Making FAPE Appropriate Now for Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Since its inception, a premise of special education has been to provide students with disabilities with an appropriate education. The interpretation of appropriate has evolved across eras of special education. For students with learning disabilities, emphases on inclusion and highstakes achievement have eroded the intention of FAPE. It is time for a re-envisioning of FAPE. A new vision should not presume the same outcomes for all. Restoring goals and individualized curriculum informed by the general education curriculum instead of exclusively focused "in the general education curriculum" is the way forward.

Educator‐Reported Instructional Characteristics of Grade 1 Reading Interventions within a CBM Assessment System

“…Research has used classroom observations to explore reading instruction for students with reading disabilities, and surveys to explore instructional variables in MTSS frameworks, in attempts to document instructional practices. Some of these observation studies have found the following: few differences in the instructional time for reading between the special education, remedial reading, and general education settings (Vaughn et al, 2002); differences in the opportunities to learn to read between special education resource instruction and mainstream general education classrooms (Zigmond & Baker, 1994); more small-group instruction for students receiving special education or remedial reading services than for students in general education (Vaughn et al, 2002); group size ranged from one to seven students, and students generally remained engaged with instruction (Swanson & Vaughn, 2010); a tendency for teachers rated high in effectiveness to allocate instructional time in ways that maximized word-reading outcomes (Foorman et al, 2006). In general, the available literature suggests that interventions are not meeting the needs of students with reading disabilities, as observational studies have found that students with reading disabilities generally received very little explicit reading comprehension instruction, spent small percentages of time engaged in reading, and exhibited lower growth rates compared to students without disabilities (Vaughn & Wanzek, 2014).…”