{"id":3709,"date":"2011-12-20T13:53:28","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T18:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=3709"},"modified":"2011-12-22T14:19:49","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T19:19:49","slug":"why-everyone-learns-more-when-students-with-disabilities-are-included","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/20\/why-everyone-learns-more-when-students-with-disabilities-are-included\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Everyone Learns More When Students With Disabilities Are Included"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3712\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 140px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Julie Causton-Theoharis has researched the effects of inclusion on students with disabilities and those without. Research shows both benefit from being in the classroom toghether, she said.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/julie-2.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3712\" title=\"julie 2\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/julie-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"140\" height=\"211\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Syracuse University<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julie Causton-Theoharis has researched the effects of inclusion on students with disabilities and those without. Research shows both benefit from being in the classroom toghether, she said.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>More than 86 percent of charter schools do not enroll a single student with severe disabilities, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/14\/no-choice-florida-charter-schools-failing-to-serve-students-with-disabilities\/\">StateImpact Florida <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/14\/no-choice-florida-charter-schools-failing-to-serve-students-with-disabilities\/\">investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>School district data shows that students with disabilities are often clustered into a small number of specialty charter schools. Meanwhile, most charter schools enroll very few students with profound disabilities &#8212; if any at all.<\/p>\n<p>Charter school advocates note that schools specializing in disabilities are opening across the state. Many readers responded with a shrug: <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/15\/cashing-in-on-kids-investigations-raise-questions-about-florida-charter-schools\/\">&#8220;So what?,&#8221;<\/a> they asked.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers say those enrollment patterns matter because evidence shows both students with disabilities and students without disabilities learn more when placed in the classroom together.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think for a long time people thought inclusion was a good idea because it\u2019s a social justice issue; because it\u2019s really an educational right of all students to have access to the general ed content.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/disabilitystudies.syr.edu\/who\/jcaustontheoharis.aspx\">Julie Causton-Theoharis<\/a>, an education professor at the University of Syracuse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But right now we\u2019re pretty excited by the academic achievement gains of students with disabilities in inclusive settings. The other piece that\u2019s a little surprising is the academic gains by students without disabilities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/19\/mdc-school-board-member-charter-school-turned-away-my-daughter-because-of-autism\/\">MDC School Board Member: Charter School Turned Away My Daughter Because of Autism<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/14\/no-choice-florida-charter-schools-failing-to-serve-students-with-disabilities\/\">No Choice: Florida Charter Schools Failing to Serve Students With Disabilities<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/16\/five-questions-about-disabilities-law-answered\/\">Five Questions About Charter Schools and Disabilities Law<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/IMG_01491-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/topic\/disabled-in-florida-charters\/\">No Choice: Students With Disabilities and Florida\u2019s Charter Schools<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Those sentiments are echoed by <a href=\"http:\/\/provost.ucf.edu\/profile\/sandra-l-robinson\/\">Sandra Robinson<\/a>, dean of the school of education at the University of Central Florida. Robinson recommended her granddaughter enroll in an elementary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucpcfl.org\/\">charter school operated by United Cerebral Palsy<\/a> that serves a 60-40 mix of students with disabilities and without.<\/p>\n<p>The school allows teachers in training to experience the classrooms of the future, Robinson said.<\/p>\n<p>Critics of inclusion argue it is less cost-effective to educate students with disabilities and those without together. Schools which can concentrate in a disability reduce the need to hire outside specialists for therapy and other services.<\/p>\n<p>Teachers have often opposed the idea, including the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aft.org\/about\/resolution_detail.cfm?articleid=178\">American Federation of Teachers<\/a> in the 1990s. The British architect of inclusion once said the policy had a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/education\/education-news\/specialneeds-education-does-mainstream-inclusion-work-470960.html\">&#8220;a disastrous legacy.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A common public perception &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2011\/12\/14\/143659449\/florida-charter-schools-failing-disabled-students\">read the comments to our original story on NPR.org<\/a> &#8212; is that students with disabilities are a distraction to teachers and classmates.<\/p>\n<p>But advocates argue the extra resources spent to make classrooms inclusive pays dividends.<\/p>\n<p>Often the classroom will have a general education teacher and a special education teacher. Those teachers will collaborate on lesson plans to make sure it&#8217;s tailored for every student in the classroom.<\/p>\n<p>That is the case at UCP&#8217;s Orange County charters, where school leaders believe two teachers are better than one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because you\u2019ve got these two teachers teaching together and planning together they end up creating lessons that are far more differentiated, far more inclusive, often far more creative,&#8221; Causton-Theoharis said. &#8220;And all the students benefit from those resources being provided in the general education classroom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Causton-Theoharis often works with what she calls segregated schools to help them become more inclusive. She said schools are often reluctant to change at first.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think there is a lot of resistance and fear to inclusion. There\u2019s always a vocal minority who says &#8216;This isn\u2019t right; this shouldn\u2019t be happening; these kids need to be separate,'&#8221; she said. &#8220;What we find after three years of working with a school is sometime those resistors are the ones that end up to be the biggest proponents of inclusion at the end.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have spent hundreds of hours in segregated classrooms,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I have yet to see a segregated classroom that is better than the general education setting.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than 86 percent of charter schools do not enroll a single student with severe disabilities, according to a StateImpact Florida investigation. School district data shows that students with disabilities are often clustered into a small number of specialty charter schools. Meanwhile, most charter schools enroll very few students with profound disabilities &#8212; if any [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":3728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1009,210,222,1100],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3719,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions\/3719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}