Stop Making Trump the Scapegoat for Leaving Students with Disabilities Behind
The Trump administration is at it again! A couple weeks ago Teen Vogue ran an op-ed arguing college students with disabilities are “being abandoned.” Take a moment to read the article so we can debate it on equal footing.
I think the article is too eager to thrust the finger at anyone but the parties most likely responsible for students with disabilities struggling after high school.
Let’s clear out the obvious discrepancies. Mia went to college in the early 2000s, long before Trump would become a serious White House contender. She says she chose a school with the “oldest disability services office” featuring disability resources “most expansive than most.”
Yet, despite the school’s competitive edge, Mia says: “I still experienced significant difficulty in learning the ropes of asking for the same accommodations I’d had in high school.”
Mia’s position is that the Trump administration’s reduction of the Department of Education has led to an inability to process student complaints. Except, she acknowledges the Department of Education has struggled to keep up with the volume of student complaints for years, again underscoring a long-standing problem that cannot be uniquely assigned to this administration.
My issue with Mia’s article is not a refusal to acknowledge her underlying point. If students with disabilities are experiencing unusual challenges in college, reducing the number of people who can address these challenges is not going to make the conditions better, but this pervasive urge to push headlines by blaming everything on Trump moves the conversation away from the root cause and gets us no closer to alleviating the problem.
And what is the problem exactly? According to Mia, students have to be more proactive about requesting accommodations to which they had grown accustomed in high school and that failure to receive these accommodations is why graduation rates among students with disabilities is so abysmal.
So where does the secondary system come into play here? The author would have you believe there is a stark difference between life in high school, where protections under IDEA helped her get the accommodations she needed, versus life in college, where students have to “fight tooth and nail just to get basic accommodations.”
Let’s keep the conversation honest here, it’s not like the academic expectations change dramatically between high school and college. Students needed to complete assignments in high school the same way they do in college. Students still had to get accommodations from their teachers the same way they need to obtain from professors, and if students were asking for alternative formats, extended time, and human readers in high school, they are most likely going to ask for the same accommodations in college.
We need to ask the question no one wants to acknowledge: Is it possible that in our efforts to satisfy demanding parents and avoid litigation, we are doing more to hurt our children than we are to help them prepare for life after the high school bubble?
There is nothing unreasonable about special education programs gradually shifting the burden of self-advocacy onto the student the closer they draw to graduation. Communicating with faculty is a key component to academic success under any circumstance, but for students with disabilities, one would think the need for communication leaps from the optional to the absolute critical, especially for students for whom college is not a viable option. Not everyone was meant to go to college.
I am in no way suggesting that a little communication with teachers will fully guarantee success. There are ignorant educators who need to endure consequences for failing to make their coursework accessible, if not for the sake of basic human decency than as part of their own professional training, and considering the struggles aspiring teachers with disabilities still face, we are probably overdue for a separate conversation with university education departments unwilling to practice better accommodation habits. However, the world has a healthy share of ignorant people the student is going to have to learn to navigate as a matter of habit.
The logical question then becomes: Where are teachers supposed to find the extra time to teach self-advocacy? I’m not sure you need to carve out dedicated time to expect the student to be their own best spokesperson. Students are allowed, hopefully encouraged, to talk to teachers outside of the regular class period if they need extra assistance. Talking through the syllabus at the start of the semester to work through any anticipated challenges is a skill students with disabilities should begin honing long before their freshman year in college. Teaching students to rely on a third party to negotiate accommodations is problematic on multiple levels. Learning Braille, assistive technology, and orientation and mobility would require dedicated instruction, but these should be key components of a good individualized education plan that takes into account the student’s schedule and specific needs.
We need to get comfortable with holding parents accountable. I’ve heard the argument that parents can’t be held accountable if they aren’t aware of their options, but wouldn’t having a kid with a disability be their first clue that they should probably learn about all the resources available? I’ve met far too many families where speaking up for their children was a given despite English being a second language to cut parents much slack.
Sure, there are nuances. Sometimes culture gets in the way. Sometimes religion could be a thing. We need to adapt to situations where multiple disabilities require a different level of care, but if we can accept there is a universal expectation for parents to keep their children properly clean, fed, and dressed–if there is a fundamental expectation to teach children how to read, write, and count–then it stands to reason that we should expect parents to adequately prepare children to overcome their limitations.
And when do the individuals themselves begin to shoulder some of the responsibility? Let’s not assume that blindness is a blanket barrier, because you and I both know at least two people who came from very similar backgrounds and wound up following two distinct paths despite having access to the same opportunities. Yes, the poor will have to work twice as hard as the wealthy to be successful, but this has been the journey for all adolescents for decades regardless of disability. We cannot forever blame our disability for our perceived plight in life.
None of this begins to touch the reality that students will eventually leave the structured protection of the academic world. True, there are laws that seek to protect our rights in the workplace, but these laws are contingent on the person being able to carry out the essential functions of their position. How are students supposed to survive if they have not learned how to advocate for their needs?
Applicants who choose to put in for federal jobs, once seen as a step above the private sector in terms of job security and accessibility, cannot count on the convenience of a disability office to negotiate their accommodations. Even agencies with better 508 offices will not be able to deliver results overnight. What is the employee with a disability supposed to do in the meantime?
Mia draws a correlation between a lack of proper accommodations and abysmal graduation rates among students with disabilities. I don’t like the way that puts the burden on the schools to provide all the answers. While I am not suggesting we should absolve colleges and universities of their legal obligations, I am recommending we impress upon students the importance of socializing with peers to access materials the way they will be expected to collaborate with colleagues later in the workforce. The general public can choose whether or not they want to embrace emerging technology like artificial intelligence, but students with disabilities should immerse themselves in all the high tech and low tech means working around accessibility barriers. These are critical skills that would serve a student well in all facets of life, not just academic.
It is a disservice to imply the Trump administration is responsible for leaving college students with disabilities behind. Their policy may not be helping the situation, but the landscape before the president returned to office was already a proven failure. That should be a great reminder that we should want to equip our students to be independent and resilient despite the political flavor of the day. Unfortunately, for students with disabilities, self-advocacy is going to have to be as much of a requirement for success as reading, writing, and math.
Students should absolutely avail themselves of the legal system to correct wrongs. Stubborn, uncooperative, and ill-informed institutions should be penalized when they fail to comply with the law, but there is a wide golf between a preliminary barrier and taking the matter to court. Leaving school should be the last resort since the challenges experienced on campus are very likely to mirror the workplace. Giving up on school does nothing to prepare the individual for the rest of reality.
This is just one quiet loud mouth’s opinion. It’s been twenty years since I went through college. Maybe things have gotten significantly tougher, and I really don’t want to be that guy that believes that if my generation managed to slog through undergraduate and graduate programs without the benefit of smart technology, you should too, but something’s got to give. If the system is that broken, let’s figure out how to make it better and come up with a solution that does not rely on creating scapegoats.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments.
