DATE: Friday, May 16, 1997                  TAG: 9705150020

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Keith Monroe 

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

DESPITE FLAWS, LAW HELPS INTEGRATE DISABLED KIDS INTO SOCIETY

Congress was wrestling with an idea this week. This particular idea is a bill called IDEA - the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It was originally passed in 1975.

Now, 22 years later, critics tend to see only its flaws and unintended consequences. (See related editorial on facing page.) But IDEA was created to meet a real need, and unfortunately the need remains. Despite imperfections in the legislation, it's reauthorization was a good thing.

IDEA requires that children with disabilities receive a free, appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. That's the crux of the matter. The legislation is needed because it is all too easy to marginalize children with disablities, to brand them as trouble or patronize them as unfortunates or treat them as second class citizens, to give up on them or hide them from view.

But not only is that cruel, it's shortsighted. Children with disabilities who aren't educated today - even if it requires some extra effort or cost - will become an even bigger burden on society tomorrow. Conversely, if given an appropriate education that addresses their needs, most can become ``contributing members of society,'' to resort to a cliche. Taxpayers, to put the crassest possible spin on the matter.

In the popular mind, children with disabilities are often imagined to have profound mental or physical difficulties. Some do. Most don't. A tiny percentage of the children covered by the act are physically impaired. Only about 10 percent are emotionally or psychologically troubled. A similar number are mentally retarded. The rest - almost 75 percent - have speech or hearing or specific learning disabilities.

In the jargon of the trade, they are dyslexic or have auditory processing problems or any of a number of other difficulties in acquiring information. Often, learning to read is a challenge and requires specialized skills in the teacher.

But remediation is possible. And the sooner it begins, the more successful it tends to be. These children are as likely to be of normal or above average intelligence as the general population. Their onboard computers just have a few glitches.

One hundred years ago, when literacy was scarce and mattered less, such disabilities might not even have been noticed. In an information culture, they loom large and attention must be paid. As knowledge of learning disabilities has grown, so has the ability to detect, identify and treat them.

It is now thought that between 5 percent and 15 percent of all students suffer some degree of learning disability. That helps account for an increase in the demand for remedial service. According the the U.S. Dept. of Education, as many as 13 percent of students - 5.4 million - now qualify under IDEA guidelines.

But is that bad? Only if the remediation they recieve doesn't help or if children who aren't learning disabled are receiving remediation they don't need. But the alternative to giving childen the help they need is to return to the bad old days when only the profoundly disabled received attention, often by parking them in segregated classrooms and forgeting them. Lesser problems got the sink or swim treatment - a seat in the back of the class and a one way trip to academic Palookaville.

The IDEA legislation was an attempt to get schools to pay attention to their needs. It may have been flawed, but in far too many systems even at this late date Individual Education Plans (IEPs) are faked or ignored, services are provided grudgingly if at all, mainstreaming is resisted, children with various incompatible disabilities are lumped together in academic ghettos and voters, schools boards and administrators feel no compunction about shortchanging the disabled when the zero sum game of budgeting takes place.

It's too bad legislation is even required to compel schools to do what ought to be, logically, their job. But it was necessary in 1975 and remain so in too many districts. James Madison never tired of insisting that government had to begin with premise that humans are imperfect - or worse. After all, if humans were angels, no government would be needed. If school systems were angels, IDEA would not be needed.

MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot.

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