children, the writer is lumping all handicapped children together. There are more differences between the children who are handicapped than there are between handicapped children and average children.

Special education needs to be reformed and a major newspaper like Newsday, even if it wants to keep the status quo, should be giving its readers more than one point of view.

Jane Goldblatt

East Northport

Editor's note: The writer is a retired public schoolteacher who taught mentally handicapped children.