Service Delivery and Instructional Programming in Rural, Suburban, and Urban Secondary Special Education: An Exploratory Study

Abstract In this exploratory study, the intersection of curriculum and instructional environments for secondary students with mild mental impairment and learning disabilities was examined with respect to school location-rural, urban, or suburban. A survey was mailed to 378 secondary special education teachers in Michigan. Findings revealed differences exist in the curricular options and instructional environments available to students in different settings. Rural schools were more likely to offer the same curriculum and instructional environments to students with mild mental impairment and learning disabilities. However, rural schools were not more similar to urban schools across curriculum options or instructional environments for either population, which contradicted findings from the general education research. No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002), the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), contained many mandates touted to improve student achievement such as requiring highly qualified teachers, using evidence-based practices, and assessing students in grades third through eighth (NCLB, 2002). Branstad and colleagues (2002) wrote a report, entitled A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and Their Families, that served as a precursor to the proposed 2004 reauthorization of IDEA and suggested that many of the principles in No Child Left Behind be applied to special education. These included: (1) similar accountability measures for students with disabilities, (2) flexibility for states in utilizing funding for students with disabilities, (3) the use of evidence-based strategies and programs to increase achievement, and (4) increasing parental participation (Branstad et al., 2002). Impact of Context on Education The mandates in No Child Left Behind and their impact on other educational legislation have enormous implications for schools and could potentially result in increasingly differential education or educational programming per school characteristics. Understanding the impact of local context on service delivery models for students with special needs at the secondary level is important, as evidence-based intervention may be dependent on the local context, such as geographical location (e.g., Greenwald, Hedges, & Laine, 1996). In this exploratory study, the intersection of curriculum and instructional environments for students with mild mental impairment (MMI) and learning disabilities (LD) was examined with respect to the school location, as in rural, urban, and suburban. These two populations of students were selected for several reasons. First, these two groups of students have the highest representation in secondary special education. Second, in both research and in instructional practice, these two populations are often combined, even though there are significant differences in their characteristics (Hallahan & Kauffman, 1977; Polloway, Patton, & Smith, 1997). The aggregation of disability type (i.e. MMI and LD) may serve to mask important differences in instructional needs of students in these two groups. Differences Between School Types The location of a school (e.g. rural, urban, or suburban) has been shown to affect various factors related to education. The factors influenced by a setting range from the socioeconomic status of the school to funding availability, curriculum options, future outcomes, and technology availability (Anyon, 2003; Downey, 1980; Kozol, 1992; Office of Special Education, 1995; Owens & Waxman, 1996). What is less understood, however, is whether the location of a school district impacts the delivery of educational services to secondary students with disabilities. Given that a large percentage of the nation's schools are located in rural school districts with a large portion of both teachers working in and students attending rural and small towns (estimated 40-45%), it is essential to analyze secondary special education programming across rural, suburban, and urban contexts (Johnson, 1989). …