I love ice cream. It is one of my favorite treats. I love it in a bowl, cup, or cone. I am a purist at heart. My husband loves it best as a sundae with hot fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry on top.
Whether you like sundaes, ice cream with mix-ins, or plain vanilla, one thing remains constant: it is served in something. Walking up to the freezer full of flavors, the clerk asks, “cup or cone?” Why? Because they don’t serve ice cream by placing a scoop in your hand.
I share this because the National Center for Educational Outcomes’ former director, Martha Thurlow, once used ice cream as a metaphor for education. In this metaphor, ice cream is standards-based instruction. Any additional scoops or flavors are extra support provided through response-to-intervention (RTI) or multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). But these are still ice cream, so they are aligned to standards. The cup or cone is Tier I or general education. Whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry are special education services, providing a unique blend of additional treats to add to the ice cream.
Using this metaphor, it is clear that special education is the extra, on top of standards-based instruction, not a replacement. And everyone gets standards-based instruction with access to Tier I. We aren’t going to serve students with whipped cream and a cherry with no ice cream in a cup or a cone while everyone else has an ice cream. That would be blatant discrimination. Yet, when we deny students access to standards-based instruction because they have a disability, we have served them an empty ice cream cone.