A Three Ring Circus: Mainstreaming of Our Nation's Classroom

The framework of education has changed a great deal over the last few decades. This change in the education system is partly based upon the fact that the best education possible should be given to all students, including those students with physical or learning disabilities. The term mainstreaming was first used in the 1970s and describes classrooms in which students with disabilities and students who do not have disabilities are together. According to Moore, Gilbreath, and Maiuri, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, reformed in 1997, calls for free and appropriate education for special needs students. The IDEA emphasizes a least restrictive environment, in which children with special needs are educated to the highest of their ability. This system is in constant use in many schools throughout the United States to fulfill the federal requirements that the United States government put in order to ensure that all students no matter if they have a physical, mental or learning disability be placed with and receive the same education as all other students under equal learning conditions (qtd in Toomey 1). Within the education system this issue of mainstre

The IDEA policy presumes that physically and learning disabled children benefit by being placed with non-disabled children. There is no scientific basis for this belief. Indeed, experience shows that such children are more isolated in the regular class, which imposes greater psychological pressure on them, resulting in behavioral problems (Mainstreaming 1).

The issue begins here: Rachel, a mentally retarded, speech impaired 9-year-old with an IQ of 44 and a mental age of 4, sits in a California classroom, obviously staring at a textbook that is upside down in front of her. Across the country in New Jersey, Rafael, a mentally retarded 5-year-old with an IQ of 59 and a mental age of 2 who cannot speak intelligibly and who must be taken to the bathroom every 15 minutes, creates havoc with frequent outbursts, tantrums, and assaults on teachers, aides, and other students (Murphy 1). These scenes are the result of a movement called “full inclusion,” whose supporters declare that putting children like Rachel and Rafael into separate classes is a form of discrimination. Proponents argue that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which says that disabled children should be educated with non-disabled children “to the maximum extent appropriate” (Murphy 1), require full inclusion. Attorney Thomas J. Murphy from Marlton, New Jersey argues that students like Rachel and Rafael are causing a disturbance in the educational process for the non-disabled students in their classes. The teachers cannot fully focus on the non-disabled students in the class because these Rachel and Rafael’s take so much attention even if in most cases an aide is present; the teacher is still teaching the c

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