Education policies may either facilitate or impede the inclusion of preschool children with disabilities in regular school programs depending upon the interpretations and actions of school administrators, educators, and family members involved in the day-to-day process of education. This is a preliminary finding of the Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion (ECRII), a consortium involving researchers from the University of North Carolina, Vanderbilt University, University of Maryland, San Francisco State University, and the University of Washington. ECRII was established by the U.S. Department of Education in 1994 for the purpose of identifying barriers to the inclusion of young children with disabilities in typical education settings and investigating strategies for overcoming those barriers.
Outlined below are 10 key policy issues researchers at ECRII gleaned from an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected from 128 children and families, educators, and administrators from 16 early childhood school programs, and districts, in 5 states during the initial 2 years of a 5-year-study. This summary of policy issues represents the Institute's emerging understanding of the ways in which education policies influence the education services children with disabilities and their families experience every day. A more complete report, Portraits of Inclusion Through The Eyes of Children, Families, and Teachers, further describing these issues and sharing illustrative case studies is available from ECRII.
Issue #1. Categorical Programs. Federal and state laws mandating publicly funded services rely on categorical definitions to identify those children entitled to services and how those entitled should be served. These categorical services and definitions are difficult to coordinate by school administrators who must oversee multiple programs with different regulations and reporting guidelines. Moreover, inclusive preschool education programs are frequently implemented in tandem with other programs such as Head Start, Chapter 1, and community child care resulting in multiple program placements and transitions for young children, and conflicting educational models and philosophies for families and educators.
Issue #2. Categorical Funding. Early childhood special education services are federally required, but they are supported primarily by state, local, and private funding sources. Because publicly supported early childhood programs are not universally available to young children in the United States, school district administrators must create inclusive preschool programs by combining discrete programs and funding sources in an effort to address the complex and changing needs of children and families. Discrete programs and funding require school districts to "sort" children into program categories, and they require intensive oversight.
Issue #3. Categorical Thinking. Schools increasingly acknowledge the importance of cooperative ownership and responsibility among families, communities, and schools in educating children. But much of school financing, staffing, and administration continues to center on discrete programs rather than on the unique needs of individual children. School districts may administer a complex mix of services that "look good on paper" and meet minimum legal requirements while programs continue to operate in isolation, confounding teachers and families and violating the central premise of inclusive education--to promote children's membership and participation in their neighborhood schools and communities.
Issue #4. Cultural Context of Education. Schools in the United States struggle to design programs that accommodate the growing number of children and families from diverse geographic, linguistic, and economic backgrounds. In addition, changing family configurations and social challenges--such as single-parent families, parental drug use, homelessness, and family violence--have resulted in an increase in the number of children served in special education programs and the problems educators must address. The majority of these children do not have clearly identifiable disabilities; rather their more subtle disabilities are linked to the declining social, health, and economic status of young children in our nation.
Issue #5. Community Context of Education. Federal and state governments create most early childhood special education policies, but school districts are run locally, and their services reflect local values about education. Some small- to mid-sized school districts have successful inclusive classrooms because communication among teachers, families, and the community is frequent, direct, and informal. School districts that encourage creative models--such as multi-age groupings, alternative curricula, and coordinated services that address the range of children's social, health, and education needs--appear to be more likely to embrace children with diverse skills and abilities.
Issue #6. Parochial Professional Development and Practice. Inclusive models of education alter the environment in which regular educators, special educators, and therapists work. In addition, educators unaccustomed to children with disabilities--such as families who did not anticipate the birth of a child with disabilities--especially need information and support. To accommodate a more diverse group of students, educators and administrators from multiple disciplines need coordinated training beginning during pre-service education at colleges and universities and continuing with professional development activities as they practice.
Issue #7. Unions, Litigation, and Inclusion. The autonomy and creativity necessary for inclusion is restricted by long-term contracts with teachers' unions and by fear of litigation from families and advocacy groups. Conflict may also occur among early childhood regular educators who are rarely union members and make substantially lower salaries than public school employees. Truly inclusive programs demand that teachers, administrators, families, and advocates alike shift their focus from the letter of the law (contracts, rights, and due process) to the spirit of the law (collaboration and communitywide solutions).
Issue #8. Regulation and Compliance, or Accountability and Quality. Inclusive education programs must comply with multiple federal and state regulations and account for use of public monies from multiple sources. Regulation is a necessary burden that consumes staff time, generates paperwork, and requires strict adherence to mandated procedures and timelines. Regulations discourage creativity and flexibility among administrators, and are unrelated to standards of program quality and monitoring for program development and improvement.
Issue #9. Ebb and Flow of Public Dollars. About 56 percent of special education costs are in excess of the cost of regular education. These "excess costs" are covered by state funds; the state contribution ranges from 11 percent of costs to 95 percent. Less than 8 percent of excess costs are covered by the federal government. State and local entities must allocate funds to implement mandated special education services, but when sufficient resources are lacking, school district management may shift priorities and resources in a manner that is idiosyncratic and reactive rather than strategic and anticipatory.
Issue #10. Costs of Inclusion. Federal and state agencies during the 1990s have learned to save costs by shifting clients, when possible, to other programs for which they may be eligible. It has recently become common practice, for example, for children with disabilities to be enrolled in federal disability programs to reduce fiscal pressures on states. Inclusion is a policy that contradicts this trend by bringing individuals, programs, and budgets together; by emphasizing collaboration; and by blurring agency boundaries and jurisdictions. This collaboration requires the documentation of cross-categorical, real-time, and associated (e.g., transportation, training) costs of inclusion. This is one reason why, although educating children with disabilities in typical settings undeniably affects special education costs, no one knows exactly how.
(*The Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion invites comments and questions regarding these preliminary policy issues. Send comments to Susan Janko at the University of Washington, College of Education, Box 353600, Seattle, Washington 98195; phone (206) 543-1827. For information about other work conducted by ECRII, please contact Sam Odom, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Education, CB 3500-Peabody Hall, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, phone: (919) 933-5579.)
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