By Phil Smith, writing in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the journal of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Smith examines the data on inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities in American classrooms and describes the results as “disturbing.” He finds that only 10.95 per cent of such students received their education in regular education classrooms in the 2002-2003 school year, an increase of 3.84 percentage points over the ten preceding years.

Over the last five years of that decade the rate of inclusion actually declined in 34 states, indicating a re-segregation of young people with intellectual disabilities.

Smith writes that money, in and of itself, does not seem to be a significant barrier to including students with intellectual disabilities. Rather, he says, the problem is rooted in policy. All educators, not only special educators, must take responsibility for educating all students, and must receive the training they need in order to be successful.

He also says that high stakes testing and student performance accountability are jeopardizing inclusive schooling, an unintended consequence of No Child Left Behind legislation.

A state-by-state accounting of inclusion is including. Ranked first is Vermont with 60.34 percent, a number that fell from a 1997 high of 86.11 percent. Last place is occupied by the District of Columbia at 1.12 percent, a number that is even lower than its 1992 score of 1.5 percent.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 8:38 pm and is filed under IDEA, NOT2BEMISSED, No Child Left Behind, education, inclusion, research news, special education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post