by Angela Gibson Kierstead and Louise Hanvey

Introduction

The education system is a critical community resource for our children in Canada. Over the past few years, increasing concerns have been raised about the educational resources available for children with special needs. In a number of provinces, the funding and delivery of special education services have been raised as concerns. In order to review the current situation across Canada, the CCSD conducted key informant interviews in each province with experts in the field of special education. The general purpose of this survey was to get an up-close and personal view of the special education system in Canada today. Interviewing experts who deal with these issues every day provides us with a more realistic picture of the concerns facing both the teachers who work in the field of education and the students who need the services.

Survey

During the summer of 2000, the CCSD conducted an independent key informant survey. Seventeen experts from across Canada in the field of special education were interviewed and the depth of information they provided was extensive.

• General context of special education services
• Assessment of how well children’s needs are met
• Special education resources

Current status of special education services

An overwhelming majority of respondents (88%) reported that their education systems have gone through major restructuring over the last five years. When asked, “Did this restructuring further impact the delivery of special education services?” 82% said this was the case. Clearly, provinces that have undergone educational restructuring have felt the impact on the delivery of services.

We also asked respondents if the education system in their province was meeting the needs of students with special needs? Only 19% felt that children with special needs were having those needs meet. When asked if their education system was able to identify all children who would benefit from special education services, the outcome was split: 59% said Yes, but 41% said their system could not identify all children with special needs. All the experts interviewed commented that the delivery of special education services in Canada was in the midst of change. Only 18% reported that their province or territory was capable of providing special education services to all children likely to benefit from such services.

Are children’s needs being met?

A key area of interest in this survey concerned the delivery of services in rural and urban areas. The majority of respondents felt that there was great inequality in the delivery of services between these two areas. Children who live in urban centres are much more likely to receive a better level of service than are children who reside in rural centres. A full 87% of respondents reported that the needs of children are not met consistently in urban and rural centres.

We were also very interested in whether the need for special education services had increased, decreased or stayed the same in recent years. Respondents were asked if the number of children requiring special education services had increased over the last five years. An astounding 94% reported an increase and 6% said the numbers had remained unchanged. When asked why there had been such a dramatic increase, respondents said that part of the increase could be attributed to better diagnoses of learning disabilities at the early stages. Today’s parents are more aware of possible learning disabilities and this also leads to earlier diagnoses. Some school boards have systems in place to help determine whether children are in need of special education services. In Newfoundland, for example, a system called Pathways is a multi-level placement system that determines what the needs of a child are and whether or not they will require supplemental special education services.

Children with special needs

To examine how children with specific disabilities were being served by the education system, our survey focused on a number of specific learning disabilities. We also looked at how much variation there was in the delivery of those services between child in rural or urban settings.

Children living with physical disabilities were the most likely to have an acceptable level of service, regardless of whether they resided in an urban or rural area. Respondents’ evaluations were almost equal, with 47% giving a rating of “adequate service” for children with physical disabilities living in urban centres, and 46% rating the services for those living in rural centres as adequate. However, children who require special education services because of a hearing impairment receive very different levels of service, depending on where they live: 71% of respondents felt that children in cities were being completely or adequately served, but only 28% of respondents said that children with hearing impairments living in rural areas received adequate special education services.

The education system today has to deal with a number of children who suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Unfortunately, based on our survey, the majority of children living with these learning disabilities are not receiving the level of support that is necessary from the school system. Our key informants gave a slightly higher rating to urban centres than rural ones: 87% of respondents reported that the needs of children with ADD/ADHD living in urban areas were being met only somewhat or not at all; for children with in rural areas, an overwhelming 93% of respondents stated that students’ needs were met only somewhat or inadequately. Clearly, this is an area that requires improvement.

Our key informants also said it is very difficult to provide special education services to students with ADD or ADHD, due to the lack of qualified personnel to provide such services. Classroom teachers – who often do not have the necessary skills or knowledge – are frequently called upon to support children with ADD or ADHD on a daily basis in the normal course of their classroom responsibilities. In many provinces, teachers are not even required to take courses in special education. Rather, they are expected to take courses later, at their own expense, and often on their own time, to better equip themselves for the classroom.

The economics of special education

When we asked respondents about the level of funding for special education in their province or territory, 82% reported that it was inadequate. When asked if the per capita level of funding for special education had changed over the last five years, 80% reported an increase, 13% a decrease, and 7% said it had remained the same. And while 80% reported an increase, it is important to note that during the 1990s, many provinces experienced cuts to their education budgets – particularly for special education. It is only over the last few years that special education budgets have begun to rise again, but a number of respondents pointed out that the funding levels of today are still below what they were during the early 1990s.

Specialists

In order for schools to provide special education services, it is necessary to have specialists who are specifically equipped to deal with special education issues. When respondents were asked if they felt there were enough specialists available to provide these services to children, the majority (88%) stated that there were not. In fact, not only are there not enough special education teachers available, their numbers are dropping rapidly: 53% of respondents said the number of special education teachers has dropped over the last five years, 27% said the number had remained unchanged, while only 20% reported an increase.

In addition to having special education teachers, teachers’ aides and assistants were also identified as a necessary resource. The majority of key informants (88%) reported that there were not nearly enough teachers’ aides and assistants available.

Not all professionals who provide services in the area of special education are teachers. Many non-teaching professionals are key players in this field, such as speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and school psychologists. When respondents were asked if there were sufficient numbers of these non-teaching professionals available, 100% stated there were clearly not enough! In addition, 62% of respondents reported that the number of such specialists have stayed the same over the last five years, and 38% reported a decrease in the number of speech pathologists, occupational therapists and school psychologists available to help children with special needs.

Conclusion

Overall, experts in the field believe that special education is changing across the country. Most respondents expressed deep concerns over the delivery of special education services and the lack of specialists available to deliver those services. Respondents felt that their education systems were not meeting the needs of children with special needs, and they expressed concerns over differences in the delivery of services between urban and rural areas. The message they conveyed was that the needs of children are clearly not being met in a consistent manner.

While the majority of those interviewed felt that per capita funding for special education had increased in the last five years, most felt that it was still not enough to provide services to all children with special needs. Complexities in provincial funding formulas have made it even difficult in some provinces to get funding for children who require it. In Ontario, for example, respondents said that stringent guidelines are making it much more difficult for children with special needs to receive assistance. In many cases, lack of funding has resulted in the loss of special education teachers and assistants. According to Out of Focus, a publication of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, there has been a great increase in the paperwork required from teachers who work with special needs students. It was reported that it can take up to six hours for one special education claim to be completed – time lost from a special needs child who desperately needs it. This is just one example of how complex the funding issues are around special education and the kinds of implications this can have on children.

Many of the respondents interviewed painted a bleak picture of special education in Canada. Special education teachers are in high demand across the country, but they are a scarce resource. Many people who once sought a career as a special education teacher are reluctant to enter the profession because of the pressures, lack of resources, lack of funding, and the increased workloads involved in dealing with children with special needs. Clearly, education systems across the country are in flux, but with the growing demand for special education services, adjustments need to be made to those systems so that children who are in need can get the services they deserve.

Angela Gibson Kierstead is a Research Associate at the Canadian Council on Social Development. Louise Hanvey is a Senior Research Associate at the CCSD and the Project Manager for the Council’s annual Progress of Canada’s Children report.

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