OPTIMAL EDUCATION

Optimal Educational Environment

Optimal Educational Environment

Introduction

The concept of “mainstreaming” was developed in the mid-1980s as an initial attempt to provide access to general education. Mainstreaming can be defined as the process of transferring students who are being served in separate, special education classrooms into general education classrooms, on the basis of two criteria. Criteria for mainstreaming individuals with disabilities were (1) academic achievement at or near grade level requiring little accommodation or support and (2) behavior that was manageable with minimal supports. The concept of mainstreaming created an educational reform movement referred to as the Regular Education Initiative of the mid-1980s. This reform led in turn to the inclusion movement of the mid-1990s. This entry discusses the history and development of mainstreaming, the movement from mainstreaming to inclusive practices, the difference between mainstreaming and inclusion, and issues related to the field of education maintaining a mainstreaming mind-set.

Background

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, later reauthorized as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), was the seminal law giving students with disabilities access to public school. Prior to the passage of IDEA, students with disabilities were not guaranteed access to public education. State policies could deny access. IDEA created the first inclusive education movement for individuals with disabilities by allowing those individuals access to public school campuses. Although the law mandated that students be educated in the least restrictive environment, in practice many students with disabilities were limited to primarily physical access to the public school campus and facilities. Segregated classes for students with disabilities were the primary means of service at that time in the public school setting.

In 1986, Madeleine Will, former assistant secretary of education, introduced the Regular Education Initiative. Will proposed that a separate system to educate students with primarily mild to moderate disabilities out of the “mainstream” of general education was limiting the educational achievements and experiences of those students. By constructing outstanding education programs for students with disabilities that were different from general education programs, students with disabilities were excluded from participation in general education. Lack of efficacy data supporting greater academic gains by students with disabilities in separate programs supported this movement.

The Regular Education Initiative was a call for reform of both outstanding education and conventional education systems. The Regular Education Initiative was launched as an educational movement; to have general education teachers assumes responsibility for the education of students with disabilities. The Regular Education Initiative proposed that general education and outstanding education teachers cooperate to return students with disabilities to the mainstream of general education. It supported a merger between the academic systems of outstanding education and general education (College of Syntonic Optometry, 2002).

Best practices for ensuring the safety of students

To determine whether students are eligible to receive optimal educational environment instruction or services, they must be evaluated using assessments that are not biased with regard to race, culture, or disability. Decisions regarding students cannot be based on one test. Rather students must be assessed by a multidisciplinary team in their native ...