Case-by-Case Reintegration of Students with Learning Disabilities

Since Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, there has been a steady rise in the number of students enrolled in special education programs in our nation's schools. One apparent reason is that children with disabilities are infrequently moved into regular classrooms, where they may be decertified as "handicapped." This article describes an evaluation of a 5-month process by which pupils receiving special education math were moved "case by case," or 1 at a time, into regular education math. 2 features of the process were unique: curriculum-based measurement (CBM) and transenvironmental programming (TP). Evaluation of the reintegration effort involved 13 and 21 special education and regular education teachers, respectively, and 44 reintegration candidates. Half the students participated in CBM- and TP-aided reintegration; the remaining half were readied for reintegration in the "usual" manner. In interviews, students reintegrated with CBM and TP were more positive about leaving special education and confident about doing well in regular math classes. They also obtained higher teacher-assigned grades. However, important methodological limitations of the evaluation dictate that we view such findings as encouraging rather than as proof of the effectiveness of the reintegration effort.