Special Education Controversy

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Special education in the United States has come a long way since its beginnings, before the government assumed the responsibility of providing public education for children with different disabilities, their parents have to educate them privately or leaving them at home without much hopes of progressing socially or academically. It was the courage of parents of children with special children and their need to fulfill their children educational requirements, led them to advocate since the early stages of the 20th century, and achieve. what we know these days as special education. One can consider that the actions to initiate special education started when President Kennedy formed an advisory team to help explore the requirements of special …show more content…

On the other hand, opposes of special education consider that labeling children as needing special education subjects them to social stigmatization, and exclusion, and when children are diagnosed, as requiring special education it is impossible for them to eliminate such label. This conflicting debate creates additional distress on parents and caregivers, since they are faced with the dilemma of seeking assistance from schoolteachers or administrators to find and decide on the most promising scenario for their children who are undergoing difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, despite their personal position on this debate, educators need to be prepared to provide equal learning opportunities to all the students in their classroom. Consequently, they need to concentrate on adjusting their teaching to the students needs, and observing students to determine if in some cases students need additional assistance and require of a more specialized evaluation and individualized …show more content…

First, parents need to educate themselves on the advantage of special education and resources available at their school districts that could be of significant assistant for their children. On the other hand, teachers need to be prepared to help parents make the most suitable decision for their children, as they need to diagnose their children as needing special education or not. After all, both decisions will prove to be fundamental in the lives of these students, because when deciding against special education parents are neglecting their children of additional opportunities to succeed socially or academically. Conversely, by accepting the diagnoses parents will require dealing with social issues related to the stigma of being diagnosed as having a disability, but on the other hand, they will be gearing their special children with tools that will help them achieve independent

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