Do special-ed kids do best in mainstream classrooms? Maybe not

Students with disabilities should learn in mainstream classrooms, whenever possible, declared the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 50 years ago. Worried that disabled students would be segregated in special schools, the law gave students a right to a "free and appropriate public education" in the "least-restrictive environment."

As "full inclusion" became the norm, researchers reported that students placed in general-education classrooms all or most of the time learned more than those spending all or most of their time in special classes.

But the evidence that full inclusion works best is "extremely weak" and "fundamentally flawed," concludes a new paper, writes Hechinger's Jill Barshay. Scholars Douglas Fuchs, Allison Gilmour and Jeanne Wanzek of Vanderbilt and the American Institutes for Research are challenging the consensus.

It's an apples v. oranges problem: Children in separate classes "tend to have more severe disabilities and academic struggles" than those who are mainstreamed, she writes. Naturally, the students who start with more problems do worse.

Fuchs thinks some students with disabilities should be in general classrooms, while others would benefit from "intensive instruction" in a separate classroom or school. "We know how to provide intensive instruction," he says. "The evidence is, I dare say, overwhelming.”

Roughly 15 percent of U.S. public school students have been diagnosed with a disability -- usually a learning problem -- and are eligible for services, notes Barshay. It's a lot of money.

Many parents complain their special-needs children aren't getting the help they've been promised. When a child does poorly, is it the disability or inadequate support? It's hard to say.

Inclusion can be done well or poorly, Barshay points out. Sometimes, "the general education teacher is overwhelmed and lacks training." Special classes can be done poorly too: Kids sit and do worksheets -- or don't do worksheets. Schools have trouble hiring qualified special-ed teachers.

In 2023, Barshay talked to Nina Dalgaard, lead author of an inclusion study for the nonprofit Campbell Collaboration. The meta-analysis also found no evidence that inclusion is positive for all students. "For some children, it appears that being taught in a segregated setting is actually beneficial,” said Dalgaard.

Mainstreamed students do better in "schools that used a co-teaching model, one regular teacher and one trained in special education," that analysis found. But co-teaching is expensive, says Dalgaard. Placing all students in the same classroom cuts costs, says the researcher. But it can also reduce resources.

There's been little debate on inclusion's effect on non-disabled students and general-education teachers, wrote Gilmour, one of Fuchs' co-authors, in Education Next in 2018.

"Students without disabilities have lower academic and behavioral outcomes when they are taught in classrooms" with disabled students, especially those with a behavior disorder, she wrote. Teacher turnover is higher when the number of special-needs students rises.

Teachers with lots of special-needs students spend less time on teaching, more time keeping order, according to the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey. That's largely due to an increase in behavior problems.

I see a lot of complaints from teachers who say they weren't prepared to teach students with a variety of special needs and that help was promised but not provided. Some have trouble co-teaching with a special-ed teacher or think the special-ed aide is doing too much (or sometimes too little) for disabled students.