Special Education in a Small School District: Past, Present, and Future.

Overview & Synopsis

Based on the experiences of an administrator of a small Arizona school district, the paper addresses significant forces within special education in the past decade and future challenges. Past forces included: a drive for services by parents and others who defined handicapped children by their particular defects, thus forcing a categorical approach on special education; the federal mandate of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act; a crusading zeal among parents and newly trained professionals; the search for a viable special education technology; and limitations of financial resources. The Kyrene, Arizona, school district and other small districts have responded to these forces in such ways as use of cross-categorical resource rooms to serve the mildly handicapped, enrichment pullout programs for the gifted, and a movement toward increased definition of special education as a data based field capable of accomplishing learning among the hard to teach students. Increasing scrutiny of special education has provided little data demonstrating the effectiveness of defect remediation methodologies or of categorical pullout programs. Current trends include fading of the boundaries between special and regular education, an emphasis on effective instruction and schools, and continuing financial limitations. Among future needs of the field are change from within, education of parents and allied professionals, more concern with cost effectiveness, changes in service delivery, and changes in curriculum. (DB)