Argumentative Essay On Special Education

Special education is in every school system to help students with disabilities have success in life. According to Artiles and colleagues research, children back in the 1800s were excluded from educational opportunities (Artiles, Harris-Murri, and Rostenberg, 2006, p. 260). Children with disabilities were often segregated into either a separate classroom or separate schools with curriculum that didn’t fit their needs (Artiles, 2006, p. 260). Children were held to low standards, but fortunately that is not the way we see special education today. With the introduction of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act otherwise known in IDEA in 2004 we see more of a movement towards inclusion (Department of Education, 2004). During the creation of …show more content…
Unless services cannot be successful in the general education classroom, they should be with their nondisabled peers 80 to 90 percent of the time (Department of Education, 2004). Articles and colleagues criticize special education for limiting students, through the “parallel structure” of special education (Artiles et al., 2006, p. 261). Traditionally special education teachers had their own separate classroom where the student would go to for the whole or part of the school day and this is still a basic set up for special education. Now special education teachers spend part of their time in the general education classroom either helping just their specific students or teaching alongside the teacher. All students in the classroom can benefit from co-teaching, but when implemented effectively it is shown to have the greatest benefit for special education students. It gives special education students the chance to remain in their general education classroom, but still receive special education services per their IEP (Cataffo, 2012). Besides the educational benefits of inclusion, there are also the social