mainstreaming: The practice of placing students with disabilities in regular classrooms; also known as inclusion. (Ed Source)
The Case Against Mainstreaming
I remember when my sister, a young lady with Mosaic Down's Syndrome, was being considered for the least restrictive environment. My parents had made the effort to find a program that was tailor made for kids like my sister. We'd visited, and we'd all been very pleased with the program and it's focus on helping children communicate and grow.
Then the public school said, "No".
It took immense effort and legal help to get that "No" turned into a "Yes...if you insist."
Mainstreaming is a wonderful idea, on paper. It's done incredible good getting our kids taken OUT of that little back room in the schools where all the unwanted kids are placed and into the same school we all demand for our kids.
It's helped.
And the teachers that didn't want them? Most of them have been educated to realize and appreciate that they are ALL our kids; not a distraction; not a disturbance; not a statistical lowering of the teacher's record.
Yet, there are still problems. What if there is a better program than the public school? Least Restrictive Environment is still the public school. What if the child is gifted in some way? Least Restrictive Environment is still the public school. It's not about what would best help the child; it's about keeping the child in school, where every dollar counts.
My own daughter reads at a fifth-grade level at age six. Even after testing they made one chance: they moved her up to first grade. Now what is my child going to do in first grade when her lowest subject is math at third? The teacher was restricted from teaching anything above first grade curriculum. We home teach our daughter now.
Mainstreaming is a wonderful idea, but when public schools use it for convenience, when they keep kids in public school when a private school could do more for a child, we have a case of a law gone wrong.
If you have seen evidence of this, and think it needs changing, contact your State government. They change the State educational code and can make the adaptions necessary to set a new standard, that puts the child first, not the public schools.
We must never lose inclussion, and often, parents win the battle to get their kids into a better placement.
They shouldn't have to fight for it in the first place, should they?
