School Beat: Is Inclusive Education a Privilege or a Right?Katy Franklin and Rachel Powell Nortonbyline‚ Feb. 16‚ 2006Despite laws prohibiting such discrimination and segregation, more than 65% of San Francisco Unified School District schools ban children with special needs from being educated in classrooms alongside their typical peers. “Our school does not have an inclusion program,” is the polite way the school administrators put it. But, to parents seeking an inclusive education for their children who have disabilities, it is the same as being told, “We don’t enroll their kind here.” The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), the Federal law which guides special education, mandates that all children have the right to a free, appropriate public education, regardless of disabilities. It also requires that children with disabilities be educated in the “least restrictive environment,” or the setting in which children can participate with their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent possible. |