“I cannot leave them,” she remembered thinking before slipping into a coma. Vaughn feared how her absence would affect her children’s education. Though they’re in different grades, each member of the Vaughn family gathers around the table for their respective online classes. In late March, her symptoms worsened quickly and doctors put her on a ventilator. Vaughn’s advocacy on behalf of her kids came to a temporary standstill this spring, when she was hospitalized with the coronavirus. Related: Almost all students with disabilities are capable of graduating on time.

“And this gives us a chance to rethink that.” “I don’t think anyone’s going to say that what we were doing worked or was equitable,” said Meghan Whittaker, the director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities. During distance learning, educators have needed to get creative to reach all their students, leading to new ways of collaborating with parents and approaches to instruction that education experts say could be integrated into how schools operate going forward. And they’ll tell you, they don’t.”īut some families and their advocates are hopeful that the pandemic could prompt a reckoning and systemic change. You talk to anybody at a school or staff about the need, and whether they have what they need to meet the needs of these kids.

“These students in particular are getting the short end of the stick, and they have been for some time,” said Elena Silva, director of the pre-K-12 education policy program at the think tank New America and the mother of a child with a physical disability. And this gives us a chance to rethink that.” Meghan Whittaker, director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities “I don’t think anyone’s going to say that what we were doing worked or was equitable. The consequences are evident in the data: Graduation rates for young people with disabilities often fall far below those of other students, and without the right support, children in special education are also much more likely to repeat grades and twice as likely to be suspended. In Vaughn’s state of Michigan, over 40 percent of teacher vacancies last year were in special education, according to a Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators survey with responses from roughly half the state’s school districts. Special education teachers, meanwhile, tend to be among the least-experienced educators, and states often have trouble filling those positions. But in the legislation’s almost 50-year history, the federal government has never fulfilled its promise to pay 40 percent of the average cost of educating students with disabilities. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), today, more than 7 million children, or 14 percent of public school students, are entitled to special services and accommodations to help them learn. Chronic shortfalls in federal funding have burdened local education agencies and families, and - in the most extreme cases - denied these children access to quality education. Simultaneous crises of a pandemic and recession are further straining a special education system that has long struggled to effectively serve students with disabilities. “Because other than that, I’m calling and texting everybody, every day, about something.” “It’s to the point now you have to pick and choose your battles,” she said.

Slapdash graduate