Essential Components of a Quality Special Education Program in Public Schools

Essential Components of a Quality Special Education Program in the Public School System : A Research Proposal

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Introduction

Recent reforms in education have emphasized the need for sensitivity and responsiveness to students ' social contexts . This is to increase not only the effectiveness of educational programs but also to create individual relevance to the student learning . Behavioral management is critical in special education programs because students ' behavior are often used by the public to determine the social roles and value of special-needs children . This can

prove to be challenging for special education programs since social standards may vary in communities and therefore behavioral and social integration requirements will vary as well (Kopelowicz et al , 2006 . Therefore , there is a need for special education teachers to have the means to evaluate individual student socialization requirements to ensure that they accomplish not only academic and behavioral educational goals but also to enhance their social integration and empowerment

Proposal

The development of academic and behavioral programs that highlight socialization requires educators ' access to relevant research and the capacity to both research and their individual experience in developing interventions . In either case , Williams and Reisberg (2003 ) point out that teachers depend greatly on institutional support of such objectives and often have little direct participation in program development . This may be because of the need to develop general policies , procedures or methodologies but it also limits social context input thus diminishing the social relevance of interventions (Sailor et al , 2007 . Therefore there is a need for individual educational programs to develop their own evaluation methods to determine the socialization and social integration requirements of their students

Recognizing the limitation on resources and manpower common to special education initiatives in public schools , the research 's target population will be limited to its existing students and extent of integration will only range from family to the school community interactions (Kopelowicz et al , 2006 . It should be noted that the project should emphasize community and professional collaboration to create awareness and collect to multi-dimensional perspectives in improving socialization components to currently implemented academic and behavioral programs . Moreover , the evaluation or assessment programs must be easy to replicate so that it can be utilized in other educational settings and provide a baseline for socialization component evaluation

Rationale

The assessment will then serve to develop high-impact low cost interventions , each intervention or program having a duration of twelve weeks . According to the studies conducted by Barry and Burlew (2004 Smith and Gilles (2003 ) and Koh and Robertson (2003 , educators ' level of commitment to educational programs is often used as an indication of institutional commitment and concern to an issue . Thus , it is important for educators to take an active role in initiatives particularly where external stakeholders are involved . This is not only to utilize the social recognition of teachers ' role in education but also to utilize their professional practical experience . This becomes even more critical in special education programs since there is a limitation to public awareness and...