Inclusion or Education?

Why do we talk so much about inclusion and so little about excellent education for disabled children?

If I have to choose – and I shouldn’t have to choose – I would choose excellent education over wonderful inclusion any day, every week, all year along for the rest of my life.

What about you?

My Big Goal

My short goal from my son that has been in his IEP for years now a real high school diploma or as closes as possible.

That means a real education and that’s what the school system is for – and I shouldn’t have to constantly remind “educators” of that.

Let’s be clear all of the available data shows that inclusive education statistically is better than segregated education and let’s just call it that – Segregated.

And that in the US, more than 13 percent of disabled students spend most of their day in segregated classrooms.

And that my home state of California has the highest percentage of disabled students in the US that spend most of their day in a segregated classroom (just over 18 percent).

Kids in segregated classroom classrooms get substantially fewer minutes of instruction per day (70% the number of minutes of instruction based on one study… but there has been depressing little research on special education) and in my own experience at least in a bad classroom they can get no instruction at all.

However..

Choosing Segregation* (for better Education)

I will tell you that at the moment we chose very intentionally to spend a bit more time in a separate classroom because we have an excellent teacher who’s doing a great job for my son.

And a great teacher, especially for a disabled child is magical.

This is kind of obvious if we take it to its logical conclusion.

After all, who wouldn’t want an amazing individualized tutor if they were available versus being in any sort of classroom, whether your child is in general education or special education

Amazing teachers are (obviously) amazing.

They make a massive difference,

If you ever had a great teacher in your life, there are certain teachers who you remember years, even decades latter.

(Thank you Ms. Gabor, Mr. Walker, Mr. Holm, and Professor Landau!)

And bad teachers are deadly – even more so for disabled child.

(we’ve had a couple unfortunately)

Now, next year, my son moves in the middle school – and as far as I can tell, even though we’re in otherwise excellent school district the middle school education program for our kids with extensive needs is a mess.

Massive turnover in an unimpressive operation.

I’m kind of dreading it …so my answer is to avoid it as much as possible.

We’ll see if I succeed.

My plan is to be in what our school district calls co-taught classrooms as much as possible. These are next general lead and special ed students who are more than a year behind their general education peers in the major subjects like English and Math.

… so, much more inclusion next year… BUT because it looks like it is a better education option… in our district… right now. UGH.

Do I think inclusive education for substantially disabled students can work in elementary school, middle school, and high school the answer is yes, but we have to work in the real environment we are living in – work with the actual schools and teachers that we have in front of us.

* Weirdly (or not), when things were looking really bad back in second grade, we were ready to push for full inclusion… figuring that if the school couldn’t deliver meaningful education, at least my son would have more time exposed to his general education peers and pick up as much as he could by proximity.. so “Inclusion if I can’t get better Education” (and why do I have to consider this choice?)