Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress
International
Special Education Conference
Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity?
1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland
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Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland |
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Rod Wills - Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, N.Z
r.wills@auckland.ac.nz
Barbara Perry - School of Education, University of Otago, Dunedin N.Z
Barbara.perry@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
This paper lays out the background to the recent changes in special education in New Zealand and using data from two different sources explores the ‘parent voice’ with respect to the outcomes for students with special educational needs. A tension exists between the policy goals of Special Education 2000 and parents desires and experiences. Whilst many of the practices and approaches in special education give rise to positive outcomes for students, unresolved tensions prevail for many parents. It is our view that further work at a deeper level within the education system needs to occur if these difficulties are to be resolved.
In considering about the difficulties that have arisen around the provision of special education in New Zealand over the last ten years, a position is adopted by Mac Donnell (2002) that is both applicable and relevant. Whilst his caution emerges from study and engagement with services for learners with special educational needs in Ireland, it rings true with respect to New Zealand.
One of the real dangers in the current period of development is that while the surface structures are changed, the existing deep structures will remain in place. Moreover, if the deep structures of special education - those issues that underlie relations of power, control, dominance and subordination - are not identified and transformed, exclusion and marginalisation will be reproduced even more under the most well-intentioned and most well-supported of programmes.
(MacDonnell, 2002, p.267).
Setting The Scene
The Education Act 1989 carried forward the reforms in education developed from the review processes and Tomorrows Schools (Mitchell 2000). Importantly for students with special education needs the Act was amended to enable their enrolment and attendance at their local school. For the first time since 1877, the Education Act prescribed under Section 8 that: “ people who have special education needs (whether because of disability or otherwise) have the same right to enrol and receive education at state schools as people who do not.” Under this section all students were now entitled to free enrolment and education.
With the passing into law of the Education Act 1989, and its implementation from January 1990 there were two systems in place. One represented the approaches and resources linked to the institutions for students with sensory impairments, the residential special schools for students with behavioural disorders, the day schools and satellite classes for students with intellectual disabilities, units for students with physical disabilities, and special classes set up by schools (Mitchell and Mitchell, 1985). The other, with the emergence of ‘mainstreaming’ as an approach to learners with special needs, upset the traditional response and what some authors described as “ . . . an implicit contract . . . between regular and special education . . .” (Moore, MacFarlane, Anderson, Brown, Timperley, Thomson and Glynn 1999,p.7). This arrangement worked to meet the needs of different providers of compulsory education by ensuring that: “ Those in regular education would support special education in gaining resources and staffing. In return, those in special education would take over the troublesome and troubled students from regular classes.” (Ibid. p.7)
The background work for the New Zealand policy development was completed over a two year period of time. From1992 – 1993 three national consultation rounds regarding special education sought response to issues of funding and resource management were conducted. Supported by a group of government officials the members of the Special Education Policy Implementation Team (SEPIT) conducted over 200 public meetings where nearly 13,000 individuals participated. Their final report was completed in August of 1993 but not released for a full twelve months. No subsequent action was taken on the recommendations contained in the document. Instead, the Minister of Education responded to the situation in March of 1995 by releasing the Special Education Policy Guidelines (Ministry of Education 1995), and announcing that a new ‘green fields’ policy would be developed and released shortly, this was Special Education 2000.
Special Education 2000 Policy
In 1996, the Special Education 2000 policy was introduced into New Zealand to cater for children with special educational needs in schools. In stating the overall goal of the policy the Ministry of Education declared that:
The Government’s aim is to achieve, over the next decade, a world class inclusive education system that provides learning opportunities of equal quality to all students. (Ministry of Education 1996, p.4)
The document also signalled a responsiveness toward the needs of families in the section entitled Family and Child that “Special Education 2000 will:
For many parents this meant that resources should be available to meet their child’s needs wherever they sought them to be provided. This promise was ‘cemented’ in place by the declaration that there would be the provision of: “. . . information, education and specialist advisory support to assist families, schools and teachers to achieve the best possible learning environment for all students with special education needs.” (Ministry of Education1996, p. 6).
The New Zealand policy makers’ intentions should be read in the context of the 1994 UNESCO Salamanca Statement. Noting that “ . . . every child has a fundamental right to education . . .” and that “ . . . every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning needs . . . ” the Statement goes on and declares; “ Those with special needs must have access to regular schools which accommodate them within a child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting these needs.” (UNESCO 1994, pp vii - ix.)
Having expressed goals for the education of children with special needs the statement then looks toward educational practice and indicates that;
Experience in many countries demonstrates that the integration of children and youth with special needs is best achieved within inclusive schools that serve all children within a community. It is within this context that those with special needs can achieve the fullest educational progress and social integration. (ibid.: p. 11)
Many of the parents, educators and government officials at the time were ready to move toward an inclusive model of special education as described in the Salamanca Statement. However the political will needed to support this was uncertain beyond the term of the previous Labour government who had commenced the process with legislative change. Members of the then Labour cabinet wanted to end the prevailing ‘arrangements’ in special education. The Education Minister from 1984-1987, Russell Marshall, identified the intentions of the government rather bluntly, when he stated “Special schools would have gone.”(Brown 1994, p.101)
This situation was not to arise as the agenda for change in special education was to be overtaken by the direction of the ‘reforms’ in education. These were designed primarily to focus upon administrative reform and the decentralisation of education management. Rather than delivering inclusive education their impact was upon the level of deep structures (Mac Donnell, 2002) within education where they were to impede this direction in special education.
Consideration must be given to the reasons why the legislative change and allied policy work failed to bring the response to learners with special educational needs that has been sought for them. The re-location of a philosophy of inclusion appears in many cases to be insufficient to change local education practice. At the level of our personal observation among New Zealanders, a social intolerance toward individuality is known as the ‘tall poppy syndrome’. This is where individuals have to survive the ‘clobbering machine’ of negative reaction that communities are often capable of producing as a response to diversity. A more sophisticated explanation of this seeming failure to establish an inclusive education response may be found in the work of the critic Edward Said who suggests that when theories ‘travel’ they may “ . . . lose some of their original power and rebelliousness.” (Said 2000, p. 436). Along with the loss of their original power, theories are disconnected from the original historical circumstances that ‘provoked’ their formulation. North American legislation has had a significant impact upon New Zealand thinking and education law. The position of Said (2000) suggests that we should reconsider the socio-political context from which the theory of inclusion and related policiesemerged from. In the context of United States constitutional law the provisions of Public Law 94 -142 were accorded to the individual student as a ‘right’ which in turn could be translated into a special education service response.
Just as other anti-discrimination law operated at a civil rights level, for example the much cited Brown v Board of Education of Topeka ruling (Friedman, 1968) allowing African-American students to enrol and attend at their local school as a ‘civil right’; the inclusive education of students with special educational needs has become associated with a rights position. Inclusion being articulated as the educational practice that supports the theory of social justice espoused through human rights. This ‘rights’ discourse is pinpointed by Fulcher (1989) when she identifies the conflict it brings with both the ‘medical’ and ‘corporate’ discourses also found in special educational policy making and practice. Fulcher (1989) identifies that the latter two may combine and in effect ‘compete’ against the former, particularly in the absence of any constitutional or legislative guarantees. What remains is a basis for rights that are likely to be found in “ . . . a moral rather than a political stance.” (Fulcher 1989, p. 30).
Whilst legislating for the right of inclusion of all children at their local schools the amendments to the Education Act 1989 same legal requirements put into place that immutably changed the ‘deeper structures’ in New Zealand education. The nature of these were signalled by Michael Irwin who indicate that “ . . . the reforms are to enable schools to adapt to the changing economic environment and to provide the ‘highly skilled and adaptable’ workforce required . . .” (MOE, 1993, p.1). Irwin noted that a more pivotal shift had occurred than that which may have been first noticed so that whilst there had always been “ . . . a vocational aspect [in education], which was a result of the educational process the reforms refocussed schooling so that, . . . now it is the essence.” (Irwin, p. 162)
The new provision for the enrolment of all children may have been seen as the focus of the legislation for many parents and lobbyists. However, the shift to lift the vocational and national economic outcomes from state funded education was to become the focus for most educators and administrators. In this time of refocussing education little scrutiny was paid to the differences that Armstrong(2001) identified as the curricular, cultural and physical constructions which created exclusion for many students. Special education would remain largely unchanged because “These differences are seen as ordinary because of the familiarity of the practices and discourses that surround them.” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 703) It seemed that an unannounced change occurred so that in New Zealand special education was to be viewed as what Branson and Miller (1989) suggested as a discourse that constructed students with special educational needs as a policy problem, requiring a policy solution instead of becoming the educational concern of teachers at local schools.
Data Sources
The following section draws data from two sources. The first source is a pilot study
undertaken to investigate effective practices that enhanced outcomes for students with special education needs. The second source are the aggregated records of public meetings held to gauge the response of parents and educators to special education provision at a regional level .
Enhancing Effective Practice in Special Education - 2004
Twenty-one schools were involved in the national pilot study conducted in the last quarter of 2004. This research was part of a pilot project undertaken for the Ministry of Education; Enhancing Effective Practice in Special Education (O’Brien, Thesing, James, Bowdler,Guild, Jones, McMenamin, Manins, Medcalf, Moltzen, Perry, Tyler-Merrick & Wills, 2004) Of these 21 schools we were able to utilise the data from the four where we unertook the fieldwork for the study. These were; one rural primary, two city intermediate and one city secondary school, with a special unit. Two of the schools were located in the South Island and two in the North Island of New Zealand. The overall aim of the pilot study was to identify and clarify the indicators of effective pedagogy and practice that underpin effective learning, social and cultural outcomes for students with special needs.
Focus groups were conducted as part of the pilot study, these groups comprised
school leaders, teachers and children with and without special educational needs, and parents. Following on from the focus group meetings the participants were asked to identify the nature and location of the evidence within the school or community that could be found to support their views. This paper utilises the parent focus group data to establish the ‘parent voice’.
Enhancing Effective Practice in Special Education
Selected Findings - 2004
In areas of curriculum and the use of individualised planning satisfaction with the outcomes for students with special educational needs was expressed with unanimity by their parents. However in other topics a broader spread of response was evident, ranging from a range of views on internal and national assessment; to a more critical voice regarding their experiences in communicating with schools. Social outcomes for their children varied, and the negative response of other families was a feature for many. Alongside this it was typical to experience difficulty in obtaining specialist support.
Curriculum
Similarities were found between urban and rural schools, and across schooling levels. Parents all rated literacy and numeracy as most important for their children. Those parents whose child attended a special unit sought the delivery of a functional curriculum alongside the national curriculum areas.
Approaches To Enhance Learning
The approaches that would enhance the learning outcomes for students were explored in the focus groups and Individual Educational Plans (IEPs) were seen as an important tool in classroom organisation across the four sites. In addition curriculum adaptation and the use of teacher aide support were also noted as key features in enhancing the outcomes for students with special needs. The frequency and utility of IEPs was important for parents;
“IEPs should be at least once a term/regularly”, and they needed to generate “individual programmes”. Alongside the planning approach the manner in which the teacher aide supported the student with special educational needs was important for parents; “having a teacher aide that has a supportive relationship with my child, they are real with each other, like friends”. This was expressed another way when a parent said; “the teacher aide has been the key, knowing how to be supportive”.
Assessment
Together with their views regarding learning outcomes and educational approaches, parents were asked for their views about assessment. The effective forms of assessment identified by parents were expressed in this way; “the need for oral assessment”, as well as, “needs a reader/writer in order to be assessed”.
The new National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) model raised concerns for one parent, “collaborative group work is displaced by NCEA”, and another voiced the desire for something akin to the experience of all other parents by stating that, “everyone wants to know where their children are at”. This view was not supported by the opinion of another parent who said that the “comparison of academic achievement is unhelpful.” And one parent noted how assessment was tied to the “often low expectations” that teachers held for their child.
Communication And Working Relationships With Schools
Across all four sites parents felt that open communication and a working relationship with school staff was an essential element that had to become a school-wide approach to ensure children with special educational needs were includedwith their peers. This demand was expressed as; “open communication [is] needed”. The way in which the teacher needs to accept parents’ knowledge is important; “teachers need to listen to what it is parents have said, value the expertise of the parent”. This position was re-iterated again, “the best teacher was a young one who listened to me”, and the significance of the parents’ knowledge of their children was again stated by this parent who said; “listen to parents, they know the child”.
Social Outcomes For Students
As well as academic development the social outcomes for children with special educational needs were considered important by their parents. Friendshipwas noted as an important social goal across the four sites. This was found among their disabled peers for some children. This was illustrated by comments such as: “friendship is important, therefore we went to the unit”. On the other hand a concern was noted regarding labelling; “if you put children into categories, they can’t get out”, one parent said. Another stated that “other children’s comments regarding unit kids are a myth”.
The Response Of Other Parents
In three of the four sites it was shared that other parents often did not understand why children with special needs were in regular schools. The participants in the focus groups felt that there needed to be a general education campaign about disability in the school. One parent stated; “there is exclusionary pressure from other parents with children in the school, we need to re-educate those parents”. Another stated; “children with special needs need to be accepted for who they are, not seen as a problem”. The overall sentiment was reflected by the parent who said that there was a “need to teach compassion to the whole school”.
Specialist Support
A lack of specialist support from therapists, special educational professionals and other itinerant staff was evident across all four sites. Participating parents commented that difficulty arose from a range of factors. The cost of such service was one ; “lack of funding around specialist support”, as well as the issues of staff retention “we can’t keep specialist staff”. Other barriers were administrative and bureaucratic; “a lot of buck passing” and “there are internal roadblocks”.
A summary of these concerns and difficulties expressed by the ‘parent voice’ appears later in this paper, where it is combined with the summary from our second data source to create Figure One: The Dominant And Common Themes Across The Data Sources.
Fourteen parents initiated legal action against the Ministry of Education (The Crown) their case being heard in the High Court at Auckland in February 2000. The basis for their challenge was that the Crown had not met its duty under Section 9(a) of The Education Act 1989. The Court ruled the Crown had failed to maintain special education provision for students who had special educational needs. This occurred when the support for students with special educational needs was significantly reduced. While the Court found in favour of the parents, this was appealed by the Ministry of Education.
In August 2003 a settlement was reached between the parties in the dispute. The Court recorded that the Minister of Education had acted unlawfully in 1998, when provisions of Special Education 2000 enabled schools to their close special education units. A range of remedies were ordered by the Court. The Ministry of Education was to conduct a national exercise by the end of 2004 to gather and analyse information in relation to special education at a local, district, and national level. This exercise was to inform future decision making about :
The Daniels Case Exercise – Regional Data 2004
The data utilised in this paper was gathered by a regional parent advocacy organisation, the Parent and Family Resource Centre. Four note-takers were employed to produce records of the 32 meetings ordered as part of the Daniels settlement, in the region. The parent statements, and those of other participants relaying parental concerns were used to establish the ‘parent voice’. The notes were analysed to identify emerging themes and concerns and then aggregated into a series ranked issues. The parents’ concerns were able to be grouped broadly into two categories; the first being those that were ‘dispositional’, and the second being derived from ‘central policy and resourcing’.
From this data gathered at the regional meetings the following material was selected as being indicative of the concerns held by parents. Where terminology unique to special education provision in New Zealand is used in the ‘parent voice’ it is elaborated at the end of each sub-section in which it is occurs.
Concern about resourcing
These statements were among the most common made by the parents at the meetings and dealt with the specific student resource detail of the policies that were set and reviewed centrally :
“If ORRS or SEG is not available then there is usually no resourcing”;
“1% for very high needs is too low”,
“Too hard to pinpoint the available funding streams, information and access are both problematic”
ORRS is the Ongoing Reviewable Resourcing Scheme which targets students with high or very high special educational needs. In 1996 Ministry of Education material indicated they might represent 1% of the student population - whereas prior to the introduction of SE2000 the group of students receiving this level of support would have been nearer to 1.8% of the student population.
SEG is the Special Education Grant, which is paid to schools on the basis of the number of students enrolled at the school. The subsidy that is calculated upon the demographic data linked to the school community; employment rates and household income. Thus linking the socio-economic profile of the community to lower intensity levels of special educational needs likely to be found among the students of the school.
Gaps In Specialist Support
A “lack of specialist support available”, was identified. In particular the lack of speech language therapists was mentioned by large numbers of parents at the meetings.
Training For Teachers
Training for teacherswasa concern for an equal number of parents. Their concern was reflected in the statements regarding the delivery of training for both school teachers and early childhood educators. One parent stated that it was essential to “Train teachers at a pre-service level”; another wanted there to be an “Increase in training for teachers”. Another comment reflected the situation at pre-school level; “Training for ECE staff in special education is extremely poor. More highly skilled people need to be involved in that training.”
ECE is the acronym for early childhood education, in New Zealand this is inclusive of private childcare, day care, pre-school, play centre and kindergarten - the new terminology of the Ministry of Education refers to this range as Early Childhood Learning Centres.
Lack Of Welcome
The lack of welcome in schoolswas an experience that caused concern for many parents. This was expressed in a number of ways “the present system is no good, schools are unwelcoming and schools lack accountability” was the declaration of one parent. Another noted the disincentive caused by the targeted funding provisions for students with special educational needs, “regular schools are refusing to enrol non-funded students with specific support needs”. The lack of welcome extended from issues that could be found in school management systems down to individual teacher’s demeanour “teachers are unsympathetic toward children with special educational needs, they are a burden”. The lack of welcome did not stop at this point but was an issue between parents where less able students were felt to be less worthy of teacher time; “ parents of other children feel that their children are being pushed aside to allow teachers to deal with special needs students”, another parent noted the same negativity and suggested that an educative response be taken toward the problem; “parents feel antagonism from other parents as their children are seen as undeservedly taking away the teachers time – an education campaign is needed.”
Accountability In Schools
The issue of a lack of accountability in schoolswas also a worry for some parents, which was expressed in comments such as:“funding going into the class not the child, what about audits of fund use?”, “ no monitoring of teacher/teacher aide quality, schools need to be made more accountable for the education they provide to children with special educational needs” and “students with high needs spend the majority of their time with untrained people – should spend more time with teachers”.
Response To The Two Data Sets
Thinking about the shortcomings identified by the parents alongside the policy maker’s intentions is helpful when considering the impact of the mechanisms that were selected to achieve the policy goal of “ . . . a world class inclusive education system that provides learning opportunities of equal quality to all students.” (Ministry of Education 1996, p.4)
In particular the aspects of the policy that focussed toward family choice and involvement in their child’s education appeared, for many of the participants have little impact in achieving what they desired; both at the level of their personal experience, and in turn for their children with special educational needs.
Increased choices for student enrolment by guaranteeing resources to children with high needs were indicated, alongside more family involvement with schools. These features were to be supported by access to specialist support and advice, irrespective of the location of the family and their child with special educational needs.
Whilst acknowledging the limitations of the sample size available from the Ministry data, we have compared the two groups of data available. As we reviewed the material we noticed patterns of similarity in the ‘parent voice’.
From the data available to us we have selected the themes that were mentioned most by parents, both in relation to what was working well and what their concerns were.
These patterns, their commonalities and differences are depicted in Figure One: The Common And Different Themes Across The Data Sources which follows.
Figure One: The Common And Different Themes Across The Data Sources.
The policy implementation of Special Education 2000 has placed a significant focus on the role of parents and the establishment of a range of partnerships. However, the support to students with high and very high special educational needs is managed by schools and Boards of Trustees who are often working upon the earlier deficit premise of special education. Mainstreaming has led to the relocation of the practices and policies of segregated special education into the regular school environment in an effort to meet students’ special needs. This approach gives rise to the picture our data reveals. Ballard, in 1998 suggested to his readers that “different instruction, different curriculum, and separateness . . . cannot be part of an inclusive education.”
As parents of children with special needs, we have a combined experience of 29 years with our children in the mainstream system. We have noticed that prior to the implementation of Special Education 2000 the ‘system’ was easier to negotiate. We experienced a more holistic and child centred approach in schools, as recommended in the 1994 Salamanca Statement. There was easier access to resources and less emphasis on qualifying for them. Specialist support was more cohesive. Prior to 1996 individual Boards of Trustees managed specialist resources in schools. Now access to these resources is controlled through a system of centrally verified entitlement, and this has become a gate-keeping mechanism rather than being responsive to student needs at a local level.
Our experience as parents, educators and researchers fits in with what Slee (1999) suggests will become the routine denial of human rights through educational disablement so long as the structure of the provision of education is articulated through “ . . . pedagogy, curriculum and institutional arrangements . . .” (Slee 1999, p. 126).
We believe that until there is dialogue about the deep structures of education, the surface structures which construct special education provision and practice in New Zealand will continue to disempower students with special educational needs and control and dominate their parents as they seek an education that is inclusive and does not make them subordinate to others.
References:
Albrecht, G. L., Seelman, K. D., & Bury, M. (2001). Handbook of Disability Studies. Sage Publications: California.
Armstrong, D. (1995). Power and partnerships in education: Parents, children and special educational needs. London: Routledge.
Ballard, K. (1998). Inclusive education in New Zealand: The state we are in. A keynote address to the third Asia Pacific Conference on Down Syndrome. Auckland: Down Syndrome Association of New Zealand.
Brown, C. (1994). Special Education Policies of the fourth Labour Government, 1984 –1990: An interpretive analysis. An unpublished thesis for the Masters of Education Administration degree, awarded by Massey University.
Branson, J, & Miller, D. (1989). Beyond integration policy - the deconstruction of disability. In, L. Barton (Ed.), Integration: Myth or reality ? Lewes: The Falmer Press.
Friedman, L. (Ed.) (1968). Argument: The oral argument before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1952-55. New York: Walker.
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Moore, D., MacFarlane, A., Anderson, A. Brown, D., Timperley, H., Thomson, C., & Glynn, T. (1999). Caught between stories: Special education in New Zealand. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
O’Brien, P., Thesing, A., James, W., Bowdler, M., Guild, D., Jones, L., McMenamin, P., Manins, L., Medcalf, J., Moltzen, R., Perry, B., Tyler-Merrick, G., & Wills, R.(2004). Enhancing Effective Practice in Special Education in New Zealand: A Pilot Study. Learning Media:Wellington.
Parent and Family Resource Centre (2004). The Daniels exercis: Data summary. Auckland: Author.
Slee, R (1999). Special education and human rights in Australia.(pp. 119 - 131) In, F. Armstrong & L. Barton (Eds.), Disability, human rights and education: Cross-cultural perspectives. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Said, E. W. (2000). Reflections on exile and other essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
UNESCO (1994). The Salamanca Statement and framework for action on special needs education. World conference on special needs education: Access and equality. New York: UNESCO.
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