Mark C. Weber: Special Education
1. The article focuses on the selected works of Mark C. Weber from DePaulUniversity with focus on special education cases. The writer notes that more and more schools are finding it difficulty to determine the special need students that are in need of special care under the individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This is a unique phenomenon considering that the government has expanded the category of children to be included in section 504 rehabilitations Act and the American with Disabilities Act (Weber, 2010).
According to the writer all the students have the rights to equal access to quality education regardless of their status i.e. special needs and able students. The students with special needs should therefore be able to access the same level of education as the able children. The writer further states that though the pace of intellectual knowledge may be slower than the able children, he goes on to state that there should be procedures that ensure that once the student with special needs is through with his education he or she has the same level of academic knowledge as the able students of his age.
The writer of this article holds the notion that courts are responsible for further fuelling the slow recruitment and eligibility of students with special needs as per the IDEA Act. Further arguments in the article states that an expansion of the Act in which students with special needs will be more eligible to the for special needs services will result to more legal claims by the parents on the basis of discrimination under Rehabilitation Act 504 which forbids discrimination of special needs students by local district schools (Weber, 2010). The section dictates that the disabled students should be accorded free public education. Parents who feel that they have been violated use the IDEA in court to put fourth their claim yet they focused on Section 504 Act which does not involve punitive and compensatory damages.
2.After analyzing the various aspects of section 504 and ADA, in the case of special education the writer concludes that more emphasis need to be placed on which education systems are appropriate for teaching children with disabilities, how the special needs children/students can be protected with focus on section 504. The writer then states that a solution to solve the problems between the parents who feel that their rights have been violated and the schools that reviews the eligibility of these children is only possible through IDEA on revising which student is eligible for special needs considerations and thereby protected by IDEA. He states that revising of students that are protected under Idea will reduce the incidence so f court cases with regards to discrimination. Section 504and Title II will also be modified to expand the eligibility of the student’s eligible for the specials needs under the act (Weber, 2010).
The article then focuses back to handling of scenarios where educating of children with disabilities that arte no legible under IDEA but however qualities as special needs children as per the standard of the two acts.
3. The presence of section 504 has led to the leveling of the playing field in both the public and private schools as all the students whether special needs or not have an opportunity to access quality education. Special students were therefore protected from any intentional and unintentional discrimination of the basis of their mental or physical condition (Weber, 2010).
For instance a student in a wheel chair has to be able to access all schools infrastructure with ease. This includes construction of ramps in building that have stairs and the installation of lifts in buildings that have more than one floor. The schooling environment in the education system should therefore be conducive and favor both the normal student and the special needs student.
4. Section 504 is faced with numerous limitations in its application by both the education facility and the parents of children with special needs for instance one limitation is the ability to clearly distinguish between those protected by section 504 and those protected by other similar acts such as IDEA. Whereas all the special needs students of IDEA are covered by section 504 not all section 504 special need individuals are covered by IDEA. This therefore means that the section 504 students are not eligible to services such as seeking compensation for supposed in discriminatory acts (Weber, 2010).
Some academic institutions have also found themselves in trouble because of narrowly analyzing section 504. Fro instance the section states that special needs students are those that are physically and mentally challenged but the schools question the admission of any special student need due to the fact that some may not be in a position to perform basic needs such as taking care of them.
It is therefore appropriate that Section 504 is revised to clear dictate which students it categories as special needs in term of their ability to learn in an ordinary environment. The categorization of students covered by IDEA and Section 504 should also be merged to avoid confusion of when claims can be made and when they cannot be made.
Reference
Weber, M. (2010). A new look at Section 504 and the ADA in Special Education Cases. Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=mark_weber&sei-redir=1#search=%22article+on+Section+504+Legislation+for+Special+Education,%22 on 27th May 2011
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