. . . but also by how well they treat their students with disabilities.
I have a five-year old son who has Down syndrome. In honor of World Down Syndrome Day today, I want to talk about inclusion.
Inclusion is the practice of educating children with disabilities in general ed classrooms, alongside their non-disabled peers, with appropriate accommodations. Inclusion is a federally sanctified right of children with disabilities through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Study after study has shown the benefits of inclusion: that children with disabilities fare better academically, socially, emotionally, and developmentally when they are educated in inclusive settings. Non-disabled students benefit, as well.
Despite all of this, many school districts across the nation still segregate students with disabilities from their non-disabled peers as a matter of course. My own school district practices segregation. Our son is only five and in transitional kindergarten (TK) and we have had to fight our district at every turn concerning our son’s educational placement since he turned three years old. We were told that he didn’t belong in a general ed classroom; that he would do better in a segregated special ed classroom; that the inclusive setting we were after just wasn’t possible. We finally had to hire an attorney and spend thousands of dollars we couldn’t really afford in order to have our son’s basic legal rights honored. As it turns out, the inclusive setting we were after IS possible, and he has done very well there. We have an IEP meeting coming up again next month to discuss his kindergarten placement for the next school year, and unfortunately, we still do not feel that we can attend without an attorney.
This isn’t the way it should be. Inclusion should be a given for every child; placement in a separate special ed classroom setting should be the exception, not the rule. No matter what fancy names schools and districts give their special ed programs, if it involves segregation of students with disabilities from non-disabled students, it’s discrimination, and it’s not upholding basic rights provided by law. Too often, we accept the idea of “special education” as a place – a separate classroom where the disabled kids go. Special education, however, is how students with disabilities are educated, not where. Special education can and should coexist with inclusion.
Hometown Homework Chronicles 
Thank you for writing this. I followed the links in your article and it gave me the first feeling of power I’ve had in a long time. I have been struggling with my son’s school for 2 years now, and over those 2 years what I realize I’ve been slowly learning, is that I believe strongly in inclusion, but my son’s school district apparently does NOT… (though they would never admit it– they just try to use language that will sway me into thinking that my son’s “best interests” are being served, and that I’m some kind of monster for denying him the “tools he needs to succeed”.) The last time I checked, pulling a kid out of an environment they enjoy, and segregating them into a special room which would, among other things, impart instant Social Death, and meanwhile not changing anything about the WAY he is being taught– other than watering it down when that’s actually the OPPOSITE of what he needs– doesn’t give him the “tools he needs to succeed.”
He entered Kindergarten woefully unprepared for the high expectations they had for 4- and 5-year-olds, in terms of “self-regulation” and a willingness to do what I consider an extraordinary amount of seat-work for kids that age. It also emerged that he apparently had sensory issues that we hadn’t considered problematic until they were (at school), and the school pushed for a full EVALUATION. Fast-forward 2 years, and we are now getting ready to start 2nd grade, all IEP’d-up, with a dx of Autism Spectrum Disorder, which is appropriate in some ways but not in others (but is convenient for the school bureaucracy we need to fit him into), and a pretty unpleasant team of staff-members who would all like to see me pull him out of his neighborhood school and transfer him to a different elementary in our area which has a “special day class” for kids like my son (who are well-behaved but won’t do their work) and any other special needs kids they can funnel over there, for THEIR convenience. It makes my brail boil. I have completely had it with this system, but at this point it’s all I’ve got. In this increasingly stressful school environment, nobody WANTS a kid like my son in her classroom, in spite of the fact that he’s probably a genius and really delightful, when you’re not trying to make him do a pile of worksheets. I never thought I would consider homeschooling, because he NEEDS the social skills he gets from being around a big, diverse group of kids in a dynamic setting, but I find that I am, simply because what is going on at the school feels an awful lot like abuse– abuse of the kids, the teachers, and the families. EVERYONE loses. And to what end? Are we creating smarter, happier, more capable children? The universities would say, “no,” that in fact we are creating entitled, confused, mentally-ill children who don’t enjoy learning. But, for whatever reason, my son actually claims that he LIKES going to his school (he is young enough that he is unaware how much of a pain-in-the-ass he is to everyone there, thankfully) and so until that changes I will continue to send him off every day, and I will continue to grit my teeth when I get my daily report of what a huge problem he is for them, for not being a compliant little worker bee, a ready-and-willing test-taker-in-training, which is, apparently, all they care about.