Final Project 3

Education for DHH Children; a Better Solution

By Brittany Newland

More than 80% of hearing impaired students are educated in varying public schools, depending on location, at least part time because they are deemed a "less restrictive environment" (LRE). However, these public school systems are actually more restrictive because of the lack of resources that put a barrier between the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) student and the other hearing students and staff. According to an article, many of these students do not have access to a Teacher of the Deaf (ToD) while others only get part time or no extra services at all due to the fact that they are unavailable. Similarly, those from smaller school districts may be reliant on an interpreter, causing a boundary between those who hear and the students who need as assistant to communicate with them. Lisa Snell, the author to another article written on the subject, stated that the average cost of attendance to a private boarding school for the deaf in California costs more than 87 thousand dollars per student per year, making this option unreachable for most DHH students. All of these issues could be helped if the government gave more specific funding to these types of programs, allowing the tuition rate of the private schools to decrease and creating scholarships for those , and giving more resource opportunities to those who attend public schools.

DHH students have two major choices for education; private and public school systems. Though Snell emphasizes that public schools have shown to project increased test scores in English Literacy for DHH students, private schools offer the teaching staff and student peers that allow DHH students to feel completely comfortable in their environment. Public schools offer these students the chance to adapt and prepare for the real world scenarios they will face after schooling, and private schools offer these children the ability to learn from those like them and prepare them for success in their culture. Both school systems are very different but neither of them are wrong. Education is such a personal matter and there usually cannot be a right and wrong form if the students are learning and meeting objectives. The problem is that neither of these systems is working due to the same issue, a lack of government funding.

If public schools are given money specifically for more resources for DHH students, if teachers for the deaf were available at each school, and if extracurriculars were available at all times for those in need of extra assistance, then these schools would have less boundaries separating their peers and increased learning. If private schools were given funding to help reduce the tuition of attendance and scholarships provided by the government were given to students who may not be able to afford schooling but still would like to attend, the private schools would be more easily accessible. Furthermore, if government officials need to put their state money into developing a better test to assess the ways in which students are learning in each system instead of English literacy. English literacy may not apply to those who don’t use or need English to communicate, and a new test that focused on a different form of intelligence would be better and the DHH students wouldn’t have “low” scores compared to other hearing students.

But this doesn’t stop with the voice of this article. The voices of those reading and watching my video need to speak up as well. In order to get our government to hear our message, we need to use more than our words. We need to write letters to our officials, we need to share these messages, share our opinions, no matter how small or large. We need to raise our signs, our voices, our written words, and our powerful message until it reaches the most powerful people related to this topic; our government. Let us get our children the help that they need to succeed by gettting more educational funding for DHH students!