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School Board Journal
November / December 1995
January / February 1996

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Thinking of inclusion for all special needs students?
Better think again

By RICHARD W. SMELTER, BRADLEY W. RASCH, and GARY J. YUDEWITZ

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No one can deny that "inclusion" is among the hottest topics in education today. It is virtually impossible to pick up an education journal without finding at least one article dealing with the subject. Everyone seems to agree that inclusion is an important issue, but few can agree as to exactly what inclusion is.

Among the range of possible definitions for inclusion, we have settled on this one: inclusion involves keeping special education students in regular education classrooms and bringing support services to the child, rather than bringing the child to the support services. In an inclusionary setting, special education teachers work with regular education teachers in regular classrooms. We use the related term "full inclusion" to refer to the practice of having regular education teachers teach both regular education students and special education students together, without the assistance of a special education teacher. Those who endorse such full inclusion would extend special training to the regular education staff members.

Nevertheless, problems arise because proponents of the various kinds of inclusion do not necessarily agree on these or any other definitions. Some lump inclusion with mainstreaming, in which a child with special needs may attend class in a regular education setting for only a portion of the school day, returning to a special education setting for the rest of the day. Others believe that full inclusion means keeping all special needs children in the regular classroom, while retaining the special education staff. Still others see the difference between inclusion and full inclusion as simply a difference in number: inclusion means some children; full inclusion means all children. And so it goes, in a never-ending debate that sometimes seems purposely orchestrated to arouse the emotions of the participants.

Inclusion/exclusion

It is also safe to say that the term inclusion seems to have popped out of nowhere. Until recently, it was virtually nonexistent in the literature of education. The term appears to be very popular with some state education agencies and statewide parent groups, as well as with some national special education groups. It is perhaps not so popular with local school districts, special education cooperatives, and teacher unions.

It is interesting to note that the term exclusion is almost never used, although it is obviously the opposite of inclusion. In theory, an "exclusionist" would lean toward removing students with special needs from the regular classroom, while an "inclusionist" would lean toward putting them back in. Is it all so simple? Clearly, we must look further.

Philosophical, legal problems

Someone once said that, if one extreme is unacceptable, then so is the other. We find it difficult to understand how taking an inclusionary stance in the case of every child with special needs is any more acceptable than taking an exclusionary stance would be. Both are preconceived mental constructs that assume that only one solution exists to the various challenges faced by children with special needs. This is analogous to your family physician's prescribing in advance the same medication for every illness that you and your family contract.

We find it entirely obvious that one child with special needs may learn better in the regular classroom, while another may learn better in a resource room or in a self-contained program. Children learn differently. Some perform better in the regular education classroom because they feel ostracized or self-conscious when asked to "go down the hallway" to visit the special education teacher. Their learning may suffer as a result, and so they are perfect candidates for inclusion. Other children have different needs; they may be so distracted by their peers in the regular classroom that they do not learn well, and so they are perfect candidates for a pullout program. Open-minded educators who take the "least restrictive environment" mandate seriously may find themselves "inclusionists" one day and "exclusionists" the next. That is the moral and legal reality of serving children with special needs.

Three arguments

Inclusionists generally use three main arguments to substantiate their case:

l) that all children learn best in the regular education classroom (which is tantamount to saying that all children learn best in large groups as opposed to smaller groups),

2) that the goal of social equity that is met by keeping children mixed with their peers is of greater importance than how much children learn, or

3) that pull-out programs are a violation of the civil rights of children with special needs because they segregate them from their peers.

To accept the second argument is to subscribe to the belief that the social aspects of education are more important than the academic aspects. This would appear to be the preferred stance of inclusionists, who often couch their statements in terms of the social benefits enjoyed by both the included students and their peers in regular education. These benefits include role-modeling, increased understanding of children with special needs, a broadened range of social contacts for the child with special needs, and happier children (because they are included). These are all worthy goals. But what if the children with special needs are shown to learn less in the regular classroom than in a pull-out program? Does that matter?

The third argument is that children with special needs have a constitutional right to be in the regular classroom. In effect, this argument makes the inclusionist stance a political rather than an educational one. If this argument is true, then the IDEA which permits alternative placement if that is the least restrictive environment consistent the needs of children is in violation of several civil rights statutes, isn't it?

We reject all three arguments as intellectually indefensible. The first is clearly educationally spurious and not supported by any research. Our problems with the other two require closer examination.

Social engineers

The political argument in favor of inclusion is based on the assumption that the civil rights of students, as outlined in the 1954 decision handed down in Brown v. Board of Education, which struck down the concept of "separate but equal," can also be construed as applying to special education. This would have the net effect of making all pull-out programs automatically unequal and consequently illegal.

But let's think logically about this question. The differences between the artificial separation of children because of their race and the nonartificial separation of children because they have been shown to learn better in different settings are glaringly obvious. The first kind of separation has no defensible educational rationale, while the second has improving the child's learning as its primary rationale. If we carried this third inclusionist argument to its logical conclusion, most gifted programs would be illegal, valedictorians would disappear or be chosen by lot, cheerleading squads would disappear, and no student would ever receive a detention slip. After all, these practices also use a variety of criteria to differentiate children from their peers.

Ethics, logistics, and legal nightmares

Furthermore, the inclusionist approach requires that special education teachers close down their rooms in order to serve the children with special needs as they move into the regular classroom. This may present problems for the school district when it is confronted by parents who run a close comparison check between the special services their children formerly received and the services they now receive under inclusion.

For example, consider a situation in which the needs of a child (call him Jimmy) with regard to the physical environment do not enter into the picture at all. In other words, the special education personnel believe (and test results support) that Jimmy can learn to the same extent in either the regular education classroom or in the pull-out room. If this is so, then we can move to our secondary concern, socialization. Under the mandates of the IDEA, Jimmy is a perfect candidate for inclusion. But let's further suppose that Jimmy's five pull-out peers all of whom used to visit the pull-out room between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. are judged to be candidates for inclusion as well.

In this new scenario, the special education teacher must still serve the needs of the same six special education students during the same time slot because she has to be back in her room to work with another group of pull-out children at 10 a.m. Therefore unless Jimmy and his five friends are all in the same regular education class the special education teacher must visit several rooms in the space of one hour, and it will not take long for Jimmy's parents to conclude that the special education contact time, as previously specified in his individualized education plan (IEP), is being violated.

Rewriting the IEP

Some propose to avoid these problems by hiring aides for special education. The job of the aides would be to go into the regular education classes to serve the children with special needs who have been included, thereby maintaining the same number of contact minutes and avoiding the IEP dilemma. Sorry, but Jimmy's parents are entitled to demand that the credentials of the new aides be the same as those of the special education teacher. Of course, they are not. So back to another due-process hearing, in which any attorney for the parents will be able to demonstrate that, if anything, reduced quality of service is even worse than reduced quantity.

It is not very difficult to see that the services provided under inclusion are not the equal of those provided by pull-out programs, unless the number of contact minutes and the qualifications of those who deliver the services are the same in both circumstances. Would any of our readers care to calculate the potential cost of such a system? In addition to the costs of added personnel, training, and building modifications (to make certain all rooms are accessible to individuals with handicaps), there may be additional legal costs lurking in the background. People who think that the scenarios described above will not happen are basing their opinion on the dubious assumption that all parents of students with special needs are opposed to pull-out programs and can't wait to see their children back in the regular classroom. They seem to have conveniently forgotten the fact that many of these parents are veterans of (or heirs to) the difficult, protracted battles fought to establish high-quality alternative placement programs. These parents are proud of these programs and of the advances their children have made in them. Do inclusionists expect such parents simply to "fold their tents" and fade into the night?

Moreover, we should not assume that special education students and their parents are the only ones in the school community who have recourse to legal action. Other parents will no doubt come to the conclusion that forcing children, regardless of their abilities, to be educated in the same place, at the same time, using the same techniques, and (in the case of full inclusion) with the same teacher, regardless of that teacher's training, is a far cry from sound education. To place back in the regular education classroom a child with a behavioral disorder who is prone to emotional outbursts when overstimulated and who responds by hitting and kicking his peers is a disservice to all the children. In such a situation, all students receive an inferior education.

Disruption

To intentionally re-create an atmosphere of disruption and potential physical danger in order to appear "egalitarian' or to fulfill the questionable goals of some philosophy will be considered by some to be ill-advised and irresponsible. You can bet your bottom dollar that it will be viewed as such by the advocate for the parents of any student who is struck by a thrown object.

To consider oneself an "inclusionist" is to place a philosophy before the needs of children. It is not much different from a mechanic's telling a customer what work needs to be done on a car before even examining it. Furthermore, should inclusion for all students with special needs be mandated, it would return education to roughly the same state as during the 1950s, when options for students with special needs were extremely limited.

Full inclusion, in which the regular education teacher must learn a monumental number of additional skills in order to deal with both special and regular education students, may be state-of-the-art education for the Nineties that is, the 1890s. All that is needed is to mix grade levels, and you would have an ideal job description for a Victorian "schoolmarm."

A curious mishmash

In addition, restrictive philosophies are not very taxing from an intellectual standpoint. The inclusionist movement requires no close examination of the learning styles of individual children or of the settings in which they learn best. It also renders much of what takes place at the multidisciplinary staffing for special education placement a foregone conclusion. Having a restrictive philosophy is also let's be honest just plain easy. One has to make no individual case to parents; one merely recites a bundle of philosophical postulates. One can never be accused of "calling the shots wrong," for there are no "shots" to call.

We are reminded of the famous quote attributed to Henry Ford when he introduced the "new" Model T: "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black." We need to remind inclusionists that schools are very different from Ford's assembly line.

Richard W. Smelter is principal of Manteno Elementary School, and curriculum director for Manteno C.U. District 5. Bradley W. Rasch is a school psychologist in Marquardt School District 15, Glendale Heights; and Gary J. Yudewitz is an attorney living in Plantation, Florida. This article is reprinted, with permission, from Phi Delta Kappan, September, 1994.