Laura McKenna describes a ruling for disabled children's education and proposes its possible effects in her article, How a New Supreme Court Ruling Could Affect Special Education. Throughout the article, she makes use of primarily formal diction, and speaks with an enthusiastic tone. For example, she writes that "Parents of special-needs children are ecstatic about this decision," (McKenna) and that criticisms "are not dampening the celebrations of parents and special-needs advocates this week" (McKenna). It is evident that the author is in favor of this ruling and is excited about it, as she quotes positive reactions: "Mimi Corcoran, the president of the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), agrees. 'Today is a good day for children with disabilities. NCLD applauds this decision and will work with parents and educators to make it a reality'"(McKenna). McKenna also introduces the counterargument to the ruling, quoting Sasha Pudelski when she argues "the escalating costs of educating children with disabilities puts a lot of pressure on schools, especially given past and proposed cuts to education funding" (McKenna). This is done to provide insight as to why there are critics for such a celebratory occasion, and to introduce potential obstacles in the way of the ruling's goals.
The author's purpose here is to inform, but also functions as an outlook for what the future potentially holds. She does admit, "How this decision will play out on the school level, given the rising costs of special education and diminishing support from the federal government, is anyone’s guess" (McKenna). It is also apparent that McKenna's purpose is arguing in support of the ruling's decision that education for disabled children should be different for each individual child so they meet ambitious goals: "schools can no longer provide a “one-size-fits-all” IEP" (McKenna). This argument lasts for a few paragraphs of the article, but has a persuasive impact on the reader, helping them to see the reasoning behind the ruling from an advocate's perspective. All of these potential goals, whether to inform, predict, or argue, encompass an overall goal of advocating for the educational rights of disabled children. This is a worthy position, and serves an important purpose as it is presented to such a large audience. McKenna mainly argues through appeal to ethos throughout the article, as many of her explanations and arguments are given through quotes from those involved in the case. Her choice of organization is an explanation of the ongoing event, a telling of its backstory, and the ensuing reactions to the ruling, following somewhat of a broken chronological order. The argument McKenna makes is overall fairly strong, but more statistics directly involving what sort of effect the ruling will have on disabled children, as opposed to simply saying it will assist "13 percent of the school population," (McKenna) would improve the argument for the positive effects of the ruling greatly. In addition, quoting a board member from Autism Speaks is not the wisest decision for McKenna to make in this article, as Autism Speaks is an incredibly problematic organization for a variety of reasons, including their prioritization of parents over autistic children, their idea of seeking out a "cure" for autism, and its unfair allocation of funds.
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