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Essay on The Failure of Special Education Inclusion
The term "inclusion" refers to a process whereby students with disabilities receive their education, with necessary special education support, primarily in general classrooms alongside students without special education designations. Both "mainstreaming" and "inclusion" describe practices for operationalizing the concept of "least restrictive environment" (LRE) as mandated by the federal special education law. This concept requires that students with special education designations be educated "to the maximum extent appropriate ... with children who are not handicapped" (Education of All Handicapped Children Act, 1975, p. 125). What is "appropriate" is to be determined by school student support teams in consultation with parents who are to have ultimate decision-making authority.
Available options are to be based on the "cascade of services" concept ranging from full-time placement in general education classrooms to home-bound education. Although more normative definitions have been proffered, "mainstreaming," as commonly used among educators, describes situations where special education students receive instruction in "regular classrooms for a portion of the school day" (Gottlieb, 1981, p. 116). The term "inclusion" is more philosophically loaded, prescribing that the appropriate placement for students with disabilities is almost always the general classroom.
This means that they are to be considered as full-fledged members of, not visitors to, the general classroom and are to be educated in that setting to the fullest extent possible with necessary supports. Occasional removal from the general classroom, while not ruled out, requires justification in terms of practicality or feasibility considerations.
Inclusion is far from universally accepted among educators and educational policymakers. As of the 1990-91 school years, only 7.4% of students ages 6-21 with mental retardation were placed in general classes for 79% or more of their school day (U.S. Department of Education, 1993). Some writers have pointed out that movements for educational change, such as inclusion, which would require much greater cooperation and coordination between special and general education..........
