Reposted with the permission of the American Federation of Teachers
http://www.aft.org
Where We Stand
by Albert Shanker
Ideology and Common Sense
Advocates of full inclusion have a simple answer to the complicated problem 
of educating children with disabilities. They believe that all of these 
children should be put into regular classrooms, regardless of the nature 
and severity of their disability. And they dismiss people who disagree with 
them as enemies of children with disabilities.
     What full inclusionists don't see (or acknowledge) is that children 
with disabilities are individuals with differing needs; some benefit from 
inclusion and others do not. Full inclusionists don't see that medically 
fragile children and children with severe behavioral disorders are more 
likely to be harmed than helped when they are placed in regular classrooms 
where teachers do not have the highly specialized training to deal with 
their needs. They don't see that when a disabled student misbehaves or 
demands extraordinary attention from the classroom teacher, the learning of 
all the other children in the class is being sacrificed. And they don't 
admit that there is absolutely no evidence supporting the idea that all 
children with disabilities do better in regular classrooms. 
     With advocates of full inclusion insisting on their one-size-fits-all 
ideology, it sometimes takes the parents of a disabled child to bring the 
conversation back into the real world.  Arch and Margaret Puddington are 
parents whose younger son, Mark, is afflicted with a relatively rare 
condition called Cornelia de Lange syndrome.  This means that  Mark cannot 
run, jump, or pronounce more than a handful of intelligible syllables.  His 
IQ was once evaluated at 36. Arch Puddington recently wrote an article for 
_Commentary_, May 1996) reflecting on life with Mark and America's 
treatment of the mentally retarded.   He discusses, among other topics, the 
debate over full inclusion--which, to a parent of a severely disabled 
child, "involves much more than an abstract argument over educational 
policy."   
     Puddington knows that full inclusion can work; he's seen cases where 
it did: "Some children may indeed be able to participate in the competitive 
environment of a normal classroom; this is particularly the case with 
children who suffer from certain physical disabilities, and young children 
who are only mildly retarded."  But Puddington is also a practical guy.  He 
realizes that it is one thing to have lofty ideals and quite another to 
make inclusion work for all children with disabilities. He cites a report 
by the National Association of State Boards of Education as a prime example 
of putting ideology ahead of common sense. The report endorses inclusion on 
the sweeping grounds of educational reform, civil rights, and equity, but 
as Puddington points out, it is silent on an important practical matter 
that will determine whether anybody in a class--children with disabilities 
or those without them--will receive an education: 
     [It] ignores the critical question of how the fully inclusive school
     is to cope with autistic children, or children who exhibit strange
     and inappropriate behavior, who become violent when frustrated, who
     are chronically disruptive, or who require exceptional medical
     attention.  No wonder middle-class parents are beginning to cite the
     ever growing emphasis on "special needs" as among the reasons for
     transferring their own children from public to private schools. 
Puddington is not blinded by ideology, and he realizes that a 
one-size-fits-all approach to inclusion would hurt everyone, especially 
disabled kids.  Take the case of  his own son, Mark:  
     Were New York to take [the path of full inclusion], Mark would be
     transferred from his present school, which is devoted solely to
     special education classes, and placed in a regular classroom in our
     neighborhood high school, a forbidding building with a rough and
     intimidating student body.  Because of his precarious sense of
     balance and lack of coordination, Mark is physically quite fearful;
     he goes into panic if accosted by overly playful small dogs.  For
     him, inclusion in a big-city high school would be an exercise in 
terror.
     And if forced into a regular classroom, Mark would not be the only 
person who would suffer: 
     Mark would present his new teachers and classmates with a set
     of unique problems.... The advocates of full inclusion speak glibly
     of giving teachers the training necessary to cope with the immense
     variety of challenges which handicapped kids bring to the classroom.
     Yet no amount of training could prepare a regular teacher for Mark.
     In our experience, the requisite expertise and commitment are found
     only among teachers who have chosen to specialize in the handicapped. 
Puddington concludes his article with a stark warning on the danger of 
"sabotaging our genuine achievements in the pursuit of worthy-sounding but 
deeply wrongheaded ideas."  Extending civil rights to children like Mark 
sounds like a fine idea, but how will these children benefit if special 
programs and special teachers disappear and they are thrust into regular 
classrooms? And what about the children in the regular classrooms? As the 
parent of a child with a severe disability, he sees this as a situation in 
which everyone would lose, and I think he is right.
Chuck Beams
cbeams@dreamscape.com
http://www.dreamscape.com/cbeams
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