Dialogue: Ministry earns D-minus for specialist three As

COLLEEN BROWN* says the handing of responsibility for special education back to the Ministry of Education fails to address fundamental parental concerns.

The Government has announced that the Specialist Education Service is to be disestablished and returned to the Ministry of Education. Many parents are asking why.

Last year, the Wylie report on the state of special education highlighted the dissatisfaction of many people with the service. Many parents stated their worries about the special education policy - paradoxically still entitled SE2000 - alongside their concerns about the service.

The evolution of this policy seems to be never-ending. As of July 2000, 28 documents communicating the policy had been generated by the ministry. Parents find it extremely difficult to gain information. When they do get it, it is only in English and written in a dense bureaucratic form.

To many parents of children with special needs, it appears that while the service has become the sacrificial lamb to the Wylie report, the real obstacle to their children receiving world-class education is the policy itself.

While its broad aims are commendable, its implementation and the way it is administered leave a lot to be desired.

SE2000 promised much to parents under a slogan of Getting it Right Together. Parents were told that they would be partners with their schools in this new endeavour. For many parents, partnership is a myth. They are distraught and bitter at their powerlessness to support their children under the SE2000 policy.

Parents are asking, what is going to be better for my child under this change.

The ministry will now continue to develop the policy, hold the funds and deliver the service. Surely there is a conflict of interest.

Parents already have suspicions of collusion because when they phone the Associate Minister's office to complain about the ministry's ineffectiveness, they speak to the same person they spoke to at the ministry.

The nub of the problem with the SE2000 policy is that the real power lies not with parents but with the schools and the ministry. Parents, despite the slogans, have limited power.

It was gratifying to read that the Minister of Education and Associate Minister spoke about the three As needed to make SE2000 policy work - accountability, advocacy and attitude.

Members of the Coalition of Parents for Special Education coined that phrase to reflect the results of research on SE2000 policy presented at a conference in Manchester last year.

So what is the ministry's track record on the three As?

The accountability measures put in place have been completely inadequate. Schools have had to report back to the Education Review Office and the ministry only in the broadest of terms. The accountability to parents is negligible. There is no obligation for any reviewer to talk to parents.

The advocacy aspect is entirely missing. In 1991, senior ministry officials identified that if a special education policy was going to work, a parent advocacy centre had to be created. Parents have not had access to an advocate as of right.

In 1998, my research revealed that across the Auckland region parents and their children were lacking in information and support of any kind.

Parents typically told stories related to the abuse and neglect of their children in the education system.

More than 60 per cent of parents do not belong to any formal support group. Thus, they are left with getting information from the ministry.

Obviously, despite these examples, a number of schools are educating children with special needs in dignity and with all the rights anyone could wish for.

These schools are well known to parents in Auckland, as are the ones that do not wish to have children with special needs on their rolls.

Where does the ministry stand in this? It has few powers to require schools to comply with the law.

This year the ministry could not even demand a school send a parent without transport, who was within its zone, an enrolment form for her child with special needs.

Advocacy also includes providing information. In 1998, the ministry financed the School Trustees Association to develop essential guidelines for boards of trustees.

The boards have never received them, but they are making decisions based on SE2000 policy.

Parents are well aware that many boards have not taken up the training offered to them as part of the SE2000 package. Yet those trustees hold significantly more power than the parents of the children with special needs.

The ministry also developed an Information for Families pack, but there was no leaflet on parents' rights.

The last of the three As is attitude. While the ministry is in no way responsible for the attitude of the teaching profession, it is notable that the training in SE2000 offered to schools through contracts held by the ministry is not compulsory for teachers. There are varying amounts of uptake.

Before any special education policy can work, there must be a philosophy of inclusion. Those most marginalised by society must have their rights endorsed and upheld.

At every stage of education, schools must receive the resources to do their job properly. If this philosophy is not adopted, all the resources thrown at special education will be to no effect.

There is one final question. If this policy is so successful, why is it that in Auckland we have more state-funded special schools than in London? Why are the enrolments in special schools increasing right now just after the zoning law has been changed?

Is it a coincidence that suddenly more children are being excluded from their local school? And who signs them off? The ministry, of course.

So why the change? Why put the Specialist Education Service into the ministry? I don't know.

But many parents are deeply troubled by the implications of the change.

I also know that changing the signs on the door are not going to address the concerns stated in the Wylie report. Nor will it provide the solution to what the ministers and parents have identified as serious areas of concern - accountability, advocacy and attitude.

Bets are already being laid on when the Specialist Education Service will be shaved off from the ministry and rise again, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

* Colleen Brown chairs the Coalition of Parents for Special Education.