Thomas Hehir - Effective Inclusive Schools

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hehir, Thomas.

Effective inclusive schools : designing successful schoolwide programs / by Thomas Hehir with Lauren I.

Katzman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-88014-2 (pbk.), 978-1-118-13363-7 (ebk.), 978-1-118-13364-4 (ebk.),

978-1-118-13365-1 (ebk.)

1. Inclusive educationUnited States. 2. School management and organizationUnited

States. 3. Mainstreaming in educationUnited States. I. Katzman, Lauren I. II. Title.

LC1201.H44 2012

371.9'0460973dc23

2011039117

About the Authors

Thomas Hehir, Ed.D., is the Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professor of Practice in Learning Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs from 1993 to 1999, Hehir was responsible for federal leadership in implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and played a leading role in developing the Clinton administration's proposal for the 1997 reauthorization of IDEA. In 1990, Hehir was associate superintendent for the Chicago Public Schools, where he implemented major changes in the special education service delivery system, enabling Chicago to reach significantly higher levels of compliance with the IDEA and resulting in the eventual removal of oversight by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. Hehir served in a variety of positions in the Boston Public Schools from 1978 to 1987, including that of director of special education from 1983 to 1987. An advocate for children with disabilities in the education system, he has written extensively on special education, special education in the reform movement, due process, and least restrictive environment issues.

Lauren I. Katzman, Ed.D., is executive director of special education for the New York City Department of Education. Previously Dr. Katzman served as associate professor of special education at Boston University's School of Education. Prior to earning her doctorate at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, Katzman worked for fourteen years as a special education teacher in New York, New Jersey, and Missouri.

Preface: On Ableism

Have you taught people with disabilities like me before?

Will we do math in second grade?

If I find something challenging, what do you request that I do?

Anthony, a first grader at
the Henderson Inclusion
Elementary School in Boston

Anthony has cerebral palsy and insisted on being part of the process of selecting his new second grade teacher. This young disability activist had previously been successful in advocating for accommodated recess activities for both himself and for a friend with autism.

Anthony's parents are pleased with their son's school, having already experienced an unsuccessful placement in another school. If you have a typically developing kid, you have a litany of choices. If you have a specially developing child, then you're presented with an option, said Anthony's mother, who became emotional speaking about their decision. And then what happens when you think this school is not a good fit for my child? It's just hard.

If you have a typically developing kid, you have a litany of choices. If you have a specially developing child, then you're presented with an option.

The story of Anthony and his parents inspired us to write this book. As two career-long special educators deeply committed to children with disabilities and to improving special education, our experience has taught us that Anthony's story is far too rare. Effective inclusive education is difficult for most parents and caregivers of children with disabilities to obtain for their kids. Finding the right program for a child with a disability often entails inordinate effort.

However, as Anthony's story illustrates, there are schools, like the Henderson, that have been successful in providing effective inclusive special education services. As individuals involved in preparing new teachers and school leaders, we believed the dearth of research on successful practices in inclusive education compromised our ability to prepare future educators. We therefore sought to conduct a study that looked deeply at practices within highly successful inclusive schools.

The failure of the education system to provide more widespread options for children and families undoubtedly has many causes. Schools were designed for average students, not for those with complex needs. However, despite nearly forty years of federal law that seeks to provide greater access to education for students with disabilities, we see the lack of effective inclusive options for parents and children as a reflection of broader, deeply held negative attitudes in society toward people with disabilitiesa term we call ableism .

Thomas Hehir has written extensively on this subject.

As Tom Hehir wrote in the Harvard Educational Review in Spring 2002: Applied to schooling and child development, ableist preferences become particularly apparent. From an ableist perspective, the devaluation of disability results in societal attitudes that uncritically assert that it is better for a child to walk than roll, speak than sign, read print than read Braille, spell independently than use a spell-check, and hang out with nondisabled kids as opposed to other disabled kids, etc. In short, in the eyes of many educators and society, it is preferable for disabled students to do things in the same manner as nondisabled kids.