Students who have a ruling in special education have the right to be placed in their least restrictive environment and for many students this is an inclusion classroom. An inclusion classroom is when a student with disabilities is placed in a classroom with their non-disabled peers and it’s the law to do so. IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) has been changed many times. The most notable change regarding inclusion was 1997 when Congress made an extensive change to the IEP (individualized education program) regarding participation and progress in the general education curriculum according to Katsiyannis, Shriner, & Yell (2006). This change caused special education teachers to look at placement for students and …show more content…
The goal of any educational program is to help maximize student’s educational performance, according to Algozzine, B., Harris, M., Mutua K., Obiakor, F., Rotatori, A. (2012). For students with disabilities, the environment where they are educated can mean success or failure. Inclusion is built on the belief that all students should be valued members of a school community. Although there have been many debates about inclusion, it can be quite a positive experience for everyone involved. In an inclusive classroom, students with disabilities are given access to a meaningful curriculum and the rigor that goes along with it. Special education is there to assist the students in reaching their full potential, although sometimes special education teachers pull students out of the general education class for things like reading and sometimes this has negative effects. For example, Raul was a third grade bilingual student who liked math and was strong in that area, however when it came to reading, he struggled. He could not focus and was easily distracted during reading instruction; he would not be still and would not answer questions. His teacher was concerned because his reading level was so low and he was becoming a behavior issue; so she requested that he be tested for special education. Raul was tested and did meet the criteria for a student who has a learning disability in reading. He was assigned to a resource teacher who pulled him out of his class for one to two hours daily for help in reading and writing. This ended up being a very negative approach to dealing with his disability because being pulled out did not get his reading level up and his behavior did not improve either. Even when Raul reach middle school and had to leave his class to go the “sped” class, his behaviors would become disruptive. It soon became clear, that Raul should have never