Special education#Special schools

A special school - including special education, support center or school with special educational focus - is in Germany a school for children and young people who are affected more or less heavily in its education, development and learning opportunities (eg through a learning or mental disability, through physical disability, often through long-term illness). Various special education options offer a special education classroom that is specifically tailored to the specific impairments. It should also allow the children a better development than they would be achievable without such right support at a normal school. Overall, there were in Germany in 2007 about 430,000 students in special schools, which is about 4.5% of all students in Germany.

Special schools are controversial. The main argument of the critics is that they missed their target, because the affected students achieved better performances in mainstream schools. They call instead for an inclusive or inclusive education system. The critics feel vindicated by the UN Disability Rights Convention of 2009, which an inclusive education system in their goals: requires ( official translation inclusive education system ). Proponents of special schools respond that you should get it, because there will always be students that could be mined there best. Furthermore, it is expected that teachers usually have to take to conservation purposes, more and more special education itself, and job cuts would use for special educators. In addition, the particularly relevant group of the behavioral problems of learning disabled children and the constant stressful experience of failure is exposed. At the same time they threatened by disturbance and retardation of instruction, whereby a general loss level is to be feared. The minimal consensus is that the abolition of the special schools is desirable for students with physical disabilities only in favor of joint education at the normal school.

5.1 History of special schools for deaf and hard of hearing children
5.2 History of the special school for children with learning difficulties
5.3 History of rehabilitation education in the GDR
5.4 History in the Federal Republic of Germany

6.1 Baden -Württemberg
6.2 Bavaria 6.2.1 Promotion Centres in Bavaria

7.1 United States

8.1 Social background of the children
8.2 objective
8.3 Effectiveness of Promotion
8.4 International comparison
8.5 violation of international law

Term development

In everyday language we find today is often still the name of Special School, still partly the historical name auxiliary school. The latter is officially no longer used. Since education is in Germany as part of cultural sovereignty is the responsibility of the countries, different names are officially used: as in some states such as Baden- Württemberg, the term special school.

By renaming the former auxiliary schools in special schools for learning support or special schools, among others, the increasing stigmatization of the student should be challenged as " discarded " people. Since the mid- 1990s, many countries have embarked on, to replace the term special school for all special education forms by other terms such as special school or school with special educational focus. The term funding should be made clear that schools are seeking to reduce impairments or disabilities vulgo and compensate. Thus, it is not enough, a student to certify the non- suitability for the public school. Rather, it is necessary to find out a detailed and accompanying support diagnosis a suitable ( special ) educational needs. However, in the multiple renaming is also the thought of euphemism treadmill not far away.

Specific support and integration

Previously, the thought was in the foreground, including disabled children have a right to school education, and special facilities would have this right as well as the fulfillment of compulsory education be guaranteed. The fact that children with severe disabilities are not " be -shouldered ", is now regarded as self-evident.

Is systemic basis for the recording or transfer of a child in a special school, the finding of a specific educational needs for a legally regulated by the states method. The needs based on the nature and extent of disability or illness. The identified needs can generally be met in a special school or by integration into mainstream schools. In some states, there is a far-reaching choice right of parents between the two forms. One often qualitatively and quantitatively better in parts of technical and pedagogical features of special schools is facing the possibility of a better society - social integration and more balanced education of the child in a public school. If you assign a student to a special school, it is assumed that barriers associated with the visit in mainstream schools, can not be eliminated with reasonable effort.

In order to focus on special education in the public school educational know -how, so-called integration schools have emerged; these are schools where often two or three disabled children partially or fully participate in several classes in the lessons.

Support center and mobile service

The term support center has been in the literature, no single definition. A special school can be a support center without having to bear the name.

Centres are often created from special schools by the remit of schools has been extended " to the outside ". The special education center of the conveyor are no longer there only responsible for teaching in the special education and care of students with disabilities, but also for the care of students with disabilities in mainstream schools.

This form of care is ensured by the mobile service. Special education students with disabilities looking for her school to the teachers there to advise and assist students. Mobile service is offered by many resource centers, but also of special schools from diverse disciplines.

Special education models at a glance

The following are the types of schools that can specifically address the particular needs, not all types of schools are established in all countries or named something else:

Special Education focus emotional and social development (formerly School of Education aids, etc.)
Special school for the blind
Special school for the visually impaired
School with a program focusing on Spiritual Development
Special school for the deaf
Special school for the hearing impaired
Special school for the physically handicapped
Special school for children with learning difficulties
Special school for children with speech defects
Special school for deaf-blind
School for sick children or children in prolonged hospital treatment

The special schools for blind and visually impaired children and special schools for deaf and hard of hearing children (collectively as a school for the hearing impaired ) are often located under one roof.

In addition to general education schools, various vocational schools exist with a special educational focus, so-called vocational education schools (including special vocational schools ).

Depending on the type, pupils are sent by a Schülerspezialverkehr to and from school.

Educational audiology services are based in special schools for hearing impaired children

Educational audiology counseling centers are advising parents regarding a suspected or diagnosed hearing loss in their child. On request can be carried out until the start of an early intervention.

History of Special Education

History of special schools for deaf and hard of hearing children

The Saxon State School for the Hearing Impaired Leipzig, Förderzentrum Samuel Heinicke was founded in 1778 as the first school for the deaf in Germany by Samuel Heinicke.

History of the special school for children with learning difficulties

Already in 1835 was founded in Chemnitz Notschule. It was designed for students with a lack of knowledge for the confirmation. In Halle ( Saale) established a rector in 1859 a tuition class for " not fully intimate Children " one. Subsequently, the Notschule visited especially weak students. Heinrich Ernst Stötzner (1832-1910) founded in 1881 one of the first auxiliary schools in Germany, the same year taught Heinrich Horn Kiel Braunschweig in an auxiliary class. Others originated in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal to ) and Leipzig. With his writing " schools for children of limited children " calls Stötzner de facto auxiliary schools to life. Stötzner propagated in an independent school for children, which he calls " the last in the class " describes as. The visit of the auxiliary schools was reserved exclusively for children, where low cognitive ability were attested, but not the " idiots ", was adopted for the that they were not " school educable ". In a presentation to the Special Education Week in Berlin Eduard Spranger first used the term special school.

After Hitler came to power, the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring was put into force. The Act contained an explicit reference to the auxiliary students. Thus the aim of the auxiliary schools changed massively: To support the " genetic and racial care " and particularly to relieve the elementary schools children were instructed in the auxiliary schools for observation. The special school as an institution was not at risk, but rather the students themselves, for example by frequent forced sterilization.

History of rehabilitation education in the GDR

The training of special teachers already existed in the Soviet zone of occupation from the year 1947 as additional training for teachers study. After the founding of the GDR an implementing rule was adopted for the compulsory education law, which specified the constitutional provision on equality of all disabled children to education

The following groups had training centers, people with:

Hearing and, Sehgeschädigung or speech disorder,
Physical disability
Maladjustment
Education and disability
Of eligible education inability

History in the Federal Republic of Germany

The postwar period brought no significant change in western Germany for the auxiliary schools. Rather, it was continued the systems that already exist in the Weimar Republic.

Only in the 1950s and 1960s was followed by the construction of special education. In 1955 the " Association of German auxiliary schools " renamed " Association of German special schools ". As a new designation of the student body is learning disabled prevails. The Conference of Ministers of Education uses this term in 1960 in a report on the restructuring of special education. The renaming of the special school for " special school for children with learning difficulties " consists first in Hesse, and later throughout Germany by.

Today's modern special education system with differentiated types of schools goes back to the ideas of Wilhelm Hofmann.

Special schools and special schools in the countries

In Germany, the school system is a matter for the countries that meet the relevant regulations on the nature and scope of the type of school.

Baden-Wurttemberg

In Baden- Württemberg is consistently the term used " special school " as a generic term, where this includes all special schools, as the school for the sick, go to the especially students who are long time in the hospital because of illness and usually require no special promotion. The " school for the learning disabled " was renamed " special school " because the learning support should particularly be reflected here. The following types of special schools are set up in Baden- Württemberg:

School for the Blind
School for Mentally Handicapped
School for the Physically Disabled
Special Education (formerly: School for children with learning difficulties )
School for the hearing impaired
School for the visually impaired
School of Speech-Impaired
School of Education Help
School for Patients ( in hospitals, rare)
Vocational special school ( in the above characteristics)

Maintaining body is in addition to free carriers often the circuit in special schools with home and professional special schools the country in special schools but partly also the community. The schools make it to the normal financial statements of other schools ( High school, College student, high school ), if that is possible according to the degree of disability. The pupils of the special schools should be integrated as possible in mainstream schools, when it is educationally meaningful and technically possible. People who are blind, for example, a very high cost is due to special school books etc. needed to make this visit a mainstream school. Disability usually attend mainstream schools. At the general education classes outside of special schools may be formed when it is necessary.

The student will only attend residential special school when a promotion to a normal special education possible because of the high transport demand and the lack of appropriate funding opportunity locally is not (eg after because of the particularly strong disability or due to low number of students, the wide lanes would pull up ). Residential special schools exist only for blind and visually impaired, mentally handicapped, hearing impaired, for physically disabled and speech-impaired people.

Bavaria

The special education is legally regulated in Article 19 BayEUG. Special schools serve children and adolescents who " in a general or professional school can not or will not be sufficiently promoted and taught ."

Of the 5,300 schools in Bavaria ( including 2,800 elementary schools ) had an average of 375 established between the years 2000 and 2003 as special schools ( 5,400 classes each with 11-12 students ). On the approximately 7,000 teachers accounted for 8.6 students on average. The numbers are currently stable.

The financial statements are equivalent to those in secondary schools, with the exception of the SPCs for the funding priorities mental development and learning.

Among the 350 secondary schools ( public and private) were from 2000 to 2003 four special schools. The class number rose from 49 to 62 for each 10-11 students. At higher schools no special education is provided. From the obg. Figures it can be seen that the promotion in the elementary school sufficient in 90-98 % of the problem cases.

Promotion centers in Bavaria

SPCs came originally from special schools with the funding priorities of learning, emotional and social development and the funding priority language. They contain in a single organizational unit (not necessarily in a building ), the departments early intervention ( with the Mobile Special Needs Aids ) (MSD / MSH), School Preparatory facilities (SVE ), diagnosis and remedial classes ( DFK ), Intermediate and Advanced ( SDW- classes ) of students with learning disabilities ( L) branch and the center stage of the main school branch ( GS / HS).

While the students are taught in the L - branch according to the curriculum to promote learning, applies the GS branch of the primary school curriculum and in the HS branch of the main school curriculum. In addition to the diagnosis is in the SPCs particularly the promotion of the individual student at the center. Due to the permeability of the various branches of the optimization of the search for the right extraction site is to be achieved. For eligible student is at any time, but especially after the end of the middle stage (ie after the 6th grade ) the opportunity to switch to other types of schools (eg, high school ).

In particular, the upper stage of the SPCs focus of work on the career choices of young people. Through internships in companies ( particularly in trade and industry), a high proportion of non-school practice, the so-called BLO - day ( work and life orientation ) and the school orchestra tag to each student will be introduced to the career choice or training maturity.

Lower Saxony

Since the school year 2004/2005 the special schools in Lower Saxony are called special schools. This includes all types of schools of the former special schools; the designations are now:

Special Education emphasis Emotional and Social Development
Special Education emphasis Spiritual Development
Special Education focus hearing ( hard of hearing, deaf )
Special Education emphasis Physical and motor development
Special Education focus learning
Special Education focus vision ( partially sighted, blind )
Special Education emphasis language
Special school focuses Listen / Watch ( Deafblind )

Lower Saxony is the only state in which there are special schools next days training facilities as day-care institutions where mentally disabled children and young people to fulfill their compulsory education.

Especially since the entry into force of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, the education system is set in motion in Lower Saxony. So says the Federal Government Commissioner for Matters relating to Disabled People that practically located the system of special schools in a process of resolution in the district of Schaumburg.

North Rhine -Westphalia

Valid in North Rhine -Westphalia rules for the special schools can be found in the Adjusted Official Compilation of school rules North Rhine -Westphalia.

Disabilities are categorized according to their needs or their content close and summarized the children in appropriate school forms. The following priorities have:

The decision on the need for funding meets the education authority ( school district ) to the appropriate method (AO -SF)

Through the Education Act ( the Schools Act ) of 15 February 2005 and the AO SF ( training regulations special education ) from April 2005, the focus of special education are the areas of learning, language, emotional and social development, listening and communication, vision, mental development, physical and motor development. The term " special school " has the term " special school " replaced. For example, the previous special school " school for the learning disabled " now referred to as " special school with a program focusing on learning."

The special education may at mainstream schools (common teaching, integrative learning groups ), to special schools, in special education classes at vocational colleges with funding priority, general and vocational colleges take place in schools for the sick.

The students are taught in the course of education funding priority learning or the funding priority Spiritual Development, according to the guidelines of the Public Schools. In the special schools with the other funding priorities, the eleven-year training course is divided into the Input class, the primary and I. secondary to special schools with the funding priorities of learning, emotional and social development of the ten-year course of education is divided into primary and secondary I. Special schools with the funding priorities of learning, emotional and social development, listening and communication, vision, and physical and motor development may also include courses of upper secondary education or fed as upper secondary schools. In the special schools with a program focusing on spiritual development, the eleven-year training course is divided into the two-year pre-press and in the applied to a three-year lower level, intermediate level and advanced level. Students with a program focusing on spiritual development to fulfill their compulsory vocational education in upper secondary education in professional practice level; this lays the foundation for a future career.

Situation in other countries

United States

In the United States, disabled children are generally taught integrative to the control schools. The legal basis for this is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA ), a law passed in 1974 for the first time and since then several times supplemented American federal law that is designed to ensure the access of disabled children to adequate education. At public schools, disabled children are taught together with non- disabled children, cared for but additionally by specially trained teachers ( Special Education Teachers ) who come into the ongoing instruction and there only work with the disabled children. In addition, the teaching staff of American public schools regularly includes physical, occupational and speech therapists.

The largest groups of people to which the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act applies today are children with specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia ( number of children who were taught in 2005 integrated with such a problem in public schools: 2.6 million ), speech disorders ( 1.5 million), intellectual disability ( 0.5 million), emotional disorders ( 0.4 million), developmental disorders ( 0.3 million; especially in preschool children ), Autism ( 0.2 million) and multiple disabilities ( 0.1 million).

In addition there are in the United States 1,066 private special schools ( Special Education Schools ), a concept that because of the low population density of the country, however, can claim only in the vicinity of large cities.

Criticism

Social background of the children

80-90 % of children in schools for the learning disabled come from the poverty environment or vice versa considered: 19% of children from the lower classes are on a special school, compared to 1 % of children from the upper classes. The uncertain professional and financial situation of the parents, poor housing conditions, living in socially deprived areas, incomplete families, limited and one-sided suggestions and social isolation contribute according Schlack to the fact that in this life-world children's needs can not be satisfied. This means that they can not achieve their intellectual potential.

Objective

The Standing Conference represents their objective in a publication as follows:

" Special education is to realize the right of the disabled and at risk of disability children and young people for their personal options appropriate schooling and education. They receive support in children and young people through individual assistance to these to achieve the highest possible level of schooling and vocational inclusion, social participation and independent lives. "

However, the segregation effects in the special education system exclusion and distance, by disabled children are kept away from average children and this is therefore not to know each other and develop a realistic picture of each other. This results in a significant basis of subsequent life-long discrimination and dehumanization of people with disabilities as it is for example in the new euthanasia debate known.

Promoting effectiveness

The presentation, disabled children would benefit from special education schools in the sense that they gained more skills than other schools, is provided fundamentally by some experts in Question: The longer a student had attended a special school, the worse were both his spelling performance as well as its intelligence values , says Hans distaff, a professor of learning disabilities education at the University of Hamburg. The SPD politician Christoph Ehmann, Secretary General of Campus Europae, a network of European universities, believes that the financing structure of the education system a tendency to stigmatize young people with visits to special schools and thus be excluded from participation in social core areas. " The German education policy is still founded upon the homogeneity of ideology. This is connected with the political will to sort out and has - something Fascist, "said Ehmann.

Consequently, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in accordance to teach all students with disabilities in regular schools. The Max Traeger Foundation comes in a report from the assumption that the states and municipalities could be forced by school authorities as the disability convention to beschulen 80 to 90 percent of students with disabilities in inclusive and sense of universal design.

International comparison

Among the countries that have participated in the PISA studies, fall Germany, Switzerland and France on the fact that in these countries more than 50 per cent of all pupils at a special educational needs was found to be schooled in special facilities. In all other PISA countries, this applies only to a minority of pupils with special educational needs.

Apparently there is a connection between the tradition to have an early visit different types of schools children in a divided school system, and the tradition of beschulen pupils with special educational needs in special facilities. Dieter Katzenbach and Joachim Schröder criticize this with the words: "It is the right school for each child wanted, and not made the school for the child appropriately. "

Violation of international law

Criticism of the special schools argued in the first place which entered into force on 26 March 2009 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Germany.

" States Parties Recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education. With a view to Realizing this right without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity, States Parties Shall Ensure to inclusive education system at all levels ... "

" States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education. In order to realize this right without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity, States Parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all levels ... "

The German Bundestag ratified by November 2008 translation of the original document contains a weakening of an original formulation. On 1 July 2009, the then Federal Government Commissioner for Matters relating to Disabled People, Karin Evers - Meyer, who launched her campaign " all inclusive! The new UN Convention " before, in the 22 associations had determined on eight conferences on eight topics legislative and other action. The associations demanded that there should be no construction or upgrading of special schools in Germany more.

The term of inclusive schooling was translated involving the word and is criticized as a dilution of the original statement. The Convention establishes a legal right for parents to an inclusive schooling of their children. This right may be against school authorities made claims and redressed.

Learning disability Adolf Hitler East Germany

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