Being a special education major, I hear a lot about IEPs, and in theory, they're great! In practice, however, I fear they are not quite so magical.
IEPs work when they fulfill their title, "individualized". It seems, however, that many IEP planning sessions try to fit the student to the IEP as opposed to fitting the IEP to the student. Through the grapevine, I have heard of a student with a physical impairment given more time on tests because... well? I don't know why. It seems that IEPs tend to have a general script that people follow when writing them, and the students are expected to fit into this script.
What happened to the individualized bit? The IEP should be designed to meet the needs of the student, not the "special ed." needs or the "autistic student" needs, because every student is different whether he/she has special needs or not.
I totally agree with your statement about IEPs. Those in special education should have individualized plans and it would appear that the plans have a very structured form that must be followed and if we are truly trying to meet the individual needs of students that does not make sense.
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