The Evidence for Inclusion May Not Be as Strong as We Thought
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses a new research paper that challenges the evidence base for full inclusion, suggesting the benefits have been overstated.
Key Takeaways
- The evidence deserves scrutiny - A new paper raises serious questions about the research supporting full inclusion
- Methodology matters - Many inclusion studies have significant design limitations that inflate the apparent benefits
- Policy should follow evidence - If the evidence for full inclusion is weaker than assumed, mandating it for all students is even harder to justify
Transcript
big special education news.
A new paper argues that inclusion, including students in the mainstream classroom for just about everything, may not have the evidence base behind it that people have been suggesting, that advocates have been arguing that it does.
A new paper coming out from Douglas Fuchs of Vanderbilt.
who is a big deal, who is a major voice in this field, a big expert, is publishing a paper.
It's not quite out yet, but you can read this article in the Hetchinger Report by Jill Barshay, who's probably their best reporter.
It argues that the evidence is very low quality for inclusion.
And I think one of the problems, if you read the story, one of the problems makes a lot of sense, that if you study students who are included in mainstream classes, you know, spend most of their time not in special ed, but receiving support in the gen ed classroom, often those students have milder needs than students who are not able to be in that setting.
And of course, the paper is going to go into a lot more depth about the methodological problems with studying this and the quality of the evidence for inclusion.
But I've been saying for a while now, without this type of evidence, that I don't really think inclusion works as well as we're being told that it does for all students.
And one of the reasons comes down to what least restrictive environment means, right?
The least restrictive environment does not mean the least restrictive environment possible.
It means the least restrictive environment that will actually meet the student's needs.
And if you have a student who needs a quiet classroom, who needs a calm environment, who needs a room with fewer kids in it and more adults and not quite as much going on because they'll get overstimulated or, There are lots of reasons that a kid might need a different type of classroom.
And I think often when inclusion is put in the IEP, it's to save money.
It's because inclusion is what's available, not necessarily because inclusion is what the kid actually needs.
And in some places, inclusion is the only option, which to me, that feels illegal under IDEA.
So check this story out.
The full paper's not out yet, but it will be soon.
But we may be hearing a lot more about inclusion.
Let me know what you think.