Best Academic Practices for Inclusive Classrooms

Concerning the title of this article: What is meant by "best?"Best means the finest, the greatest, the highest."Best" for whom?Effective inclusion is best for everyone, not just students with disabilities."Academic" practices toward what type of goal?Is the academic goal for a given student in the cognitive, affective, or psychomotor domain of learning?For example, a student with a learning disability may be working on cognitive IEP goals that emphasize reading and writing skills.A student with emotional or behavioral disorders may have affective IEP goals that emphasize ways to deal effectively with frustration.If a student with severe cognitive disabilities has affective IEP goals related to communicating during social situations, is the communication considered a cognitive area, or even a psychomotor area, for that student?A student with a physical disability may have psychomotor IEP goals that relate to reaching, manipulating, and movement.For each of these students, academics can encompass any of the domains of learning.Academic practices, therefore, are not confined to traditional content achievement areas such as reading, mathematics, and science.Conversely, are there best academic practices for exclusive, or segregated, settings?Baker ( 1994) contends that servicing students in separate environments came about through measurements that indicated a student was not successful in the mass educational system of the times, and not as a result of measures comparing students' success in noninclusive educational practices to inclusive ones.Similarly, Sobsey and Dreimanis (1993) note that a segregated service delivery model did not develop as a result of empirical research or evaluation.More recently, court decisions have placed the burden of proof on school systems to provide data that describe students' performance in inclusive environments with supple- mentary aids and services prior to removing students from these environments to more segregated ones (Yell, 1995).Baker concludes that current evidence that does compare students' achievement in integrated to segregated environments does not support the use of noninclusive environments for the education of students with disabilities.A mistaken impression of inclusion is that special education is not needed.The fallacy is that if more students with disabilities spend more time in general education classrooms, the numbers of students who need specialized services diminish such that the quantity of students for a special educator's caseload eliminates the need for as many special education teachers.On the contrary, the need for specialized services and special educators is not re-