Contributions from: Dr Peter Cowley, Chief Executive Officer, Specialist Education Services.
Abstract
In 1989 the New Zealand Government began a comprehensive programme of education reform based on devolution of decision-making to local communities. Special education was seen as too complex at the time and was not included in the reforms. However, the influences of de-institutionalisation and the inclusion movement, the shift in special education provision from a biological to an ecological model, the increase in demand for parental choice and the philosophy of self-managing schools presented pressures that resulted in a new policy, Special Education 2000.
The new policy individually resources 3% of the school population identified with high or very high educational needs and a further 5-8% supported through resources allocated to schools or groups of schools.
With such a major policy change and injection of additional resources, the policy requires testing through a comprehensive evaluation. As a result, Special Education 2000 is being closely monitored and evaluated over a three-year period. The process includes a national survey, fieldwork, parent forums and student interviews. Information gathered at milestones will feed back into further policy development. Some initial findings are discussed in the final section of the paper.
Introduction
‘Special’ education has historically been associated with the provision of education to students with particular categories of disabilities, impairments or difficulties. Often in the past such students were educated in special, often segregated, facilities such as special schools or units.
Over the last twenty years, in New Zealand there has been a move away from the exclusion of students with special education needs. This has been accompanied by a move to place less emphasis on categorisation by disability type, and providing for students according to the level of education need. This has had meant significant change for schools and their communities. It has also required major change in special education policy including methods of teaching children with special education needs, resourcing mechanisms and gate-keeping.
This paper discusses the national framework for special education in New Zealand in four parts:
PART ONE – CONTEXT FOR CHANGE
Background
Students with disabilities and impairments were excluded from State Education at its inception in 1877(1). During the latter part of the nineteenth century, education of students with high special education needs was not perceived as a state responsibility. Children who were blind, deaf or physically or intellectually disabled were educated largely by churches and voluntary organisations.
During the first half of the twentieth century there was an increasing acceptance of the right for some children with special education needs to have an education financed by the State. By 1944, some schools and classes for children in hospitals, health camps special classes and Correspondence School classes were established for students who had difficulties in learning. There were also two Day Special Schools for school students with an intellectual disability. From the 1960s through to the 1980s, there was a move to educate an increasing number of students with special education needs on regular school sites. These developments mirrored practices in the rest of the Western World. (2)
In 1987, the Education Act was amended to provide for the special education of persons under the age of 21 in schools, special schools, special classes or special clinics or from special services. Entitlement to full inclusion into the state education(3)system of students with disabilities was ultimately achieved by 1 January 1990. However, full inclusion in the state education system was not achieved until the start of this year(4). From the beginning of 1999, all students regardless of their level of special education need, all generated their age appropriate level of resourcing on the same basis as other students.
Education Reforms
With the 1989 education reforms(5), the state redefined and separated its purchase, ownership and regulatory interests in the compulsory sector. The major theme of these reforms was the establishment of partnership with the local communities. This was achieved through the devolution of broad management responsibilities to school boards of trustees, elected by the parents of the students attending that particular school.
The reforms were based on the general principle that improvement in efficiency and effectiveness and better education outcomes were most likely to be achieved by facilitating decision-making at the local school level and allowing schools greater flexibility over their resources(6). They aimed to achieve a partnership with the local community through self-management and accountability of schools for the use of resources in achieving good learning outcomes. The direction of the reforms has been to provide a simpler, fairer and more transparent funding system of resourcing allocation to schools.
The 1989 education reforms placed the governance responsibility with boards of trustees of each local school(7). This effectively required each school board of trustees to provide for children with disabilities. Section 8 of the 1989 Education Act provided for equal rights to primary and secondary education for all students. It said "people who have special education needs (whether because of disability or otherwise) have the same rights to enroll and receive education at state schools as people who do not."(8)
INTERNATIONAL TRENDS
Three themes underlie changes in special education policy:
Over the last few decades there have been changes in cultural values towards children with disabilities. This has been reflected in the type of educational provision, moving from no provision at all, through segregated settings towards integration in the mainstream school and then to inclusion.
The term inclusion has many different meanings. In this paper, we have taken inclusion to mean a total practice and belief. It is part and parcel of a responsibility to all children. Thus inclusion is transcendent of a student’s physical placement or setting. In many ways, we prefer the use of term inclusive school which Stainback & Stainback(9) see as:
“a place where everyone belongs, is accepted, supports, and is supported by his or her peers and other members of the school community in the course of having his or her educational needs met”.
The move towards inclusion has been characterised by a shift away from a biological paradigm which categorised children with special education needs(10) to an ecological paradigm(11). In the biological model, disability and special education needs were perceived in terms of ‘functional limitations’. The ecological model focuses on environmental factors(12) that need to be altered to assist the child with special education needs. Instead of focusing on what is wrong with a child, there is more, however, focus on acknowledging the influence of the social and physical environments on learning.
The ecological or inclusive paradigm suggests that the primary problems facing children with disabilities are external (i.e. in the environment) rather than internal(13). This approach particularly emphasises meeting the educational needs of all students within regular school settings. The task of educators working in this paradigm is to alter, adapt and improve educational organisations and environments to meet the needs of all students.
The movement from the biological paradigm to the ecological and inclusionary view of provision in special education has had major implications for students, parents, schools and Specialist Education Services(14). The biological paradigm locates students’ learning and behaviour difficulties largely within the students themselves. The ecological paradigm locates these difficulties as a social construct, i.e. in the interaction between students and the learning contexts available to them within classrooms, schools and society. Understanding the fundamental differences between these paradigms(15) is essential to policy development and implementation, as elements of both are present within Special Education 2000 policy model.
In the ecological/inclusive paradigm the level of need of the individual determines access to resources and programmes. Assessment is focused on measuring quality of the instructional environments, rather than on the performance deficits of students(16). An essential feature of the inclusive paradigm is that responsibility and accountability for the education of students with special needs rests with all teachers in a school. Acceptance of this responsibility and accountability require special education resourcing to provide for the needs of individual students and for changing the knowledge of all teachers, parents and communities.
Implementation of school choice policies(17) has been an influence in special education policy development. Two of the most pertinent rights involved in school choice are those of parents to choose the type of education for their child, and the right of all children to an education and in particular, the right to equality of educational opportunity.
Special Education and Tomorrow’s Schools
By the late 1980s, the state school sector in New Zealand was characterised by a high degree of central control. Centralisation and inflexibility of decision-making compromised the efficiency and responsiveness of the compulsory school sector(18), and did not necessarily recognise the diverse needs of individual communities, including those with special education needs.
Assumptions which underpinned the 1989 reforms were based on the desire to improve efficiency(19), direct more resources to schools and improve the learning opportunities(20) for children through parental and community involvement and greater teacher responsibility. The emphasis was on state school improvement and a belief that greater diversity could be provided by the state system of education(21). Hence, the main thrust was to allow greater innovation, diversity and choice within the state framework. The emphasis was on creating schools that would be responsive to their communities.(22) This resulted in the establishment of a board of trustees for each school, regardless of size. Trustees are responsible for governance matters (including the appointment of the principal and teachers), and hence the term “self-managing schools”.
Since 1989, responsibility for special education has been shared between the Ministry of Education, Specialist Education Services and schools. This has resulted in some tensions between the policy goals of “self-managing schools,” the effective management of scarce special education resources and school choice policies. A better accommodation of these tensions and a basis for agreement on which students should receive special education has been the focus of the Special Education 2000 policy development. However, there are inherent difficulties in attempting to provide equitably for a small group of students with diverse needs spread across the entire country.
These difficulties were compounded by the location and type of various special education facilities that in some instances no longer reflected current needs. Resources for children with special education needs have been hard won over the years, and families and schools have been loath to relinquish existing services without guarantees that equally resourced alternative services will be provided in their place.
In addition the following issues have also contributed to the need for change:
The combined effect of these factors has been to increase the number of “very high” and “high” needs children in the education system each year. At the early childhood level, where early intervention clearly pays dividends in terms of minimising the development of later problems, resourcing was insufficient to provide an adequate level of learning support for identified children who needed it.
Development of a New Special Education Policy
Special Education in New Zealand has been subject to a number of reviews over the last ten years. It was left to one side during the 1988/89 education sector reforms, essentially because of the inherent complexities. The then Labour Government intended to carry out the much needed reforms to special education within two years. However, the election of a centre-right Government in November 1990, resulted in the the National Government developing a policy statement on special education known as The Statement of Intent for Special Education in New Zealand(24). There was a very intensive period of consultation through the Special Education Policy Implementation Team (SEPIT) which culminated in a report.(25) This was followed by a report written by David Mitchell and Ken Ryba on resourcing students with special education needs according to an educational needs basis(26).
The National Advisory Committee on Special Education was established by the Minister of Education in 1995. This purpose of this committee was to provide independent comment across the sector on the policies being developed on special education and to develop special education guidelines(27). In 1995, the Ministry began further development work on special education that resulted in a policy now known as Special Education 2000.
Development on Special Education 2000 policy occurred from 1995 until 1999. Policy development and implementation occurred incrementally. The focus of the preliminary work was on the development of a greenfields approach, along with the adoption of key aims and principles underpinning the policy. The first phase established the Special Education Grant into all schools. The second phase related to the policy for high needs students. The third phase related to moderate needs students.
PART TWO - FRAMEWORK FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION 2000
The context of philosophical changes, the need to ensure that special education provision was consistent with self-managing schools, as well as recognising parent choice and the trend towards inclusion of children and young people with disabilities in regular education settings resulted in the adoption of four key principles:(28)
An alignment between the 1989 education reforms and special education required a new resourcing mechanism that would enable schools to assume full responsibility in meeting the full range of student need, including those with special education needs. The aims of the Special Education 2000 policy(29) are:
Special Education 2000 has two key aspects. Individually targeted resourcing to students with high or very high special education needs, which remains a direct responsibility of the Government, and a mixture of resourcing mechanisms for students with moderate to high special education needs such as learning and behaviour difficulties which is provided to schools or groups of schools.
STUDENTS WITH HIGH OR VERY HIGH SPECIAL EDUCATION NEEDS
The three initiatives for students with high or very high special education needs target approximately 3% (over 22,000) of the student population. The three initiatives are:
The Ongoing and Transition Resourcing Schemes (OTRS)
Entry into OTRS is through the verification process. An application(30) is made, and a panel of verifiers makes a judgement on eligibility for the scheme, based on agreed criteria. The criteria broad headings are around the need:
Opportunities exist for review and appeal of the decisions made by verifiers.
The OTRS provides funding to support students with high and very high ongoing special education needs that are expected to continue throughout their school years. The Transition Resourcing Scheme provides for students between the ages of 5 to 7 who have high needs but for whom the verifiers are unable to determine whether their need is ongoing. The schemes resources four elements: additional teaching, paraprofessional (such as teacher aide, interpreter etc), specialist and therapy support. Transport and equipment continue to be centrally resourced and have not been included in the Transition and Ongoing Resourcing Schemes.
A school or cluster of schools that has 20 or more students is eligible for accreditation to hold the cash component(31) of the scheme and purchase the services required for these students. This involves the fundholder in arranging an Individual Education Programme (IEP)(32), agreeing with the parent and school on the appropriate level of resourcing. In 2000, 76 schools were accredited as fundholders.
From the beginning of 1999, all students (including those in special schools and special education attached units) have been included in the current system of staffing schools. An additional part-time teaching component (0.1 Full Time Teacher Equivalent for high needs and 0.2 Full Time Teacher Equivalent for very high needs) has been allocated to students who are in the OTRS, wherever the student attends school.
This new system has major implications for regular schools with students in the Transition and Ongoing Resourcing Schemes as well as those with specialist facilities. For the first time, students with special education needs has been recognised first and foremost as a school student – and receive the appropriate entitlement to teaching as other students do – but with an identified need for additional teaching (i.e., an additional 0.1 or 0.2 Full Time Teacher Equivalent). The additional teaching component was also intended to signal that this additional teaching resource is aimed at improving the quality of education for these students.
The schemes have been designed to ensure that parent choice of education facility is maintained and that the level of resourcing is approximately equivalent in whatever setting the parent/caregiver chooses (i.e. special school, specialist facility or regular class setting). This enables special schools or specialist facilities within regular schools to be maintained or established without going through a centralised bureaucratic system, thus ensuring greater consistency with self-managing schools.
Students with Severe Behaviour Difficulties
This initiative aims to assist students whose behaviour endangers themselves, others, damages property or constantly stops them from fitting in with other students and from learning. The initiative also provides liaison with the home and appropriate community agencies. In particular it helps schools:
There are two key elements:
Initiative for Students with Speech-Language Difficulties.
This is primarily targeted to students in the first three years of schooling. The initiative provides an increase in speech-language therapy on average per student. Priority is given to students with high needs who have motor speech difficulties, fluency disorders, voice/resonance disorders, language difficulties or significant language delay. This initiative aims to help those students to communicate more effectively. Currently Specialist Education Services provide this service and determine, on the basis of published criteria, who should receive services for speech-language.
STUDENTS WITH MODERATE TO HIGH SPECIAL EDUCATION NEEDS
The need to ensure new special education policy was consistent with self-managing schools provided the impetus for separating out the resourcing requirements of students with moderate special education needs. Three key initiatives are being implemented for this group of students. They are the Special Education Grant, Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour and Moderate Resourcing Mechanisms. Local schools manage the first two initiatives totally, while the moderate resourcing mechanisms are still centrally managed.
The Special Education Grant.
The Special Education Grant is allocated on a formula basis, according to the number of students on the school roll and the socio-economic ranking of a school (decile ranked). The range is from $25 per student in decile(33) ten schools through to $53 per student in decile one schools. The grant targets students with moderate to high behaviour and/or learning difficulties. School boards determine priorities for allocation. Guidelines on the use of the Special Education Grant(34) have been distributed to all schools. This provides guidance to schools on how to work with parents/caregivers on how this fund should be spent to meet the needs of individuals and groups of students with moderate to high special education needs. The Education Review Office reviews each school's use of the Special Education Grant as part of its regular reviews.
Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour
National implementation of the Resource Teacher: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) component began from the beginning of the 1999 school year(35). These teachers work within a cluster of schools with students (and teachers of students) who have moderate learning and/or behaviour difficulties. Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour have been assigned to schools and clusters of schools throughout New Zealand.(36). The decision on how the services are to be provided are being made by the cluster of schools serviced. In some areas there are special provisions for kura kaupapa (37) and Maori immersion clusters.
Moderate Resourcing Provisions
There are also provisions(38) for three groups of students who have not been included in the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme. These groups of students:
Some of these students require support on an intermittent or regular basis throughout their schooling. Others may require an intensive amount of support over a short period.
Students With High Health Needs
Three regional hospital schools have been established at the beginning of 2000 in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch Hospitals for students who are in hospital for periods longer than two weeks. In addition to their core functions as a school, they provide for:
Hospital class teachers who are located outside Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and are attached to the three hospital schools. The change allows teaching positions to be shifted more easily when demographics change or a hospital alters the focus of its services.
Early Childhood (39)
Another important part of Special Education 2000 is special education in the early childhood sector. At the end of 1997, the Government announced increased funding of $19.5m over the following three years for children with special education needs in the early childhood sector. The funding increase has resulted in an augmentation to the average level of current services as well as increasing the total number of children able to receive services each year.
Paraprofessional support was increased from the beginning of 1998. This provided young children with high needs with better access to early childhood centres. In July 1998 and 1999 further funding increases were made. This resulted in increased specialist services, teaching, advice and support including speech-language therapy as well as further increases in para-professional support.
Professional Development and Training
Implementation of Special Education 2000 has necessitated major changes for boards of trustees, principals, teachers, special education teachers and specialists. A multi-faceted approach has been used, training specialists, Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour, boards of trustees and Professional Development programmes for teachers and principals in regular schools and early childhood services. A three year programme of professional development for staff and management of early childhood centres will commence in the latter part of 2000.
PART THREE – SPECIALIST EDUCATION SERVICES AND SPECIAL EDUCATION 2000
Specialist Education Services was established as a Crown Entity, in 1989 as part of the wider education reforms. Specialist Education Services has a board, appointed by the Minister of Education. It has an annual contract, negotiated with the Minister’s agents (Ministry of Education), with a requirement to report quarterly on achievement of outputs and service delivery.
In 1989, Specialist Education Services was formed from a hybrid of services which included the Psychological Service, Speech-language therapists, Visiting Teacher Service, Advisers on Deaf Children and Early Intervention Advisers. Government originally intended to make Specialist Education Services contestable, with funding going direct to schools to enable them to purchase the specialist services required. This concept was suspended during implementation of Tomorrow’s Schools. However, during the 1990s there were a number of reports to Cabinet on the contestability of Specialist Education Services which have never been resolved, because of the uncertainty around the future direction of special education in New Zealand.
During the 1990s, Specialist Education Services faced an uncertain future, with the threat of contestablility. Also during this period, the service was attempting to amalgamate the various elements of service (eg. Educational Psychologists, Speech-langauge Therapists, Advisers, and Visiting Teachers) into a single service, focused on meeting the needs of children and young people, educators, parents and caregivers as well as the Ministry of Education and the Government.
Over the last decade, there has been an inherent dilemma for Specialist Education Services, in its role as an organisation dedicated to making a difference for children and young people with special education needs. It has had to manage a transition from being run within the Department of Education to becoming an independent Crown Entity, in a climate of self-managing schools. The move towards an ecological paradigm has been a subtle influence over the last ten years. However, many educators within schools still believe that the role of Specialist Education Services is to look after all children who are referred – and this involves providing specialist and para-professional support. Many schools are resistant to the move towards the ecological paradigm. For example, there is still nostalgia for the return of therapists working in speech-language clinics in isolation, rather than the speech-language therapist working with the student and class teacher in the class setting.
Specialist Education Services has also been effected by the move towards self-managing schools which has encouraged school boards to have a greater say in governance matters, including special education. In this respect, this move is very consistent with the overall direction of Special Education 2000 which has aimed at getting every school to take responsibility for all students, including those with special education needs. However, this move has occurred within a centralised system, where parents and schools have been used to considerable support from external specialist personnel, such as psychologists, speech-language therapists etc. The net result of this, is that parents of children with special education needs often feel unsupported, as they often have to persuade principals to accept their child as well as “compete” with other children within the school for resourcing to meet their particular needs. In the past, Specialist Education Services provided a greater a role in parent support programmes, but this has often produced an inherent dilemma in managing relationships with the school, the student and the parent.
Specialist Education Services during the last ten years has had a number of other conflicting roles. This has including gate-keeping discretionary resources and access to special schools and specialist facilities in regular schools (under section 9 of the Education Act, 1989). There is still a tension in the diminished role of gate-keeping under the new framework with the service provision and advice to the Ministry of Education.
One of the significant challenges of the new policy has been to reduce expectation of the sector that Specialist Education Services is no longer a service that is for anyone. In the past, any school or parent of a child with special education needs (however, defined) had free access to assessment and service provision. This resulted in lengthy waiting lists and often very inadequate service provision for children and young people with significant levels of need. The aim of the new policy has been to confine the role of Specialist Education Services to specialist services to students with the highest level of need.
However, despite all the changes that have occurred, there is still a perception that if Specialist Education Services personnel are involved with a child or young person, that the educator can assume less responsibility for the education programme of the student. It is important, that both Specialist Education Services staff and educators begin to work together within the new ecological paradigm.
PART FOUR – THE FUTURE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION 2000
Special education continues to be a highly emotive and complex issue to implement. At present, implementation is almost complete through transitioning from an ad-hoc system of special education system developed over the last one hundred years to a policy framework that provides consistent and predictable resourcing, and a better quality of special education.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Special Education 2000
The implementation of the new Special Education 2000 policy has increased the baseline for special education from about $180 million in 1997 to about $300 million by the beginning of the year 2000 (about 60% increase).
Specialist Education Services receives just over 25% of this funding for the provision of specialist and para-professional support.
With such a major policy change and injection of additional resources, the policy requires testing through a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of Special Education 2000 initiatives on students, schools, teachers, parents and other communities of interest. As a result, Special Education 2000 is being closely monitored and evaluated over a three-year period by the Ministry of Education, the Education Review Office and Massey University.
Ministry of Education
The Ministry of Education is monitoring all aspects of implementation, through means both formal and informal. The Ministry manages the Document of Accountability with Specialist Education Services and negotiates contracts with other service providers, such as Ongoing Resourcing Scheme fundholders and school clusters (for Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour).
The Education Review Office(40)
The Education Review Office is responsible for reporting on the implementation of Special Education 2000 policy in schools. This is being conducted over three years, from mid 1998 to mid 2001. During 1998 and 1999(41), Review Officers visited 366 state primary, intermediate and secondary schools (14 percent of all schools) and asked:
The Education Review Office concluded that:
Evaluation Programme
Massey University has been contracted to conduct a longitudinal evaluation of Special Education 2000 over three years. The evaluation is assessing the overall efficacy of the new policy, the impact of each initiative within the Special Education 2000 policy and the interactions between them.
A comprehensive range of research questions has been provided by the Ministry of Education. The research methodology involved an extensive questionnaire to 1200 schools, (45% of all schools), 300 early childhood institutions (10%) and 72 Kura Kaupapa Maori (total Maori immersion schools) in-depth interviews in 400 institutions along with interviews with key personnel as well as parent groups.
The findings that have recently come out of the first stage of the evaluation(42), conducted during the first half of 1999, appear to reflect as much about the nature and impact of changing policies as it does about how the new policy framework is working for schools and students. The findings relate to a period of policy transition. The initial findings state that:
Responses from schools with regard to Special Education 2000 have been varied. Satisfaction regarding the Special Education 2000 policy is most evident in the Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour and the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme initiatives. There was general satisfaction with the Special Education Grant in principle, but some considerable concern with the Severe Behaviour Initiative and students just outside the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme. Concerns related to both quality and availability of service.
Full implementation of the policy has not been achieved until the beginning of 2000. The Massey snap-shot from educator’s responses has demonstrated that there is still a degree of confusion, ‘fear of the unknown’, frustration and uncertainty about the delivery of special education. Parents, who had the least knowledge and understanding of the policy changes, were feeling the most disempowered.
Is Special Education 2000 Achieving its Objectives?
The central focus of policy development has been on the latter two objectives - developing a new resourcing framework. The final section of this paper briefly evaluates the policy against its stated objectives from the implementation perspective. At the end of 1999, a new centre-left Government was elected. The Labour-Alliance Coalition Government announced in March 2000, that they would review of the Special Education 2000 Policy framework. In general, the new Government accepted the basic framework but wanted an independent review to be conducted on five specific areas:
The independent review will be completed before the end of July, and implementation of any recommendations is likely to occur from the beginning of 2001. However, it is possible that that the framework could be significantly altered to accommodate the recommendations.
Specialist Education Services Perspective
Special Education 2000 established three key objectives:
First Objective
to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for children with special education needs in the early childhood and school sectors;
Specialist Education Services historically contributed to the maintenance of the biological paradigm, by acting as assessor, gate-keeper and provider of specialist services. Educators often perceived that the onus of responsibility for a special education needs child and young person rested with the specialist once Specialist Education Services staff became involved. The shift towards inclusion has been exacerbated by some educators, because schools don’t want to assume full responsibility for students with special education needs – they still want the State to manage and take responsibility for children and young people with special education needs.
The policy framework aimed to effect a cultural change towards inclusion. Giving schools greater control over special education resources was aimed at a wider educational goal of assisting schools to take greater ownership in meeting the full range of student’s needs – whether such needs relate to issues of gender, socio-economic situation, ethnicity or special education. Improving educational outcomes for students with special education needs is as much about changing culture and attitudes as it is about adequacy and effectiveness of resourcing.
However, Specialist Education Services staff report increasing difficulty in getting children and young people with special education needs accepted into schools. One of the unintended effects of the 1989 Education reforms has been to encourage principals and boards of trustees to compete for students (funding and teaching resources depend on the number of students). This has resulted in some schools not wishing to enrol students with special education needs. Field staff of Specialist Education Services report that up to 25% of schools are either overtly or covertly excluding students with special education needs(44).
There is also an added difficulty of once a student is enrolled in a regular school, of ensuring that the student is effectively included in the class programme, and not marginalised by having a separate programme, often supervised by a para-professional support worker.
Some of the issues to be faced include:
Second Objective
to ensure there is a clear, consistent and predictable resourcing framework for special education;
The policy work to date has concentrated on establishing the new resourcing framework for Special Education 2000, moving from a system characterised by ad-hoc and inequitable resourcing arrangements to a fairer resourcing system that focuses on the educational needs of individual students. Adjusting to this move will take time. Most of this phase is now complete. However, there are some areas still requiring further policy development.
It is important to clarify the roles and responsibilities of Specialist Education Services, the Ministry of Education and accredited fundholders in regard to roles and responsibilities. One such direction that could result from the review of Special Education 2000 is clarifying the core function of Specialist Education Services. At present Specialist Education Services provides funding for para-professional support, specialist support, as well as acting as gate-keeper and adviser to Government on aspects of special education implementation. There is an increasing risk that Specialist Education Services will not be available to provide an effective and consistent specialist service throughout New Zealand. The alternative fundholders often take a particular niche group leaving Specialist Education Services with students in rural and isolated settings, or the very resource intensive students. It may be more consistent with the ecological paradigm, to provide schools directly with resourcing for the para-professional component, which could be combined with the additional teaching component. This would leave Specialist Education Services with the provision of specialist support role to children and young people with special education needs.
The relationship of the OTRS to the other high needs initiatives (severe behaviour, speech/communication and high health needs) is being examined. Concern has been expressed that the 1% cap on each of the high initiatives is too limiting and does not adequately provide for students who fall just below the line. In particular, there is increasing concern that students with specific learning difficulties, often clustered with other moderate special education needs are missing out on adequate specialist support. Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour do provide some support, but the intensive support required by some students is often beyond the school or cluster of school’s resource.
The initiative for students with severe behaviour difficulties has been very difficult to manage within an ecological paradigm. Some schools are often reluctant to provide any additional resourcing to support students with significant behaviour difficulties. Schools have also found it difficult to adjust to the fact that Specialist Education Services is only seeing 1% of the student population with the most significant behaviour difficulties. There is also an inherent dilemma for Specialist Education Services in that many educators are wanting Specialist Education Services to take direct responsibility for the student, or in many cases remove the student from the school while the “student is being fixed”. Implementation of the behaviour initiative has also been further exacerbated by dissatisfaction of the sector with some aspects of the specialist provision.
During the latter part of 1999, the type of service provision was modified to incorporate changes suggested by the sector – in effect:
The initiative for students with significant speech-language difficulties has also faced increased criticism from the sector. Speech-language therapists in the past worked almost exclusively in a clinic model, which almost exclusively within the biological paradigm. There is a clear perception of the sector that there has been diminished specialist service, despite the increase in resourcing. This has probably resulted from the move towards a more inclusive model, working with the teachers who have students with significant speech-language difficulties in classroom settings, along with working almost exclusively with 1% of students with the severest need. Unlike the other two initiatives for high or very high needs students, this initiative has no buffer for students with moderate speech-language difficulties. It is likely that withdrawal from this area of support over the last three years has been the one that both parents and educators have noticed.
Third Objective
to provide equitable resourcing for those with similar needs irrespective of school setting or geographic location.
Magnet Schools
There is a tension between the policy objective of the Special Education Grant and the present reality of ‘magnet’ schools. For a number of reasons, many schools have tended to become what are commonly termed ‘magnet’ schools for students with special education needs(46). In part this is due to the issue of parent choice, implementation of Tomorrow’s Schools, and the ability of schools to covertly encourage the enrolment of students with special education needs at schools which had appropriate specialist teachers. While the individual entitlement nature of the high needs initiatives (such as the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme) will directly compensate for this phenomenon with regard to high needs students, the formula-based nature of funding for moderate needs students poses potential difficulties for magnet schools.
The policy aims to assist in developing a culture that encourages all schools to meet the full range of student needs, and to accept all students from the local community. The Special Education Grant is central to re-enforcing the message about equity, but it will take time to change attitudes. The development of clusters and Resource Teachers Learning and Behaviour are another key mechanism for getting communities to think together, increasing the awareness of the prevalence and relativity of special education needs amongst school communities, and compensating for the magnet school phenomenon in the interim.
Gate-Keeping Equity
There is a need to ensure that the process for identifying students for the severe behaviour and speech-language initiatives is as robust as that for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme. Specialist Education Services is the gatekeeper for these initiatives. The Special Education 2000 research programme and careful monitoring of the Document of Accountability with Specialist Education Services is critical in identifying whether students of similar levels of need for specialist behaviour or speech-language interventions throughout the country are in fact receiving similar levels of resourcing and achieving the learning outcomes identified by the Government.
Equity and Education Settings
The issue of maintaining a genuine choice of education setting for all students, which the Special Education 2000 policy is committed to, is a difficult one. Much of the difficulty in ensuring choice revolves around viability when the special education needs of students are extremely diverse, they tend to be a low-incidence population, and they are spread across wide geographical areas. The challenge that Special Education 2000 aims to meet, is to ensure that the resourcing for these students is sufficiently flexible to allow for a choice of setting where both viability and parental choice dictate.
The issue of equitable resourcing for moderate needs students is ultimately tied to the responses of individual schools to the needs of their students. The allocation of Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour to all clusters of schools gives greater flexibility to schools and parents in the choice of unit or mainstream education. The policy work now needs to focus on whether there is sustainable choice of settings for parents and schools to work with.
Equity
It is worth noting briefly that there is a philosophical question about what is meant by equity. The policy aims to ensure equal resourcing for students with similar levels of need. However, factors such as isolation and educational setting can pose barriers to the concept of resource equity. A further point is how equity of resourcing relates to equitable outcomes.
Conclusion
The Special Education 2000 framework has a broad acceptance for implementing special education policy within an ecological paradigm and into the world of Tomorrow’s Schools. There are still some issues around the implementation of the policy which may necessitate further changes to the policy framework.
The introduction of Special Education 2000 has tended to highlight the inequities that have existed in the past, and in particular the high level of resourcing that has been provided to particular groups of students.
The new policy has raised the expectation of parents to be more involved with schools in making the best decisions for their child through the IEP process. This is a positive outcome of the policy. It has however highlighted the difficulties around gaining a consensus from specialists, parents and schools about the needs of individual students.
When implementation of such a complex policy is undertaken, it is inevitable that these shifts take place against a variety of attitudes and entrenched perspectives, when often there is nostalgia for the past. There are always tensions and differences of view regarding the speed, depth and timing of change.
It is important that together, parents, schools, Specialist Education Services and the Ministry of Education continue to work to get it right together.
Endnotes
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