Inclusion class is not real Inclusion

Transforming Education

Before having your kid go into the inclusion class you ought to find out exactly what kind of inclusion model the school is using.

In my experience, schools take kids with IEPs (40% allowable by NYS) and mix them with (60%) other students who school officials think could benefit from having two teachers (one of them a sped teacher). This "other sixty percent" is where they make a mockery of the whole meaning of the word "inclusion". Inclusion's full name is "Inclusion in the mainstream of school academic classes and social life".

By taking kids who have learning difficulties and putting them in a class with kids who have learning disabilities the school is making a new kind of special placement which is definitely not "inclusion in the mainstream of academic classes". The result is a class with two teachers who must find ways to work together (not easy and really new to American education) and a large class of kids with learning issues.

It is really no solution at all. It is just another way of keeping sped kids and children with what we call "diverse learning needs" away from the real mainstream.

Why?

They want to distance these kids as much as possible from taking part in the schools evaluative process. Their score will certainly lower the schools ranking. While in special placements, expectations can be lowered and grades inflated.
It might even be easier to "touch" standardized test scores or file for waivers to reduce the amount these special scores count in the schools Annual Yearly Progress goals (required by No Child Left Behind).

Find out what specific models and strategies the teachers will be using to address the needs of all the learners in the inclusion class.

Have they chosen any of the researched methods for co-teaching?

Do they have an understanding of the fundamentals of Differentiating Curriculum?

If the answers are not ready now, then don't expect them to be ready in September.

Find out who are the "other sixty percent" and what is the criterion for being in that 60% of regular kids in the inclusion class.

I think you'll find some monkey business.

Inclusion is not easy to do right and is being done wrong all over America today mostly in our Middle and High School grades. Inclusion class is not Inclusion.