TOW #7- The Special Education Problems We Aren't Solving

This article makes so much sense that it hurts.  Laura Klein is a teacher from New York City, in a school where "more than 30 percent of the students are classified as special education" (Paragraph 1).  In her article, "The Special Education Problems We Aren't Solving," Klein uses real-life examples and rhetorical questions to get her audience to start the conversation about special education and to do something about the horrible standards it is based on.  As she is a special education teacher herself, Klein uses examples of students that have been in her classroom to show her audience that there truly is a problem out there with special education.  She uses fake names to protect the actual students, but it is not the name of the student that matters, but the fact that these things actually happened to a child in the United States' educational program.  After introducing the type of student she had, she starts to explain the problems with her situation.  Klein writes, "Eve has an Individual Education Plan... it is quite evident that Eve is perfectly capable of attaining high marks in her classes. Yet, the I.E.P. says that she can be promoted by meeting only 40 percent of the standards, and so this is what she strives for (or rather, settles for).  Not only does this alarm the audience, but it also shows how drastically something needs to be done.  The audience shouldn't just wait around and let this happen to students, they should start the conversation within society to do something to help these kids that deserve so much more.  Near the end of  Klein's text, she asks her audience a strong, rhetorical question to further pound this issue into their heads.  She does this exceptionally well by connecting Eve's story to the rest of the students in special education.  Klein first states, "Set your standards low, and people won’t fail to meet them" (32), and then asks, "But why don’t we demand more?" (32).  This makes her message clear, that she wants the general public to do something about this.  The use of the rhetorical question allows for her audience to start generating ideas among themselves, preparing a base of ideas that could help make change in the future.  Klein does an excellent job in her article at making her message both clear and powerful.






http://www.wnyc.org/story/301679-the-special-education-problems-we-arent-solving/