The number of students with disabilities who spend most of their school day in regular classrooms has risen over the decades, and represented about 63 percent of school-age children and youth in the 2016-17 school year.
But the academic outcomes for students with disabilities remains poor. And that鈥檚 because there鈥檚 been pressure on placing students in general education classrooms, when the focus needs to be on effective educational practices, whether they鈥檙e in inclusive settings or not, says Allison Gilmour, an assistant professor of special education at Temple University.
鈥淟ocation isn鈥檛 the same thing as services,鈥� said Gilmour, the author of , an editorial published in the journal Education Next. 鈥淲e need to shift our focus from where students are educated, to how they鈥檙e actually educated.鈥�
In making her argument, Gilmour draws attention to studies that links inclusion to positive benefits, such as a 2017 study that found , as well as for students with disabilities who took career and technical education classes.
But Gilmour said it鈥檚 difficult to draw conclusions from those findings, because students with disabilities in inclusion classrooms might have less-intensive needs than other students who have special education needs.
Gilmour also notes that there鈥檚 ample research that demonstrates teachers, as well as students, have a challenging time dealing with students who have behavioral disabilities, and that . (It鈥檚 important to note that not every student with a behavior problem has a disability, and not every student with a disability has behavioral problems.)
State and federal policy, however, place inclusion as a goal to strive for. Gilmour writes that 鈥渄ecisions regarding placement in a general-education classroom, special-education classroom, or a mixture of settings should be determined by students鈥� individual needs. If a student is not making progress in an educational setting, the student is not accessing the curriculum. Oftentimes, students may need intensive and individualized instruction to make progress and gain access to the general-education curriculum. This level of instruction might not be possible if a student is taught exclusively in a general-education setting.鈥�
In an interview, Gilmour said that her piece should also be seen as an argument for better support of teachers, particular general education teachers, who often aren鈥檛 getting the specific training they need to best instruct students with disabilities in their classrooms. That training needs to come both from teacher-preparation programs, as well as professional development from districts, she said.
鈥淪urely we can do better than what we鈥檙e already doing,鈥� she said.
Image by Getty