Inclusion in Secondary Schools Public

Inclusion in Secondary Schools

Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, was passed in 1975. In 1990, the law was reenacted as Public Law 101-476, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). From IDEA came the concept of Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), which means that disabled students must have access to the general curriculum, be taught with their nondisabled peers, and that special classes or schools are permissible only when disabled students' achievement is compromised in general education settings. The term "inclusion" arose from considerations of what constitutes a LRE (Hasbrouck, 2007; Walker, 2004).

Definition of Inclusion

According to Hasbrouck (2007), inclusion is the placement in general education settings of students identified as having disabilities such as mental retardation, emotional disturbance, physical (orthopedic, visual, hearing) impairment, or learning disabilities. The inclusion might be full or partial. Full inclusion refers to full time placement in regular classes; Partial inclusion is part-time placement in regular classes.

For optimal implementation, the inclusion models require more than one educator in the classroom. Walker (2004) suggested four ways in which the teachers work together:

1. Interactive teaching: Partners or teams work interactively to teach and present concepts to the whole class.

2. Station teaching: One teacher instructs a small group while other teachers monitor and support small groups of students at different learning stations.

3. Parallel teaching: Several teachers present the same information or content to several small groups.

4. Alternative teaching: One teacher provides specific instruction and skill-building to a small group while another teacher monitors the rest of the students while they are working on the same concept.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Inclusion

According to Hasbrouck (2007), proponents of inclusion claim that inclusion benefits the disabled student by: increasing positive social contact with peers, reducing stigma associated with special placements, and exposing the student to the traditional curriculum.

Critics suggest several disadvantages of inclusion, doubting that the general education system is able to meet the wide range of instructional, emotional, and behavioral needs of all students. In particular, they note that classroom and subject area teachers are not trained to develop and implement instructional programs for children who fall outside the "average" range of abilities. They note further that teacher preparation programs do not normally provide training in adapting curriculum for low-performing and low-skilled students or dealing with the often difficult and extreme behaviors of emotionally disturbed children. Others critics maintain that many disabled students need to learn functional life-skills or basic academic skills far more than concepts and information -- the focus of most general education curricula (Hasbrouck, 2007).

Implications for Future Teaching

The foregoing has implications for training future teachers and providing staff development for current teachers. Huston (2007) recommended that areas to be emphasized in teacher training and staff development include: (a) emphasis on higher-order thinking skills, (b) integrated curricula, (c) life-skills curricula, and (d) interdisciplinary teaching.

Huston (2007) further recommended that, in order to deliver instruction in inclusive classrooms, teachers become adept in multiple teaching and learning approaches like team teaching, co-teaching, peer partners, cooperative learning, heterogeneous grouping, study team planning, parallel and alternative teaching, station teaching, etc.