Inclusion, when properly administered, can be the ideal situation for a disabled child.  Both the child and their parent can feel like they are no longer dealing with a one-size-fits-all generic program that does not take into account their child’s special needs.  More importantly, in an ideal situation, when these children are included, they will not even notice that they differ from their peers.  Although these children can benefit from some level of inclusion, when full inclusion is adopted, children do not get the individualized attention they need and once again feel isolated in a program that is not right for them. Teachers become overwhelmed, and end up devoting less time not only to special education students, but to general education students as well.

The Monetary Cost of Inclusion

Nationally, the cost of inclusion has reached $32 billion a year and is rapidly rising (1).  In New York City, for example, of every dollar that a school spends, 22 cents are spent on Special Education, and one quarter of all of the school’s employees are employed for the purpose of furthering full inclusion (1).  However, Special Education students on average only make up eleven percent of the student body in standard schools (1).  Therefore, the additional 88 cents of each dollar are being spent on regular education students who make up approximately 89 percent of the population.  From this statistic, it follows that one fourth of the budget is being spent on one eleventh of the population.  Furthermore, the average cost per special education student involved in full inclusion ranges from $2,000 to $30,000 depending on the severity of the child’s disability.  Two point three times as much money is being spent on these students as on regular education students (1).

Cost to Special Education Students

Perhaps the most important issue when thinking about full inclusion is the toll it is taking on special education students themselves.  Since this program was initiated to benefit them, it is imperative that it truly meet this need. However, more often than not, this is not the case.  In full inclusion, much of the time, new or additional teachers are not brought in to deal with the special education students, they are merely cared for by the same teacher that is looking after the regular education students (2).  With all of the diversity that already exists in a classroom, if you introduce disabled children, the atmosphere will become far too much for a teacher to handle.  For example, when full inclusion is adopted at an elementary level, not only does a teacher have to deal with children who haven’t yet learned to read and children who are reading at an advanced level, they also have to accommodate children who haven’t yet even learned to talk.

Rather than getting individualized attention, special education students are placed with the rest of the children in many cases and are therefore not able to advance as much as they perhaps could with someone helping them on a regular basis (3).  Class sizes are also not typically reduced to ensure that teacher have more time to attend to special education students and give them the attention that they need (3).  According to research done by Dr. Oscar Cohen, the superintendent of a special education school, there are more "significant gains as measured by performance intelligence tests of children who attend schools for [their needs] that are not found in children who attend mainstreamed programs" (4).  As demonstrated earlier through cost summaries, it is evident that children eligible for full inclusion have tremendously differing needs.  As the American Federation of Teachers said in 1996, some children benefit from full inclusion, and others don’t.  For example, "medically fragile children and children with severe behavioral disorders are more likely to be harmed than helped" because teachers do not have the specialized training to assist them (3).  However, in a facility that was intended for the specific needs of these children, teachers would be fully qualified to aid these students.

Cost to General Education Students

It is not only important to understand the detriments of full inclusion to special education students, but also for general education students as well.  As explained earlier that one fourth of a school’s budget is being spent on one eleventh of the population (special education students), regular education students are suffering from this.  Since their funds are being drained for the purpose of inclusion, they cannot experience everything that should be available to them (1).  Although in all cases they may not have limited resources, there could be more resources available to them if funds were in place to facilitate this.  Since class sizes are not reduced when full inclusion is in place, teachers can’t devote proper amounts of time to any students (3).

For example, if a child with limited mobility is placed in a general education classroom, the teacher will have to constantly be ensuring that this child is safe, inarguably taking time away from general education students.  Just as teachers are taught in education classes in college, different children learn different ways and material therefore needs to be presented in a variety of ways.  However, when special education students are added into the picture, there is no way a teacher can accommodate general education students who learn two different ways as well as special education students who necessitate that material be presented in yet another way.  Because of this, "full inclusion of an extremely wide range of abilities into general education classrooms makes direct, systematic instruction nearly impossible," taking time away from general education students (2).

Demands Placed on Teachers

Not only does full inclusion affect all students in the classroom, it also becomes extremely taxing for the teacher attempting to accommodate all of these needs.  One problem for teachers is the process and requirement of IEPs.  These plans, which are tailor-made for each individual student, are extremely time-consuming.  Although it does appear that these plans are beneficial, it also seems as though they take time away from regular students.  Since teachers have limited free time, in many cases, they must spend all of it in creating IEPs rather than just planning for the rest of the students.  The time consumption involved in this process is taking time away from teachers, and therefore, causing a decline in the quality of their curriculums.  Although teacher’s aides are sometimes in place to assist in the classroom progress in areas such as feeding these children, teaching them good grooming habits, and helping them around the school and to buses, they are not typically present during the whole day (5).  Also, in many cases, these workers only have high school diplomas, and therefore, have no specialized training in education and are unable to help with the education aspect of these children with increased needs (5).  When the aide leaves, a teacher is left not only with general education students, but also special education students who in many cases they may not know how to handle.

Although most teachers who have a special education student fully included in their classroom are familiar with this process and have been trained in it, others have not.  For example, in full inclusion, disabled children are required to be allowed to participate in all classes in which the general education students participate.  This includes art and even gym classes to the furthest extent possible (6).  In these specialized fields, teachers do not often have a grasp of what special education involves.  For example, when teachers around the nation were polled on how prepared they would feel if full inclusion were to be implemented in their schools, English teachers said they felt somewhat prepared, as well as science and math teachers.  However, physical education, art, and fine arts teachers felt not at all prepared (6). There is no way a special education student will benefit from full inclusion in the even that a teacher either feels only somewhat prepared of not at all prepared to accommodate such a child.

Arguments Supporting Full Inclusion

Although there are many equally convincing arguments in support of full inclusion, each of these can be easily rejected.  One main argument in support of full inclusion is that operating an entirely new facility for special education students would be more costly than just adding funding to a currently existing facility.  However, in many cases where inclusion, but not full inclusion is adopted, it is just a matter of setting aside a few classrooms in an already existing facility.  Since these children do in fact only make up one eleventh of the population, they are usually not a large enough majority to necessitate a totally separate facility (1).  Although the school might have to build an addition to accommodate these children, this is less costly than building and operating an entirely new facility.  It is not possible to determine an average cost for building an addition as sizes differ greatly; however, adding two to three new classrooms is less costly than building an entirely new facility.  Also, according to the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, the average cost of building and operating a new facility can run as high as $450/ square foot (7).  A second argument that arises is the fact that teachers do not only devote extra time and effort to special education students, but that they do the same type of things for especially gifted children.  However, special education students require much more attention than do gifted children.  While a gifted child may just need more challenging work, a special education student requires a different level of work, teacher’s assistance in completing this, and constant monitoring to ensure the work is completed.  However, gifted children just need "a few hours of special instruction each week to perform well in the regular classroom and to keep up their interest in academic subjects" (8).  They are generally able to complete their assignments on their own, and will succeed with little teacher assistance and are therefore not as time consuming as a special education child.