The Inclusion Conundrum

Inclusion is the practice, very much in vogue, of placing special needs students alongside their non-disabled peers. Almost without exception, I hear inclusion described as an unmitigated good by educators who value the peer group effect and lessened stigma that comes from this approach. Also with few exceptions, I hear inclusion described derisively by parents who equate inclusion with a dilution or even "dumbing-down" of school.That the issue is described by school people and parents in such stark terms almost sounds like the global warming debate in politics in the United States. I hear lots of anecdotes on both sides, and plenty of invocations of morality, but little if any hard, peer-reviewed evidence one way or another. Parents, whipsawn through the math wars, fear that inclusion is just the education fad du jour, and that their children will suffer from its effects long after the field moves on to something else. And, they may be right.The alternative is for educators to back up their arguments with data, and to (figuratively and literally) walk parents through how dilution will be avoided. Rinse and repeat. Education is a confidence business - parents continue to enroll because they have confidence that we will deliver for their child(ren). The political capital generated by this trust easily erodes easily, and is rarely sufficient by itself to withstand inattention by administrators.