Special Education in Israel

http://www.science.co.il/Education/Special-Education-in-Israel.pdf

So, I will start by saying this, this is an overview of Special Education in Israel from 2002, things might have changed, but I'm working off of this article, so the point is, I am not an expert in this area and things might have changed since this article was written.

So, first I will begin with what is different between the United States version and the Israel version of Special Education.  In the United States, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires the creation of the Individual Education Plan (IEP) for the child to involve the parents.  In Israel, an IEP is still created, so that is wonderful, but the parents have no say in what is on it.  Therefore, it would seem to me that the only things that would be on it are academic things, which are a great place to start, but what about behaviors that are present at home?  What if the child throws sharp objects at home, but because he is in school and does not have access to sharp objects, he doesn't throw them?  Should that not be on the IEP, but it could not because the parents are not there.

The next difference between Israel and United States Special Education relates to the first point, but with regards to the assessment process.  In IDEA, it requires parents to okay their student for the assessment and placement process (This allows the parents to say not to help with regards to their child); However, in Israel, there is no parental involvement in the assessment and placement process, the only people at these meetings are:

• A representative of the local education authority
• Two Ministry of Education supervisors
• An educational psychologist
• A pediatrician
• A social worker
• A representative of the National Special Education Parents' Organization

What strikes me as odd is that parents are not there, but a representative of a parents organization is there.  Another thing that strikes me as odd is that there are not teachers or special educators or case managers (The case manager is the person who, in the US, takes care of meeting all of the goals and benchmarks of the IEP).  So, it just leads me to wonder who is the one who is supposed to make sure the child is meeting their benchmarks and goals?  And I don't know the answer to that, if any of you know, that would be awesome if you could let me know, I would like a better view of this.

I would like to say right now that here, I am on the fence as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.  Because here in the United States, the parents have the final say to everything.  If the parent does not want their child to be labeled with a disability, then the child will not be assessed for a disability.  I need to remark now that not all parents opt for that decision, I don't know the numbers, but it is possible that the parent might not want their child to be diagnosed with a disability.  So, which one is better?  No parent involvement in Israel to the point where the child can be put in a solely Special Education school which might not be the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE); or is it better to have parental involvement and have the possibility of having them refuse to accept that their child has a disability and not allow the assessment process to go on.  Unfortunately, I am on the fence, I think that for those parents who refuse, Israel's approach to this part of Special Education is better, but not all parents refuse, so which is better?  I don't know.

The final thing, and this isn't quite as big of a difference, but it is sort of a difference is the Goal of Special Education in Israel vs. the United States.  In the United States, the goal is to create citizens who participate in our society, but in Israel, their goal is:

To advance and develop the skills and abilities of the special-needs child, to correct and enhance his or her physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral functioning, to impart to him or her knowledge, skills and habits, and to help him learn acceptable social behavior with the goal to facilitate his or her integration into society and employment circles. (Section B.2)

Read this again and tell me if anything pops up at you.  It did to me the second time I read it, and it set of huge  red flags of "NNNOOO!!!" (And yes, it was that all capital letters, 3 of each letter and 3 exclamation points) Here is what set off the red flags "To correct..."  Special Education, in my mind, is the ability to look past the disability and accept that sometimes, it is not correctable.  A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is irreversible, how can we morally set out to fix that person when fixing is impossible.  What the goal of special education is is to nurture (I keep putting create when i talk about this, and it disturbs me that I put create, because teachers should never create, they should nurture) a good human being out something that society despises (And we despise anything that is not perfect, look at how long we keep an electronic that is broken before returning it back to the store where we got it.).

So what is my definition of a good human being, a good human being has the power to empathize with the person who is talking to them.  A good human being is able to help someone else when they are in need.  Notice here that I don't think that knowing how to do math is all that important, it's important for the tests and sometimes in real life, but empathy and compassion are more important because they can help the student with the disability find out who they are, which is a hard enough thing to do without having a disability.