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Special Education legislation was created to protect the rights of students with disabilities, but the question is how have these laws actually impacted the public school? Like most other legislation that sounds logical and well intentioned, there are several problems that result from such laws. I believe these problems occur because unlike most institutions that follow guidelines set by experts in a particular field, the Educators are governed by laws that are created by politicians who have little or no experience in education. The premise behind Americans with Disabilities Act does, indeed, set standards in place to protect the rights of special needs students, but do these standards achieve the desired effect. As a teacher I will try to give you an insight to how special needs students are dealt with in the classroom.

First let me displace the misconception that special needs students are all visibly handicapped and "stick out" in a classroom. This is not the case; in fact shortly after school begins teachers receive notices from special ed. teachers that include a list of their special needs students. I am often surprised by what students are actually on the list, and even, some of the students that are not on the list. Which raises the question who decides who receives protection from these laws. The short answer is parents. Parents that feel their child is disabled somehow may request testing. School officials including counselors, and pyschometrists attempt to test and place a student. Essentially, a parent who is worried that their child who is receiving bad grades could get their child labeled as special needs which would require teachers to modify for students who can perform actual course work, thus relieving students from being accountable for their own academic performance. On the other hand, I have also taught students that do seem to have disabilities and need additional help. For various reasons ranging from pride, to unawareness parents do not place their students into special ed.

Now that we have established who is special ed, and in some cases who isn't, lets focus on the role regular classroom teacher plays to a special need student in their class. The law states that a student should be placed in the least restrictive environment as possible. This can range from students recieving one on one instruction, students places with other similar needs kids in the same class, students go to regular classes with an actual

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