The Full Inclusion Debate

Since the early 1980’s, there has been a growing movement in the educational field towards full inclusion of special education students into the regular education classrooms. The term full inclusion implies that all students with a disability, whether it be physical, mental, or both, would be included in a regular education classroom all day, everyday (1). According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), almost half of the students with disabilities spend 80 percent or more of their day in regular education classrooms (2). This number in itself is an accomplishment, and it is wonderful that these students are able to participate in regular education classes, but according to the NCES, 53 percent of students with disabilities are not as involved in the regular classrooms, if at all, and there are reasons for this. The movement towards full inclusion, though admirable, is not right for everyone. With the severity of some of the disabilities, and the behavioral effects which many disabilities cause, full inclusion would be a detriment to many regular students, as well as the special education students. Because some students have severe disabilities, full inclusion is not right for everyone, since it would not be beneficial to those individuals or their peers if they were to be fully included.

In the 1950’s and ‘60’s, some of the first major movements in special education originated, when activists called for government funding for a free appropriate public education for special education students (3). According to the U.S. Department of Education, prior to the late 50’s, many individuals with disabilities such as mental retardation or mental illness were placed in state institutions. Any of these institutions were restrictive and only provided individuals with minimal food, clothing and shelter. Rather than educating, assessing or rehabilitating individuals, the institutions merely accommodated the individuals (4). In the later 60’s and into the 70’s, parents began demanding special education programs for their disabled children. In 1975, Congress passed the Education of All Handicapped Children act, also know as PL 94-142, which was the first major piece of legislation dealing with special education. According to the book, Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education, this act provided for students with disabilities with many rights, including the right to receive a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) and placement in the "least restrictive environment" (LRE), which means that students with disabilities are to be included as much as is appropriate for that student. It also established "Zero Reject," meaning that public schools must educate all children with disabilities and can not turn them away no matter how severe their disability may be (Exceptional Children). The act also requires each student to have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) which contains information about the current level of performance of the student, as well as goals for student performance by the end of the school year. IEPs must be written for students ages 3-18, but the continuum of services which they are provided range from birth until age 21 (1). In 1991, the act was renamed to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). In 1997, IDEA was amended to ensure that the rights of the students and their parents are protected, that students are receiving a free and appropriate public education and to provide states with more funding to supply necessary tools thereby improving educational results, (1). The act called for "Nondiscriminatory identification and evaluation," meaning that schools must use nonbiased, multifactored evaluations when evaluating a student. There are also due process safeguards provided for in the act in order to protect the right of the disabled children and their parents. Under these safeguards, students may not be tested for a disability, nor may they be placed in a situation without the approval of the student’s parents and possibly the student (1).

Benefits of Full Inclusion

Individuals pushing for full inclusion argue that it is beneficial to the students with disabilities to be in regular education classrooms, because it will help them socially, and they have a right to a regular education. University of Miami (OH) Professor of Educational Psychology, Frank Fitch, writes, "Students in inclusive classrooms constructed a sense of themselves that was significantly different (and more positive) from those in either segregated or traditionalist classrooms," (5). Individuals also believe that by putting students with disabilities in regular education classrooms, the normal achieving students will also benefit in that they are exposed to all different types of people, and they will themselves be better people because of their experiences with full inclusion (6). Although these arguments may be true, one cannot lose sight of the reasons resource rooms and special education programs exist today. There are students with disabilities so severe that they cannot interact with other individuals at all, and therefore, would not gain anything socially by being included in a regular classroom.

Problems with Full Inclusion

Also, children with disabilities like Severe Emotional Disturbances (SED) can cause children to harm their peers, and these children often need to either be in a resource room setting, or have a full-time aide with them. A child is diagnosed with SED when he or she exhibits emotional or behavioral responses in school programs so different from appropriate age, cultural or ethnic norms that the responses adversely affect educational performance (1). These children do have social issues which need to be worked on, but simply removing them from a resource room and placing them in a regular education classroom would not be beneficial to them at all, and may actually reverse some of the progress special education instructors may have made with these children (1). Also, many times students with SED will disrupt the class when they do not like the activity they are doing and will be confrontational towards their peers and their teachers to the extent where the class is unable to function. Teachers in a resource room are trained to deal with these outbursts, as are the students’ aides, but if full inclusion is adopted, it could mean a regular classroom would be interrupted frequently, and, especially with younger children, this may result in the disruption of the learning process.

Students with SED are not the only ones who would not benefit from full inclusion. Individuals with disabilities such as mild learning disabilities benefit from going to a resource room for as little as a half of an hour each day (1). There, a teacher can work with these students one-on-one or in a small group setting in order to go over what they are working on in their regular classroom and make sure they understand it or to work on that same subject, but at possibly a lower level than the rest of the class. Many students with disabilities are further behind in many subjects, especially in reading and math (1). Rather than slowing a regular education class down, these students will often work with a special education teacher in a resource room, so that they are learning at the appropriate level. Full inclusion would take that option away from many students who benefit from it, and they, along with their regular education classmates and teachers, would have to deal with the repercussions of that. This does not even take into account the students with severe or intense disabilities. These students often are in the resource room all day or go to a special school.

If the practice of full inclusion was to be adopted, it may be much harder to regulate student’s IEPs and to see that their continuum of services would be met. Without trips to a resource room, many students who qualify for help from an Occupational Therapist (OT) or a Physical Therapist (PT) would have to forgo those extra services, since full inclusion means that every student regardless of his or her disability would be in a regular education classroom all day, everyday. It is only when they are in a resource room or other setting outside of the regular classroom when they receive these services. An honored researcher of exceptional children, Douglas Fuchs writes, "Explicit in their definition is the elimination of all special education options other than the service that's provided in the regular classroom by a special ed teacher or whomever. So this is a very different, a very different understanding or notion of integration, and it's one that currently is being pushed by a relatively small number of folks, but a very influential group," (7). The lack of these essential services could seriously impact their success in school and in life in general. Those services are very valuable to many students, and their parents may not be able to afford them. In his essay, "Inclusive Education: Right for Some," a special education specialist, Bernard Rimland, writes:

Much as my wife and I would like to have our son, Mark be able to cope successfully in a normal school, it is very clear to us that he could not have done so. He has come along much further than we ever dared hope, and we are quite confident it is because he was always in special classes, taught by experienced, skilled, caring teachers, exhibiting monumental patience, who had gone to great lengths to train themselves in methods that would help Mark and children like him achieve their full potential (8).