The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 4072; Handicapped Edcuation

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. School has been open for about a month now, with the usual assortment of back-to-school problems: teachers` strikes, new busing programs, and financial difficulties. But there is a new challenge facing American educators this fall -- the implementation of the federal handicapped education law. September 1, 1978, was the deadline for compliance with a law requiring free appropriate public education for all handicapped children. According to the U.S. Office of Education, nearly eight million school age children can be classified as handicapped in some way. The government believes that nearly half of these children have been denied appropriate schooling in the past. Tonight, a look at a law some believe could have as far-reaching an effect on our schools as racial desegregation. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the Education For All Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975 and went into effect in October of 1977, but school systems had until this September to get their programs under way. Basically the law grants every child the right to some form of public education. It also favors the idea of integrating, or mainstreaming, handicapped children into regular classes whenever appropriate.

Fred Weintraub has been working with the handicapped education act since the beginning. He is assistant executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, a membership organization concerned with meeting the needs of gifted and handicapped children. First, in the simplest of terms, what does the law require schools to do?

FRED WEINTRAUB: I think basically we can look at three components of the law that are, I think, most significant. One is that the law requires that all handicapped children have available to them an education al opportunity. In other words, the old procedure where school districts could say that some handicapped children couldn`t go to school, who could be denied an education, that day is gone. Secondly, the law guarantees that the children have some form of appropriate education, one that`s suited to their unique learning needs. And in that way the law sets forth some mechanisms, such as an individualized education program, integration and things like that, to make sure that what we do for the kids...

LEHRER: Not racial integration but integration into the mainstream...

WEINTRAUB: Integration in with other children. So that the kids get a program that`s suited to their needs. And third, protects the children and their families with some procedural safeguards to make sure that the decisions that are made are in fact the decisions that are in the best interests of the child.

LEHRER: In general terms, how are the school systems complying? What is the compliance rate here? They`re supposed to have started this all September the first; what`s the record thus far?

WEINTRAUB: Well, I think we`d have to look at the process. The first requirement is that the states must file a plan with the federal government indicating how they intend to comply with the law. All but one state, the State of New Mexico, has filed such a plan and their plans have been approved. Secondly, as I travel around the country I think what we see is a general form of compliance; there are a lot of little details and little bugs, and you go into one community and you may see a few things not going the way they should, but on the whole I think we`re seeing a general level of compliance. I think perhaps most significantly for those children who`ve been out of school, the more severely handicapped kids, the kind of kids who sat at home all their lives -- those kids, I think, are in school now, and I think that`s a big step.

LEHRER: Are those the children who are affected the most drastically by this new law?

WEINTRAUB: I`d say there are probably two groups of handicapped children that are perhaps most impacted. One are the severely handicapped kids who`ve never gone to school; those kids are now coming into school...

LEHRER: We`re talking about primarily physical handicaps or mental handicaps, or both?

WEINTRAUB: A combination. For example, severely retarded children, severely physically handicapped children; we`re seeing now children in wheelchairs and children on special litter-type things being able to either go to school or having the education brought to them.

The second group of children are the more mildly handicapped children, the children we know of as learning disabled, mildly emotionally disturbed kids, the kinds of kids who are in class, in regular classes now, but are seriously in need of help; that group of children is probably going to be the largest in number and the ones perhaps that will be even most affected by the law.

LEHRER: All right; thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: The idea of mandating handicapped education is not new; nearly all the states have some form of a right-to-education law on the books. Massachusetts` handicapped education law went into effect in September 1974 and became a model for the federal law. Producer Shirley Wershba and reporter Carol Buckland visited the Martin Luther King, .Tr. School in Cambridge, Massachusetts to see how handicapped education is working there.

It`s a familiar scene this time of year: ordinary schoolchildren blowing off steam at recess. But some of these playground athletes aren`t so ordinary. They`ve been legally designated as handicapped -- students with some special physical, emotional or academic needs. The Martin Luther King, Jr. School opened its doors in 1971. Over the years it`s made a commitment to serving its students with special needs. The school includes kindergarten through eighth grade. This year 175 of the school`s 600 students are getting special services.

TEACHER: Who has a card that says "ir"? Look over your cards. Do you have a card that says "ir"? How many? What have you got?

MacNEIL: The school uses a variety of approaches in its handicapped education program. Some children are placed in special classes, like this one for older students with learning disabilities.

TEACHER: We`re missing one. Who are we missing?

MacNEIL: The emphasis here is on mastering basic academic skills.

TEACHER: All right, fine. I need a card that says "ch" Where`s a card that says "ch"? Jimmy`s got a card that says "ch". What does it say? "Ch". Like in "chimney". Give me a "ch" word."

MacNEIL: About thirty percent of the Martin Luther King School`s handicapped students are in special classes. The majority stay in regular classes, with the help of tutors and counselors. Whenever possible, special needs students are integrated, or mainstreamed, with non- handicapped students. Lawrence Sperry is one of those mainstreamed students. Two years ago he was in a special education class. Today he`s in the eighth grade. Four times a week Lawrence visits the Learning Center, where he receives one-to-one assistance with his schoolwork from a special tutor. Lawrence`s learning disability is a perceptual handicap called dyslexia.

LAWRENCE SPERRY, Special Needs Student: When I was little, like, I had dyslexia and I saw things all backwards and upside down. So I had to go to different -- special classes.

CAROL BUCKLAND, Reporter: What sort of things did they teach you there?

SPERRY: We learned how to read and not see things backwards and upside down.

BUCKLAND: What were the other kids in the class like?

SPERRY: I don`t know, they all had the same problem, sort of. Some people were worse than others, but we all got along pretty good.

BUCKLAND: How did you as a class, or how did you get along with regular kids in this school when you were in the program?

SPERRY: We hardly ever saw them. They sometimes laughed at us and called us stupid, because we were different than them. We couldn`t do the same stuff they could do.

BUCKLAND :Do you feel different from other kids?

SPERRY: Not now.

BUCKLAND: Why not now?

SPERRY: `Cause I can read -- well, better than I could before, and be in a regular class.

BUCKLAND: Do you think it`s important to have children with special needs in with regular kids?

SPERRY: Yeah.

BUCKLAND: Why?

SPERRY: I think it helps them learn, because they can see how to act and stuff; they can see how other people do things.

BUCKLAND: Do you think it helps regular kids at all?

SPERRY: Yeah, probably if they get used to having people that aren`t like them or that can`t do the things they can, maybe they won`t make fun of them as much.

MacNEIL: This is a special self-contained class for young children with serious learning problems. The class emphasizes survival skills. The goal is to make the children as self-sufficient as possible.

TEACHER: Ten... CHILD: Ten... TEACHER: Eleven. CHILDREN: Eleven.

MacNEIL: But even here, every effort is made to expose children to a traditional school environment, when they`re ready for it.

TEACHER: Tina. It`s time to go to first grade now. You`ve got to go to Miss Mingace and work hard...and have fun! Have a good day. Okay. You be a good girl. Now, walk very nicely, right up ...

MacNEIL: Tina Broussardis seven years old. She spends most of her school day with this special education group. But every morning she goes to a regular first grade class. This is Tina`s second year coming to first grade. She spends two hours a day here, usually working on her reading. Carol Mingace is Tina`s first grade teacher.

CAROL MINGACE, First Grade Teacher:...the children accept her as just someone who comes to do the reading and the phonics, and there doesn`t seem to be any problem with her interacting socially with the children, and she tries very hard to keep her academic learning on the same level as the regular classroom teacher`s.

BUCKLAND: Since you`ve got Tina in your classrooms here, what sort of adjustments have you had to make as a teacher?

MINGACE: Well, I`ve had to try to make things in my approach with Tina as simple as possible, especially when I`m giving directions, when I`m even making up the paper that she has to do. I try to keep things as simple as possible and not to put too much pressure on her.

BUCKLAND: Do you consider that at all an inconvenience?

MINGACE: No, it`s not an inconvenience at all. I mean, I enjoy having her in the room and if I can give her extra attention at that time. I think that`s only the least that I can do for her. Because she is making progress in both her reading and in her phonics, and she`s really starting to develop very nicely with the reading.

MacNEIL: But teachers at the Martin Luther King School haven`t always been this enthusiastic about mainstreaming.

JACQUELINE APSLER, Learning Disabilities Specialist: At first they were quite upset about the idea that they were going to be getting all of these children with problems in their classroom -- and "with problems" in quotes, kind of thing. They weren`t sure what the problems were, they just knew that they would be difficult for them to handle. I think there was fear on both sides: we had the special needs classroom teacher who was afraid the classroom was going to dry up and there would be no more pupils; and then we had the regular class teacher afraid that all of these special needs kids would be put in the class. That definitely has changed. The regular classroom teacher has become extremely cooperative, and all of them, in all the grades that I work with, the fifth through the eighth grade, are very, very cooperative and understanding and sensitive to the problems of these children.

MacNEIL: While teachers have adjusted and the children seem to get along, some special education problems remain. The school psychologist, Linda Cravens, says sometimes it`s the parents.

LINDA CRAVENS, School Psychologist: You run into parents that I put into two categories. You have the parent who is perhaps overprotective of her special needs child, doesn`t want him exposed to what they fear will be failure if placed in a regular classroom. Then you have another type of parent whose child may need special needs help, but they`re very afraid of labeling, concerned that -- they just don`t want to accept the fact that their child may need the extra educational help.

MacNEIL: The mother of the dyslexic eighth grade boy Lawrence has a different view.

ROSE SPERRY, Mother of Lawrence Sperry: I have consistently had to be the one that has pushed for it and sought it out and found out who to go to for what and follow up on and make sure that the services that are being offered are actually being given. It really required a great deal of my researching state law and following through, even to the point of making almost weekly contact -- not quite on harassment, but verging on Damn it all, you`ve got to service my kid.

MacNEIL: But providing special services is expensive. At the Martin Luther King School it costs $2,600 a year to educate a regular student, $3,800 a year for each handicapped student. That`s $1,200 a year more.

APSLER: It`s very expensive, but I think it`s well worth it. I`m sure lots of studies have done this sort of thing, when you look into what happens to this type of child in terms of what it costs society at large, it`s not an expensive program.

BUCKLAND: There are some people, grown-ups, who say, Why should we spend all this money on people like Lawrence Sperry? Why do you think that people should?

SPERRY: So they get the same chance as everybody else who doesn`t have to have special tutors and things, so at least you give them the chance to be like regular and other people who can read and write and stuff.

MacNEIL: Let`s explore some of the problems raised in that report. Dorothy Massie is a human relations specialist for the National Education Association, the country`s largest teachers` organization. First of all, Ms. Massie, how exceptional is that school in Cambridge, Massachusetts that we`ve just seen?

DOROTHY MASSIE: In some ways I think it`s exceptional; in others, I think what I heard is very similar to the kinds of information we`ve received from parents and students and teachers. In its facilities I think it is a bit exceptional. I wasn`t able to get a look at the regular classroom to see how many kids were in there, so I couldn`t tell about class size, but in the concerns expressed by the parent, the school psychologist and in the happiness expressed by Lawrence, I don`t think that was really exceptional.

MacNEIL: Okay. What in general does the teaching profession, at least as represented by your organization, think of the handicapped education law?

MASSIE: They are deeply in favor of it, deeply supportive of it, in spirit, in purpose; I think there are many teachers who are quite fearful. The NEA has an official position strongly in favor of it, with only some caveats that we feel certain conditions must prevail if the law is to be fulfilled, and...

MacNEIL: What are those conditions?

MASSIE: Okay. I think one of the most burning issues has to do with staff development. I think that the general education classroom teacher who has not, in many cases, had any preparation to deal with children with special needs, needs a great deal of help.

MacNEIL: And who has burdens enough already.

MASSIE: Has burdens enough already. We have talked with teachers who already have classes with thirty-five and forty children, already with great disparities in their reading level and all this sort of thing. They are very serious concerns about teacher education... and class size.

MacNEIL: So that`s one of the conditions, and class size.

MASSIE: Of course there area lot of ways in which one might deal with the question of class size when a child is a handicapped child that`s integrated into a general education classroom. Lowering class size by some formula is one possible means much opposed, I believe, by Mr. Weintraub. Another way of dealing with it might be to bring in special aids. Another way of dealing with it might be to have the special education teacher, say, a resource teacher, and the regular teacher work together in the regular classroom. There`s no one way that one can say how to deal.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you this: some people have said, and other people regard it as extreme, that this law when implemented could mean as far- reaching a change in American public education as the civil rights integration movement started in the `50s had. Do you believe that`s true? Is it as revolutionary as that?

MASSIE: Yes; yes. But not so perceived, I believe, at this time by the general public. I think it is beginning to be so perceived by people who are in education.

MacNEIL: Well thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Another perspective now, the school board view, from Thomas Shannon, executive director of the National School Boards Association, which represents the 16,000 school boards in local communities around the country. What does your organization think of this new law, Mr. Shannon?

THOMAS SHANNON: The National School Boards Association is very supportive of this new law, as well as its companion law, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. We believe that these youngsters have been not given the kind of attention they should have had in the past, but it`s going to be a job of enormous education for the public because the public does not understand at this time the implications that this law may have in the future.

LEHRER: All right. What are those implications, from the school board point of view?

SHANNON: I think they`re primarily cost and, as Dorothy said, one of retraining presently employed teachers and training new teachers who are coming up in the different approach that`s necessary for a successful program for the handicapped.

LEHRER: Are we talking about small amounts of money or huge amounts of money when it`s all implemented and if everything goes the way it`s supposed to go?

SHANNON: It depends on your perspective. I think if we talk in terms of operations, the critical issue is, how many youngsters are there out there? I`ve seen figures that would indicate that the $560 millions presently funded for the ensuing year is woefully inadequate. Instead, we understand that to really do the kind of job that should be done we`re talking in terms of several billions of dollars.

LEHRER: Several billions of dollars?

SHANNON: Billions of dollars.

LEHRER: Is the public willing to pay that price? Proposition 13 and other things would seem to indicate differently. What`s your reading of whether or not they`re willing to pay that at a local level?

SHANNON: That`s an anomaly, because while Proposition 13, the retrenchment mentality, is such that it`s telling the world the local community has had it as far as increased taxes are concerned, the Congress has mandated this program. It`s up, I think, to the school boards who represent the people to sell the worth whileness -- and there is substantial worth whileness in this program -- to the public.

LEHRER: Are school boards in fact doing that, biting the bullet and going out and saying, Look, I know you don`t want higher taxes but you`re going to have to do it if we`re going to do this program?

SHANNON: Yes. The National School Boards Association has an official position on that of encouraging local school boards and state school boards associations to do exactly that. To show you the extent to which not only the public has very little knowledge of the impact but even the educational leaders, the people who try to read what the public`s mind is going to be on a particular educational issue, say, the 1978 Gallup poll on education, which is quoted often in public education as well as public circles generally, had no question about this handicapped act.

LEHRER: No question, meaning they fully supported it.

SHANNON: No, there was simply no question; they didn`t ask people about it at all. There was nothing in the poll asking people about it. Everything else was in the poll, from discipline to test scores to class size to every other major issue on education, but there was nothing really in there which had to deal directly with the handicapped children act.

LEHRER: Mr. Weintraub, what`s the problem? Why hasn`t the public been brought in on this secret yet?

WEINTRAUB: Well, I think the public knows about it. I think, first of all, if we were to look at this law as something totally new, then I think what Tom is indicating may in fact be the case. But if we were to say, for example, that special education has been in existence since, really, the turn of the century, that probably eighty percent of the handicapped kids in this country have been going to school and getting special education prior to this law, that every one of the states has its own mandates now, in a sense what this law does is tie it all together. So I question whether this law is the most revolutionary thing since Brown versus Board of Education in 19--

LEHRER: You don`t think it is?

WEINTRAUB: No, I really don`t. Having worked on it for five years of my life, I would like to think that it is, but I really don`t think it is. Now, whether the full implementation of this law and state laws and local policies, when we really do bring all handicapped kids in and we really do educate them, whether that will lead to some major changes and improvements in education, that may be revolutionary. But 94-142 is not the revolutionary component.

LEHRER: Ms. Massie, you wanted to say something.

MASSIE: I think that if 94-142 were indeed...

LEHRER: Which is by the way the law we`re talking about.

MASSIE: That`s right; that`s my shorthand.

(Laughter.)

MASSIE :If it were carried out, if its purposes were indeed fulfilled, we would have an education system the likes of which we never dreamed, our vision never encompassed. For the one thing, special education, no matter how many laws are written, cannot exceed the context in which it exists, and that is general education. And if indeed we were to provide a free, appropriate public education to all handicapped children with an individual education plan, I believe that ultimately we would revolutionize education, because we`d be doing something like that for everybody.

SHANNON:I think I would disagree with Fred, too. I think it`s revolutionary just in terms of principle alone, that the federal government sees that it has some sort of responsibility not fully articulated in this whole area of financing this kind of thing. But there`s a companion law that I mentioned before, which is really a civil rights law which goes into effect, for our purposes, on June 4th of 1980.And that`s the access law; all the school buildings in the United States, under this law and as a civil rights matter, must be completely accessible to youngsters who have handicap problems.

LEHRER: And that`s another few billion dollars, isn`t it?

SHANNON: Our association, the National School Boards Association, estimates through a sample survey that we took last spring that this will cost upwards of 1.8 billions of dollars.

LEHRER: Okay. Robin?

MacNEIL: You mentioned teacher anxieties. Have you encountered, as some people predicted there would be, so far parental anxieties about this, not on the part of parents of handicapped children but the parents of the majority of children who are not handicapped, about whether this might hold back their children by concentrating on the handicapped ones and mainstreaming them? Has this been a factor?

MASSIE: I think that it is perhaps less of a factor than one might have anticipated. Yes, there is some of that feeling. There is some fear and there is some bigotry with regard to the handicapped, as there was and still is regarding people who are not white.

MacNEIL: But you don`t regard it as a serious problem.

MASSIE:I do think one thing, Robin: I think it`s very ironic that we have this law that we bring education to the ultimate in humanness; at the very same time we have Proposition 13, which is really speaking to the ultimate of human greed. I just think that`s terribly important.

MacNEIL: Well, leaving that lovely paradox hanging, do you agree that the parental anxieties is a small enough problem not to be an obstacle to implementing this bill, Mr. Shannon?

SHANNON: Oh, no; that`s one of the points I`m trying to make, is that I don`t think that people really realize the extent to which public law 94- 142, as well as Section 504 that I mentioned earlier, had it. I think the parental anxiety will not be forthcoming for some time. And I think that`s one of the jobs ...

MacNEIL: Among you experts is it still controversial to mix, to mainstream, as we saw in that film, people with a handicap like dyslexia, which seems to be becoming increasingly common as it`s more discovered and known, with handicaps like mental retardation or sub normality and to mix those people together? Is that not controversial among experts, or not?

WEINTRAUB:I think what we`re seeing is a change. And the change is from programming for these children; when I went to school and studied in special education, we were taught that you had a program for the retarded and a program for the blind and a program for the deaf. What we began to find was that among retarded children and among blind children there were as many differences as there were among all children, and that the real issue here is to deal with the child`s -- not blindness -- but to deal with that child`s instructional need. And as we look at each child what we`re finding is very unique ways of programming, which means that they may be mixed or they may not be mixed.

MacNEIL: I see.

SHANNON: I would agree with that.

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there; it`s an interesting observation on which to end it. Thank you all very much. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back tomorrow night. I Robert MacNeil. Good night.