Some children are placed in special education because their teachers are fed up with them disturbing class. Once they're in the special education system, it's very difficult to get out. We need to distinguish the students in that type of situation from the kids who really need more restrictive environments. We need to come to the understanding that some children do benefit from various forms of special learning in separate classrooms, but only for a period of time. We know that the vast majority of at-risk children benefit a great deal from being with their peers in the regular classroom.
Inclusion is part of the larger social movement towards diversity.
Instead of saying here are the 80 percent who are 'normal,' and here are the 20 percent who are 'abnormal,' inclusion forces you to cut the pie in a different way and discard the primitive labels. Each university together with its partner school defines the target population. Harvard's focus at the Taft Middle School is learning disabilities in relationship with emotional and behavioral problems. The goal of the project is to provide interventions for students at risk for both failure and placement in more restrictive clinical or educational settings. Relationships between adults and children that provide individual attention have been shown to be an essential ingredient for children who succeed despite great adversity.