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Written and edited by Susan Janko and Alice Porter
With contributions by Kristen Anderson, Carolyn Cottam, Shouming Li, and Joan Lieber
Photographs by Barbara Witt
Graphic Design by Sandy Johnson
M a r c h 1 9 9 7
Acknowledgments
About this Report
The Social-Political Landscape of Education
Policy Issues and Portraits
T HE EARLY CHILDHOOD RESEARCH INSTITUTE ON INCLUSION developed this preliminary report, based on research it conducted over nearly two years. The research involved 112 children and their families, in 16 programs and school districts, in 5 states across the nation.
The children and families, educators, and administrators represented in this report were asked to participate because of their involvement in inclusive school programs. They represent our nation's diversity in terms of ethnicity, socio-economic status, languages spoken, and geographic location.
Because the portraits in this report are about individual children, families, and programs, its applicability to the nation as a whole may be questioned by some. We would respond that these stories relating individual experiences are relevant to many because the schools and educational systems in which they originate are shared by many.
It is our intention that this document represent the children, their families, and their schools with fidelity. We also intend that information and stories we present broaden ideas and stimulate dialogue about challenging social issues. Our overriding hope is that the report helps to illuminate differing philoshopies about how and where children should be educated. So to the children, families and educators, we give our thanks for your participation. And to those of you who read and learn about their perspectives, we give our thanks for your consideration.
The Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion is funded by the U.S. Department of Education through Grant #H024k440004. This report does not express the views of the Department of Education. It is based on preliminary findings from research conducted by the following institutions and persons (in alphabetical order within sites):
A MERICAN PHILOSOPHER AND EDUCATOR JOHN DEWEY DESCRIBED LEARNING AS A "PROFOUNDLY SOCIAL EXPERIENCE." Children learn what is important and permissible to society, how and when to behave in certain ways, how to influence and how influential they can be, where they belong and where they are allowed to belong -- all these and more -- through relationships with others.
The social context of child care and classrooms is essential for developing the values we say are important for our children now and as future leaders. These essentials -- citizenship, friendship, responsibility, leadership, empathy -- are difficult to measure. But as population density increases and we have to share less space and fewer resources with more people, many of whom are different from us in their skin color, language, customs, and abilities, these differences of character become more apparent and more important.
This is one of the preliminary findings of the Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion: readiness to learn -- which we define as the long-term ability to prosper in educational settings -- is an important process that families and educators value for their children. But there are other important outcomes as well. For many families and educators with whom we spoke, ensuring that children have opportunities, as well as skills, to participate in activities that are meaningful to them and valued by society is a priority. They are interested in exercising a right they believe to be fundamental in our society -- the freedom to enter and remain in typical settings -- because they believe that is where children learn much of what is important to learn.
This right may come into question when a child is designated as one of more than 600,000 young children in our nation with a disability or delay who is eligible for early childhood special education services. Advocates for early childhood education focus on such goals as social and emotional development, young children's self-esteem, and achieving family-centered programs. These goals are precursors to the values and priorities espoused by leaders of the influential education reform movement, which focus on helping children compete in a technological world. But the picture is complicated by cultural misunderstandings and legal definitions of who is disabled; the availability to pay for special services; the competition among categorical programs for finite resources; the discomfort among professionals to think and act outside the boundaries of their disciplinary training and beliefs; and the demands of educating children in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing society.
Policy is a word that conjures images of important others making decisions that will influence the course of history. Policy makers are believed t manipulate issues they know only in the abstract. But policy is also affected by the actions of tcachers, family members, and others involved in the everyday process of inclusion.
With respect to educational policy for children with disabilities, every time a decision is made to test a child, to label and sort a child as belonging in this or that category, or to place a child in this classroom rather than that classroom, a policy is interpreted and enacted. Educators are de facto policy makers every day. The integrity of a given policy is dependent in part upon educators' awareness and understanding of the policy; their knowledge and competence in interpreting it consistent with the spirit and intent of the policy; the temporal, monetary, and organizational resources they have available to support the policy; and the reconciliation they make when discrepancies between the spirit and intent and the reality of implementing policies during their daily work inevitably arise.
In this report, we seek to demystify the vagaries and complexities that surround education policy, and at the same time, remove the rose-colored glasses through which advocates of inclusion sometimes portray inclusive education services. Our strategy is to present 10 policy issues -- gleaned from an analysis of more than 150 in-depth interviews with families, teachers, and district and state education agency administrators, and many hundreds of observations of children and teachers in classroom settings -- and to use real case studies to illustrate how these policies influence the lives of young children with disabilities and their families and schools.
This report is based on themes initially identified in Washington State and supported by data from other study sites. It is part of more comprehensive research conducted by the Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion. The research and products generated by this institute, as with most education research institutes, are likely to reach primarily academic audiences. It is our intent in this report to make information accessible and useful to elected and appointed, as well as de facto, policy makers -- including legislators, program administrators, educators, and families concerned about education policies for young children.
More comprehensive information generated by the Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion, and printed copies of this report, are available through:
Dr. Susan Janko
Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion
University of Washington
College of Education
Box 353600
Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 543-1827
sjanko@u.washington.edu
I N MANY WAYS, THIS IS AN ENLIGHTENED ERA FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION. Most public policy makers accept the link, indicated in a growing body of research, between early learning experiences and later school and workplace achievement. State governments spend more than $2 billion a year on early childhood programs to prepare young children to succeed in school and to promote their healthy development.
These programs also address sweeping social changes that are shaping the lives of young children, as more mothers move into the workforce, as more families face poverty and eroding real income, and as schools and communities become more economically and culturally diverse. Public policies focus increasingly on early childhood education as the earliest possible intervention to prevent such social problems as juvenile violence, school failure, and welfare dependency.
Early childhood programs thus have a more complex mission than ever before. They must comply with a proliferation of federal, state, and local rules that often conflict with each other, and in most cases, were intended for older populations. They must finance growing responsibilities with public and private resources that are separately administered and monitored. And in this confusing and demanding environment, they attempt to meet the needs of a growing number of children who qualify for special education services and an early childhood education mandated by state and federal law.
More than 600,000 young children are enrolled in special education throughout the United States, accounting for about 11% of total U.S. special education enrollment. The number of young children enrolled in special education has grown rapidly in the past decade. During this time, advocates and families have encouraged policy makers to alter both the design and objective of special education for both age groups. Historically, children with disabilities and the special education programs that serve them were characterized by physical and political separation from typically developing children. Today, early childhood programs are often the first venue for the policy of inclusion of children with disabilities in typical school and community settings.
Policy versus Practice
Inclusive school practices evolved from a principle included in the landmark Public Law 94-142, the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act, reauthorized and renamed in l990 as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA guarantees children receiving special education -- including young children with disabilities -- will receive a "free appropriate public education" in the "least restrictive environment." The bind is ensuring that children have unimpeded and supported opportunities to participate in activities and belong in peer groups and still receive the individualized attention they need to acquire developmental skills.
Placement in the "least restrictive environment" is fundamental for learning from and about the greater community and culture, but some educators and parents are concerned that the practice may compromise the learning of basic skills by children with special needs -- and by their typically developing peers.
Inclusion is at most an implicit concept in state and federal education law, and we have no widely agreed-upon definition of inclusion that is applied in all environments in which children with disabilities and those without disabilities come together. We are better able to define characteristics of inclusive environments -- that no child is rejected because of a disability, that children with disabilities are represented in natural populations (about 10% to 12%), that children with disabilities have the opportunity to attend child care and schools in their own neighborhoods.
Any public policy essentially represents only a wish -- a goal that what the law says will be met. Inclusion is a goal that only some of the schools and programs identifying themselves as inclusive have achieved. The successful ones have been able to make creative use of resources and collaborative approaches. Others have met the goal "on paper" only, adhering to the letter of special education guidelines but leaving children and families isolated in spirit.
The Changing Social Context
Among all students with disabilities, only about half are diagnosed with disability-related problems that began before they were 6 years old. When children begin school, they enter the door of social research that accompanies publicly funded services. Researchers study
demographics, health status, and educational and developmental progress. These data show that the number of children in early childhood special education programs has increased in the past two decades along with poverty, a growing share of single-parent families, substance abuse (particularly among pregnant women), and reported prevalence of domestic violence.
Among families with these risk factors, there is a higher percentage of children with identifiable disabilities and a greatly disproportionate number of children who are made eligible for special education and related services because of poor performance on developmental tests. During the past decade, according to data collected through the national Kids Count Project, conditions that place families under stress have greatly increased. The rate of low weight births has increased despite focused efforts in many states to bring more women into timely prenatal care. Birth rates for unmarried teenagers were rising until recently, and the share of families headed by single parents is still increasing. Nearly a third of the nation's children lived in poor or near-poor families (with incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty line) in 1995. About 1 of every 6 children lived in a household with no adult male present, and about 1 of every 14 lived in a neighborhood where more than half of all families with children were female-headed.
Many children persevere against poverty, inadequate caregiving, cultural barriers, and other conditions that affect their readiness to learn. Nonetheless, the growing number of children and families at risk is putting increasing pressure on school districts. Administrators reach into special education funds, when possible, to finance a broad range of special services for children with special needs. This is one of the factors driving enrollment in special education nationwide; enrollment for 3-21 year-olds has grown by nearly 70%#037; since the mid-1970s, a period in which over-all school enrollment has been largely stable.
Public schools' expanding role as a provider of and conduit for social services is not the only driver of special education enrollment. Advocates have learned to work with families to identify and demand services state and federal laws guarantee to children with disabilities. Vigorous "child find" required by IDEA and coordinated by school districts identifies children who need early intervention services. And by some accounts, medical advancements since the 1970s that save many premature and medically vulnerable children from death have contributed to the rising number of children with special needs attending school.
The Changing Political Context
Federal and state laws establish most special education policies, and local school districts provide the services and usually contribute to meeting costs. Americans spend about $32 billion on special education services every year. But President Clinton requests only $3.2 billion for fiscal 1998 through IDEA. Advocates have fought hard to preserve special education grants to early childhood programs, which amount to about $375 million in the 1998 budget request, as well as IDEA "Part H" funding for identification and early intervention services of 0-3 year olds (about $325 million).
State governments assume about 56% of special education costs on average. They convey money to local school districts according to funding formulas that differ in every state. Local school districts must spend their own resources to make up the difference
between the real costs of providing special education and state and federal outlays. Before district budgets can be tapped, however, local communities must support this investment. Communities that provide the strongest support for special education are often those in which diversity, and the participation of people with disabilities in the breadth of community life, are highly valued.
During the 1980s and '90s, public education spending has been subject to intense scrutiny. As with health system reform, policy makers are looking for value, cost-effectiveness, and measurable performance outcomes. Reformers are looking to changes in big funding streams, such as Medicaid and special education, to curb spending. In contrast to the direction of most educational policy in the 1970s and '80s, federal lawmakers increasingly support devolution of authority over programs and resources to states and to local communities. This trend places special education policy more within the influence of local political culture.
The Changing Educational Context
In the midst of the public debate over authority and spending on special education, services at the classroom level are undergoing fundamental change. For a decade after passage of comprehensive federal legislation, special education implemented a "pull out and fix it" model -- using segregated learning environments in separate classes and "resource rooms," usually under the supervision of a special education teacher. When teachers deemed it possible, special education students were gradually integrated, or "mainstreamed," into regular classrooms, to the extent their presence fit in with established curriculum, teaching practices, and teacher preferences.
In the 1990s, this direction has been gradually replaced by the reverse approach: starting
most students in regular classrooms and removing them to restrictive environments to the minimum extent necessary. Many early childhood special education programs, which were incorporated into the national system by 1986 amendments to IDEA, have developed according to this model. Today, more than two-thirds of special education students receive services in general education classrooms about 40% of the time. It is not yet known how inclusive policies affect the costs of special education.
Inclusive school practices are gaining acceptance, but they require a rethinking of education policy by all those involved. Administrators must learn to blend categorical education funds into single, inclusive classrooms, despite the pressures of monitoring and audits. And inclusive programs require advocates and families to set aside long-established patterns of "fighting" for special services to embrace systems that are flexible and collaborative.
The promise of inclusive education is that, by providing services tailored to the needs and aspirations of each child, learning will become richer for all. But is it possible to achieve this standard in systems that are buffeted by politics and tightening resources?
We have identified 10 policy themes related to preschool inclusion. These themes may be understood in the context of social policy, the political environment, and special education. They are intended to shed light on the places where inclusion policies and reality converge -- in community schools and classrooms.
Go back to Table of Contents | Next section: The Key Policy Issues and Portraits
All the names of people, programs, and localities have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved. The photographs were taken at a variety of project sites and do not represent the children in the report.
This information is posted here with permission of
ECRII: The Early Childhood Institute for Research on Inclusion
and the project's previous principal investigator, Samuel Odom
slodom@unc.eduby New Horizons for Learning
http://www.newhorizons.org
E-mail: info@newhorizons.orgThis area of the website is made possible by a grant from the
Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Special Education
P O Box 47200
Olympia, WA 98504-7200
(360) 725-6088
Fax (360)586-1631
E-mail: dgill@ospi.wednet.edu
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