Rittel and Webber (Reference Rittel and Webber1973) wrote, ‘The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, because of the nature of these problems. They are “wicked” problems, whereas science has developed to deal with “tame problems”’ (p. 155). The social professions (e.g., education) have evolved as conduits for application of scientific knowledge from their respective disciplines (e.g., psychology). As such, they assume responsibility for planning functions and guidance in formulation of social policy. Yet the relationship of knowledge production (science) to applications (profession) breaks down in the face of wicked problems. A problem is wicked, in Rittel and Webber's terms, when its solution is bound up in its formulation and the context of the problem militates against its formulation. Within different professional groupings are people with different values, epistemological preferences, and so on, and solutions for social policy problems become caught up in the conflicts among them. Knowledge production proceeds apace in support of all solutions until one prevails. New solutions to old wicked problems may result in the overthrow of prevalent paradigms (Kuhn, Reference Kuhn1970; Skrtic, Reference Skrtic, Meyen, Vergason and Whelan1993).
‘Inclusion’ of students with ‘disabilities’ in general education arrangements fits the definition of a wicked problem. The significance of this problem rests in the current values underpinning a large slice of international social policy in education, which appear to be largely driven by the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (Ministry of Education and Science, Spain, & United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 1994). The Salamanca framework emerged in response to earlier social policy guidelines for ‘special’ education that failed to adequately address the issue of inclusion (Ainscow & César, Reference Ainscow and César2006; McMaster, Reference McMaster2013). This framework called for all students to be educated in inclusive schools by 2015. That year has now receded into history and the wicked problem of inclusion remains unsolved as exemplified by its continued relative absence in schools worldwide (Brock & Schaefer, Reference Brock and Schaefer2015; Kurth, Morningstar, & Kozleski, Reference Kurth, Morningstar and Kozleski2014; Smith, Reference Smith2007).
In this paper my aim is to propose a solution to the problem of inclusion, one that already has some acceptance within public education, but has yet to emerge as a coherent framework for professional practice. The reader has probably noted that I am putting quotes around some commonly accepted terms (i.e., ‘disability’, ‘inclusion’, ‘special’). I do this because the solution I propose calls for reframing the problem (Bolman & Deal, Reference Bolman and Deal2013; Deal & Peterson, Reference Deal and Peterson2009). These three terms lose their commonly understood meanings under the context of the reframed problem.
Epistemology
Reframing the problem of inclusion requires consideration of the means by which the scientific disciplines inform the profession of education. In education one can discern the contributions primarily of four disciplines: biology (mediated through the profession of medicine), sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Of these, the dominant paradigm is contributed through psychology, the science of the individual human. This dominant paradigm holds that disability is a property of individuals and, as such, can be likened to a quasi-disease state (Bogdan & Kugelmass, Reference Bogdan, Kugelmass, Barton and Tomlinson1984; Skrtic, Reference Skrtic, Meyen, Vergason and Whelan1993). As a biological property of individuals, disability can be addressed through scientific knowledge (positivism) in the manner of medicine, namely, diagnosis and prescriptive cure or prosthesis (Schön, Reference Schön1984).
By the logic of post-positivism (e.g., Sailor & Paul, Reference Sailor and Paul2004), children ‘afflicted’ with disability can benefit from the transfer of scientific knowledge into the profession of education through a subbranch of the profession called special education. The term ‘special’ in this context appears to be a somewhat euphemistic characterisation of the recipients as ‘special’ children. Thus, as Skrtic (Reference Skrtic, Meyen, Vergason and Whelan1993) points out, the dominant paradigm of psychology in partnership with medicine ‘place[s] the root cause of deviance within the person, and exclude[s] from consideration causal factors that lie in the larger social and political processes external to the individual’ (p. 170).
Further, the post-positivist paradigm logically points to a need for highly specialised teachers specifically trained in the various disability categories, a need for a specialised curriculum in many cases (e.g., ‘life skills’), and special classrooms or entire schools set aside to provide the special education. As Skrtic (Reference Skrtic, Meyen, Vergason and Whelan1993) puts it,
Real progress in special education will require a different frame of reference. At a minimum, it will require that special education take seriously the critics of its theoretical and applied knowledge, and thus of its taken-for-granted assumptions. It will require criticism in the classical sense — self-reflective examination of the limits and validity of special education knowledge. But the problem is that the professional community of special education will not readily accept theoretical criticism, precisely because it contradicts the field's taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of disability, diagnosis, special education, and progress. (p. 171)
Slee and Allan (Reference Slee and Allan2001) advanced a similar view writing from the perspective of critical theory. Citing Hall and Jacques (Reference Hall and Jacques1989), they argued that the values underlying policy directives favouring inclusion have been subverted, from an emancipatory project to a conservative one driven by the dominant epistemology of positivism within special education. From a critical theory perspective, the construct of inclusion gets caught up in the politics of special education (Barton, Reference Barton1987). With the post-World War II shift in the United States (US), for example, from a manufacturing economy to a service economy (McKnight, Reference McKnight1995), special education can be seen as a promising ‘market maker’. Witness, for example, the expansion of the label ‘autism’ from a distinct pathological syndrome three decades ago, to ‘autism spectrum disorder’ now, with new subcategories of diagnostic tools, specialised professionals, and unique teaching/learning configurations. In Australia, the adoption of the individualised educational program (IEP) from the US Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 (IDEA) may be seen as a driver for the expansion of students identified for special education from 2.6% in 1998 to 4.8% in 2009 (Dempsey, Reference Dempsey2012). The ever-expanding categorical specialisation within special education poses a direct challenge to inclusive, more sociologically driven systems of support within education and, as such, is strongly resisted by post-positivist special educators (e.g., Fox & Ysseldyke, Reference Fox and Ysseldyke1997; Kauffman & Hallahan, Reference Kauffman and Hallahan1995; Kauffman, McGee, & Brigham, Reference Kauffman, McGee and Brigham2004). On the other hand, there are encouraging signs of growing discontent with the unreliability of special education diagnostic categories (McLaughlin, Snyder, & Algina, Reference McLaughlin, Snyder and Algina2015).
Reframing Education as an Alternative to ‘Inclusion’
Perhaps the problem of inclusion is indeed bound up in its definition. Two distinctly different definitions can be discerned from the literature. The dominant, prevailing definition is consistent with post-positivist special education and is placement based. Should we re-place students who have been assigned to a special education classroom into a general education classroom instead (grade-level or content-area; McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner, & Algozzine, Reference McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014, p. i)? Arguments against this approach are prolific in the anti-inclusion literature — general education teachers not trained to handle disability; requires paraprofessionals; may be disruptive to ‘non-disabled’ students; deprives students with disability from needed specialised services and shelter; may compromise test scores under conditions of high-stakes assessment; etc.
From a more sociological, constructivist position, Artiles and Kozleski (Reference Artiles and Kozleski2007, Reference Artiles and Kozleski2016) have advanced a definition that shifts concern away from physical space and toward a conception of equity: the distribution of available evidence-based supports and services to students who need them to successfully engage the teaching/learning process, regardless of the nature of the problem. This definition applies to all students and helps us move away from strict reliance on the medical model of ‘disability’. Furthermore, it shifts emphasis away from the classroom as the unit of analysis and toward whole-school applications (Booth & Ainscow, Reference Booth and Ainscow2011; McMaster, Reference McMaster2013; Sailor, Reference Sailor2009; Sailor & Burrello, Reference Sailor, Burrello, Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013).
Addressing the problem of inclusion through reframing the broader problem of educating all children by shifting away from post-positivist epistemology and toward a more sociological, constructivist project would seem to bring us more into alignment with the United Kingdom (UK) and away from the US and other European approaches (Mintz & Wyse, Reference Mintz and Wyse2015). These authors argue that ‘there has never been any established tradition of specialist education . . . at least in initial teacher training, in the UK’. (p. 1165). Furthermore, ‘In England, teacher training institutions have been strongly influenced by Lewis and Norwich's (Reference Lewis and Norwich2005) argument that there is no such thing as a special needs pedagogy’ (p. 1165). Mintz and Wyse (Reference Mintz and Wyse2015) conclude their critique of special education with what I would interpret as a call to pragmatism (e.g., Rorty, Reference Rorty1989): ‘such a pedagogy is likely to be more effective if it includes an openness to investigating what psychology may have to tell us about those individual needs, which will include particular pedagogic strategies specific to particular diagnostic groups’ (p. 1168). In other words, to go whole-hog postmodern (Lewis & Norwich, Reference Lewis and Norwich2005; Slee & Allan, Reference Slee and Allan2001) and reject instrumentalism's contribution to education entirely would be to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’. Real value exists in scientific knowledge applied to categories of learning problems (e.g., learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, etc.).
Is Inclusion a Pathway to Reframing Education?
Writing from the perspective of a need for broader teacher preparation curricula and praxis, Kozleski and Siuty (Reference Kozleski and Siuty2016) wrote:
Inclusive education is an educational agenda that, in its ideal form, can transform educational policies, structures and agencies. Its implementation demands new patterns and routines in what counts as education, the delivery of opportunities to learn and the forms and processes of student participation. . . . In our view, an inclusive education agenda calls for seismic shifts in how teachers are socialized into the profession, including a curriculum that encompasses critical, contextual and technical knowledge in application. We also advance the notion that teacher education must be a transformative venture in which teacher candidates reframe and renegotiate their own identities as they prepare to teach students whose cultural histories, practices and values may challenge the dominant notion of schooling. (p. 56)
Their view of replacing placement-based definitions of inclusion with a whole-school equity grounded frame can serve as a catalyst for de-marginalising all educational victims of subgrouping.
Similarly, Burrello, Sailor, and Kleinhammer-Tramill (Reference Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013) argued for a shift to the same ends, from a human capital agenda for education to a human capabilities agenda. Looking at US policy, for example, Burrello et al. (Reference Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013) wrote:
While No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was publicly presented as a renewed effort to achieve equity, Apple (Reference Apple2006) and others have critiqued what they perceive as a neoliberal agenda with a feverish commitment to markets, privatization, and commodification of education. Apple feared the hidden implications of this movement are only slowly emerging, which could lead to a separate system of private and public charters serving students with disabilities in separate, segregated settings. Moreover, current discussions of reauthorization of the ESEA (e.g., U.S. Department of Education, 2010) have reemphasized the link between education and employment. (p. 6)
Does Inclusion Produce Better Outcomes for Students?
The question of better student outcomes through inclusion continues to be a thorny and hotly contested issue (Farrell, Dyson, Polat, Hutcheson, & Gallannaugh, Reference Farrell, Dyson, Polat, Hutcheson and Gallannaugh2007; Fuchs et al., Reference Fuchs, Fuchs, Compton, Wehby, Schumacher, Gersten and Jordan2015; Lyons & Cassebohm, Reference Lyons and Cassebohm2012; McLeskey, Landers, Williamson, & Hoppey, Reference McLeskey, Landers, Williamson and Hoppey2012). In the current US political climate, a reframing of educational praxis will be unlikely to advance on the basis of a human rights agenda. Although an equity definition of inclusion is consistent with the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, and thus constitutes expressed American societal values in terms of philosophical pragmatism, policymakers are more likely to be swayed in their leanings on the basis of scientific evidence indicating that new practices should replace the old. Although there is scant literature on longitudinal outcomes accruing to inclusion versus segregation for schooling (see Brown, Shiraga, & Kessler, Reference Brown, Shiraga and Kessler2006, for an exception), there is a rapidly growing body of evidence for better academic and social measured outcomes for students identified for special education during the schooling years (Browder, Hudson, & Wood, Reference Browder, Hudson, Wood, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014; Causton & Theoharis, Reference Causton, Theoharis, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014; Courtade, Jimenez, & Delano, Reference Courtade, Jimenez, Delano, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014; Florian & Rouse, Reference Florian, Rouse, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014; Jackson, Ryndak, & Wehmeyer, Reference Jackson, Ryndak and Wehmeyer2008–2009; Kleinert et al., Reference Kleinert, Towles-Reeves, Quenemoen, Thurlow, Fluegge, Weseman and Kerbel2015; McDonnell et al., Reference McDonnell, Thorson, Disher, Mathot-Buckner, Mendel and Ray2003; Nota, Soresi, & Ferrari, Reference Nota, Soresi, Ferrari, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014; Oh-Young & Filler, Reference Oh-Young and Filler2015; Peetsma, Vergeer, Roeleveld, & Karsten, Reference Peetsma, Vergeer, Roeleveld and Karsten2001).
Each of the references cited above contains reviews of published research investigations favouring outcomes associated with inclusive education. The weighty preponderance of these studies is persuasive, although the issue of the translation of these studies into classroom and schoolwide practices remains challenging (Grima-Farrell, Bain, & McDonagh, Reference Grima-Farrell, Bain and McDonagh2011). Nevertheless, a justifiable warrant is clearly at hand to advance a global social policy agenda to desegregate public education settings and reframe education as a coherent and holistic project with equitable distribution of available evidence-based resources and supports directed to all students on the basis of their measured needs rather than on assumptions about who they are (Sailor & McCart, Reference Sailor and McCart2014).
Emerging Characteristics of Equity-Based Inclusive Education
Thus far, I have proposed that inclusion is a ‘wicked’ problem that can only be understood in terms of its solution, which has not occurred to date and cannot occur under the present frame of global educational structure and praxis. I advanced the thesis that shifting to a different conceptualisation of inclusion grounded in a reframing of public education, with equitable distribution of resources as its basis, points the way to a solution that applies to all students. Next, I review recent literature addressing the issue of what equity-based inclusive education looks like in practice, and then conclude with a conceptual model for schooling grounded in a multi-tiered system of distributing equitable resources across all students.
Structural Elements
If all students, no matter the range and intensity of their needs for support to engage the general curriculum, are to be educated alongside their peers — some of whom require extraordinary services or supports — what should such a school look like? Should the grade-level (or content-area) classroom be the unit of analysis? Should paraprofessionals (teaching assistants) be a part of the picture, and if so, how should they be deployed and what should be their role? How should the school maximise the use of such specialised resources as special education, gifted, second-language instruction, health care, and other ancillary professional resources including parents and indeed the students themselves?
Most approaches to structuring inclusive schools in such a way as to accommodate students with more extensive support needs (i.e., ‘severe disabilities’) follow a placement-based conception of inclusion, which makes the general education classroom the unit of analysis. Whole-school structural conceptions are just beginning to emerge (Booth & Ainscow, Reference Booth and Ainscow2011; McLeskey et al., Reference McLeskey, Landers, Williamson and Hoppey2012; Sailor & Burrello, Reference Sailor, Burrello, Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013). Research indicates that inclusive education benefits students identified for special education academically and socially, the latter by promoting interactions with (‘non-disabled’) peers. Yet the preponderance of these investigations have focused on students requiring less extensive supports (i.e., ‘mild, moderate disabilities’).
Feldman, Carter, Asmus, and Brock (Reference Feldman, Carter, Asmus and Brock2016) reported a study of 108 high school students with high support needs who were included in general education classrooms. In conducting some 423 full-class-length observations, they concluded that students with high support needs often failed to stay in class for the whole period and when present were often not in proximity to peers. They also reported a disproportionate degree of absenteeism compared to their general education peers. Findings such as these illustrate the problem with placement-based definitions of inclusion. Simple location is insufficient to realise academic and social gains.
Giangreco and Suter (Reference Giangreco and Suter2015) offered a structural arrangement that more closely fits an equity-based frame for school organisation. Emphasising a whole school as the unit of analysis, they illustrated how a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) for all students can provide a driver for organising available school personnel (i.e., teachers, therapists, administrators, paraprofessionals) in configurations through master scheduling that can enhance social and academic outcomes for all students, including those with high support needs. Burrello et al. (Reference Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013) advanced a similar call for a unified structural approach to schooling grounded in MTSS (with embedded response to intervention [RTI]) as a basis for deploying special education resources.
Administrative Elements
Research has consistently shown that school leadership is a powerful predictor of student achievement (DiPaolo & Walther-Thomas, Reference DiPaola and Walther-Thomas2003; Fullan, Reference Fullan2005; Klingner, Arguelles, Hughes, & Vaughn, Reference Klingner, Arguelles, Hughes and Vaughn2001; McLeskey et al., Reference McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014). DiPaola, Tschannen-Moran, and Walther-Thomas (Reference DiPaola, Tschannen-Moran and Walther-Thomas2004) reviewed the literature on leadership and its impact within the context of school organisational change from hierarchical models to more democratically organised, team-driven structures associated with inclusive education. They found that the democratic models built on collaboration and organisational citizenship were more efficient. Principals in these schools improved school climate by building a culture of trust, which affected student achievement, possibly by improving teacher morale (Tschannen-Moran, 2004).
Recent organisational shifts in US higher administrative units, such as school districts (local educational agencies, or LEAs, and state education agencies, or SEAs), responding to a results-driven accountability initiative at the federal level (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, 2016), are showing promise for alignment of systems and coherence in various program areas using implementation science (http://www.wested.org/project/national-center-for-systemic-improvement/). States that are currently in partnership with the Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation Center (SWIFT; a federally funded inclusive school reform technical assistance system), for example, are aligning all systems from state planning to school teams to achieve measurable student outcomes for all students (http://www.swiftschools.org).
Implications for Teachers
The disability construct and its categorical service delivery systems under special education pose challenges for school organisational initiatives promoting inclusive education within a human capabilities frame (Burrello et al., Reference Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013). General educators, who are used to referring difficult-to-teach students elsewhere to be served by specialists, have trouble imagining educating those students for whom their training has left them feeling poorly equipped. Similarly, special educators are likely to feel disconnected from the general education curriculum and to feel a sense of ownership and protectiveness toward students placed in special education.
Morris and Sharma (Reference Morris and Sharma2011) employed focus group methodology to examine provision of educational services and support in inclusive settings to students who are blind. They found that parents, teachers, and paraprofessionals tended to perform tasks for students who were blind, thus reducing students’ autonomy and progress toward greater independent functioning. Morris and Sharma concluded that itinerant services for students who are blind need to provide training to parents and school staff as well.
Similarly, in South Africa, Walton (Reference Walton2011) reported that learners with academic difficulties in inclusive settings were shunted away from taking the matric, the external examination undertaken by students at Grade 12 to determine eligibility for further education. They concluded that teachers need to receive training, not only in inclusive practices, but also to question their beliefs and value systems concerning student worth. They agreed that a key to changing the attitudes of teachers in South Africa is to promote greater parent involvement in the schools.
Hemmings and Woodcock (Reference Hemmings and Woodcock2011) employed survey research methodology to explore readiness to teach in inclusive classrooms by teachers enrolled in a preservice curriculum in a large Australian university. Their review of extant research as well as their own findings led them to conclude that preservice teachers tend to over rely on paraprofessional support and, in general, require greater exposure to elements of inclusive pedagogy in their preservice preparation. Further, they suggested greater exposure to students requiring extraordinary supports and services through a course-linked practicum experience in inclusive schools.
Leko and Roberts (Reference Leko, Roberts, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) provided a review of the professional development (PD) literature examining specific implications for teaching in inclusive schools. Previous research led to the conclusion that ‘one shot’ workshops and professional conference sessions are ineffective (Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, Reference Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman and Yoon2001; Pugach, Blanton, Correa, McLeskey, & Langley, Reference Pugach, Blanton, Correa, McLeskey and Langley2009), so the question has become, what PD methods can be attributed to measurable changes in teaching performance leading to measurable changes in pupil academic gains? They concluded that an approach emphasising an initial needs assessment followed by up-front seminars or workshops geared to specific needs assessment elements could serve as initial components in a comprehensive PD plan. Teachers would then attend follow-up sessions with two-way discourse opportunities focused on analysis of student data and collaborative planning. These meetings would, in turn, be followed up with long-term support from in-classroom coaching and/or modelling of practices from teacher-mentors, content-area coaches, or others with experience and expertise in the innovative practice areas. The comprehensive model would further require observation and assessment of teacher practices to determine whether additional PD directed to elements of initial needs assessment is warranted. What was clear from their findings is that inclusive education requires a comprehensive and ongoing professional learning agenda and long-range plan. It involves different skill sets and content knowledge than required in more typical grade-level and content-area classrooms that do not contain students with extraordinary support needs.
Robinson, Hohepa, and Lloyd (Reference Robinson, Hohepa and Lloyd2009) reported research validating that promotion by leadership of teacher PD produced large effects on student academic gains. Leko and Roberts (Reference Leko, Roberts, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) recommended that school administrators and academic coaches attend all professional learning sessions as well as teacher collaborative planning sessions. They suggested that a trade-off for time might include rearranging master schedules, reducing paperwork demands, particularly for special educators, and securing substitute teachers.
The question of location of teacher preservice preparation programs continues to be a contested terrain (Sindelar, Adams, & Leko, Reference Sindelar, Adams, Leko, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014). Sindelar, Daunic, and Rennells (Reference Sindelar, Daunic and Rennells2004) reported a study that suggested school administrators were more favourably disposed to teachers trained in school-district-sponsored alternative programs than to those prepared in university-based schools of education. Sindelar et al. (Reference Sindelar, Adams, Leko, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) cited the works of Florian (Reference Florian, Sindelar, McCray, Brownell and Lignugaris/Kraft2014), writing from an international perspective, with an inclusion concept in which all teachers need to be prepared to work with all students. She argued that special education and general education, having divorced during the age of specialisation, need to re-marry (my words). I am in full agreement with her premise. A need for highly specialised services and supports for students with such low-incidence issues as blindness, deaf/blindness, deafness, autism spectrum disorder, for example, will always exist, but universal design for learning (UDL) practices (CAST, 2016) can be taught to general educators; and some teachers, through further education, can attain certification to become specialists. Just as we do not need to congregate people with common learning support needs in separate classes, schools, and so forth, we also do not need to perpetuate a separate system of teachers to address their needs.
That said, special education is likely to continue to play an important, but slightly different, role in public education, at least in the US. In the near term, to prepare a teaching workforce for equity-based, whole-school, inclusive education models, contemporary research such as that reported by Sindelar et al. (Reference Sindelar, Adams, Leko, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) would suggest that two immediate, workable shifts in thinking are required. First, teacher preparation should be fully integrated, and licencing programs should undergo consolidation of formerly separate, specialised teacher licences, particularly in the elementary grades. In the US this shift means, to a large extent, merging general and special education preservice personnel preparation programs for both teachers and school district administrators. Second, preservice programs should be largely relocated outside of university classrooms and, through partnerships with school districts, inside schools and classrooms by offering full practicum experiences geared to pedagogical instruction within inclusive schools.
Brownell, Sindelar, Kiely, and Danielson (Reference Brownell, Sindelar, Kiely and Danielson2010) provided a framework for preservice teacher preparation that fulfills this prescription and offers a reconceptualisation of special education. Their framework builds on the earlier recommendations of McLeskey and Waldron (Reference McLeskey and Waldron2002), who argued for moving away from models of transporting special education into general education classrooms and, instead, that we ‘reinvent instruction in the general education classroom based on the best methods available in both general and special education’ (p. 52).
To their suggestions, I would add the admonition to move away from the grade-level or content-area classroom as the unit of analysis for equity-based inclusion and toward a whole-school approach (Booth & Ainscow, Reference Booth and Ainscow2011; Sailor, Reference Sailor2009; Sailor & Burrello, Reference Sailor, Burrello, Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013). The advent of MTSS provides the beginnings of a useful school organisational framework that enables all students to be instructed in nonsegregated arrangements through scheduling and skillful deployment of teaching and support personnel (Giangreco, Reference Giangreco2013). Students with extensive support needs can be successfully included through MTSS-driven, evidence-based, schoolwide models where UDL practices are in place at all three tiers of academic, social, and behavioural instruction (Nelson, Reference Nelson2014; http://www.swiftschools.org).
Implications for Paraprofessionals and Teaching Assistants
Most placement-based models of inclusive education have relied heavily on the use of paraprofessionals, leading some to conclude — correctly, I think — that inclusion has been steadily trending toward a paraprofessional movement that perpetuates special education as segregated service delivery in the general education classroom (Tews & Lupart, Reference Tews and Lupart2008; Whitburn, Reference Whitburn2013).
Michael Giangreco at the University of Vermont has contributed a sizeable body of research spanning over a decade, directed to offering alternatives to what has been termed the ‘Velcro-aide’ model of including students with extensive support needs (see Giangreco, Reference Giangreco2013, for a review of this research). In the Velcro model, a paraprofessional is assigned, through special education funding and supervision, to a student who usually sits at the back of the classroom with his or her aide. This approach (a) is disruptive to the rest of the class; (b) is usually disconnected to the general education curriculum in the class; (c) is socially detrimental and stigmatising to the student, as the aide is likely to get in the way of naturally occurring interactions among peers; and (d) turns over educational responsibility, for the most part, to unqualified personnel.
Giangreco, Suter, and Hurley (Reference Giangreco, Suter and Hurley2013) set forth a structural deployment model of paraprofessionals for whole-school inclusive practices that is a good fit, in my opinion, with a human-capabilities, school-reform approach to equity-based inclusion. Paraprofessionals in this approach in the US are assigned to grade-level and/or content-area classrooms, not to individual students. They are jointly supervised and evaluated by both general education and special education teachers regardless of whether they are funded from special education budgets. Their presence in the classroom is never stigmatising to individual students identified for special education services and supports. They are never the instructor of record for any student, and they support students to be as fully integrated and interactive with their peers as possible.
Instructional Innovations
The advent of MTSS as a driver for whole-school inclusive educational praxis requires a different conceptualisation of the uses of space in schools and of engagement and deployment of personnel in the instructional delivery system (Sailor, Reference Sailor2009, Reference Sailor2015). Classroom-based instructional models, even with UDL practices, pose major problems for the range and types of differentiated instruction needed to efficiently and effectively address the teaching/learning process with all students. The SWIFT Center technical assistance process asks participating schools’ leadership teams to undergo two planning exercises at the outset of their installation of MTSS. First, they are asked to contemplate the layout of their available spaces under current master scheduling and decide whether they are utilising space in the most efficient way in order to fully implement MTSS for academic, behavioural, and social outcomes. This exercise frequently leads to new space configurations for three tiers of interventions.
The second exercise is to have the leadership team contemplate the use of all school personnel as potential agents of instruction. This exercise often results in the discovery that various school staff members have hidden talents that can be brought to bear in different aspects of delivering the overall curriculum. Custodians (or janitors), for example, may be skilled vocational educators; librarians often can lead Tier 2 reading groups; speech therapists with artistic talent could volunteer to teach an art class where the program had formerly been cut due to budget constraints; cafeteria servers might teach students to make healthy food choices. All these scenarios are recent examples from SWIFT Center partner schools. Furthermore, regardless who the students and teaching adults are, MTSS employs evidence-based academic and behaviour instruction. Next, I discuss some recent research on emerging instructional practices that enhance whole-school MTSS applications.
Co-teaching
One innovative instructional delivery practice that is generating substantial interest, as well as some controversy, is collaborative teaching, usually between special and general educators (Murawski & Goodwin, Reference Murawski, Goodwin, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014; Saloviita, & Takala, Reference Saloviita and Takala2010; Solis, Vaughn, Swanson, & McCulley, Reference Solis, Vaughn, Swanson and McCulley2012). Clearly, bringing special educators into general education classrooms in collaborative teaching arrangements would be expected to enhance educational outcomes for all students, but the practice is more complicated than might be naively assumed (Ashton, Reference Ashton2014).
Murawski and Goodwin (Reference Murawski, Goodwin, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) summarised the extant research on outcomes associated with co-teaching models as lacking clarity and consistency and with contradictory findings. Two facets of co-teaching models that emerge as problematic are (a) lack of adequate planning time, and (b) questionable compatibility of the personalities involved. Forced partnerships as an outgrowth of changing school organisational policy are unlikely to yield good results (Magiera & Zigmond, Reference Magiera and Zigmond2005). The best research summaries of the emerging practice of co-teaching to date suggest that it is a promising practice that requires more research on its various models to be routinely moved into inclusive instructional practices. Further, it seems that teachers should be given the leeway to self-select collaborative teaching arrangements rather than have such experiences arranged for them by school leadership. Adequate planning time needs to be built into teaching schedules, and preservice personnel preparation programs need to build collaborative teaching opportunities into practicum arrangements whenever possible.
Embedded instruction
Jimenez and Kamei (Reference Jimenez and Kamei2015) provide a review of the research literature on embedded instruction as applied to students with ‘intellectual disabilities’ in inclusive settings. Embedded instruction is the practice of distributing instructional trials throughout the day in various settings and across people, places, and materials in order to promote generalisation of learned, discrete skills (McDonnell, Johnson, & McQuivey, Reference McDonnell, Johnson and McQuivey2008). The practice appears to hold promise for whole-school, MTSS-driven inclusive schools by virtue of fitting with UDL pedagogy, applicable to all students, but in this case applied to students with cognitive learning issues.
Peer-assisted instruction
Various peer-assisted instructional arrangements have been reported to have successful outcomes when applied particularly to students with extensive support needs in inclusive settings (Ryndak, Jackson, & White, Reference Ryndak, Jackson and White2013). Carter et al. (Reference Carter, Asmus, Moss, Biggs, Bolt, Born and Weir2016) reported the results of a randomised, controlled experimental investigation of peer-assisted arrangements on academic and social outcomes with 51 students with extensive support needs in high school inclusive classrooms. The study reported increased interactions with peers, increased academic engagement, increased progress on social goals and social participation, and increases in forming new friendships. The authors suggested that peer-assisted arrangements in inclusive schools may offer an alternative to reliance on individually applied paraprofessional support models.
Whole-School Inclusive Educational Arrangements
In my opinion, we no longer need to address the question, ‘should we include students with extraordinary needs for support and services in the general education program?’ The preponderance of available research supports inclusive education. The question is how to best deliver the goods? I argue that a placement-based definition of inclusion grounded in the medical model construct of disability and its various categories will not get us to the promised land. What is needed is a reframing of the whole project of public education addressed to a broader question of how to best distribute and apply all available resources through matching evidence-based instructional practices to measured student need (i.e., MTSS).
Batsche (Reference Batsche, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) provided an excellent delineation of the parameters of MTSS as these are generally understood at present. He listed the critical elements as:
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1. All instruction is evidence-based, aligned with common standards, and delivered in varying levels of intensity (tiers).
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2. Instructional planning involves all instructional providers working collaboratively to align instructional focus and pacing.
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3. The roles and responsibilities of all staff delivering instruction are understood, aligned, and add value to student outcomes.
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4. Common assessments are used to evaluate the impact of MTSS on student growth. Assessments are aligned with the common standards.
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5. The multi-tiered instruction and supports are integrated across tiers to ensure that all instruction is related and relevant.
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6. Instructional strategies and student engagement variables and the relationship between the two are considered when instruction is designed and delivered by all providers.
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7. Students and families are informed partners in understanding, supporting, and engaging the instruction.
Literacy outcomes
Harn, Fritz, and Berg (Reference Harn, Fritz, Berg, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) provided a review of research on MTSS applications to literacy instruction in inclusive schools. They concluded that MTSS allows schools the opportunity to more effectively meet the literacy goals of a wider range of students, including those with extraordinary support needs.
Data-based decision-making
Movement within and across tiers of intensity in MTSS depends upon reliable and valid measures of pupil performance at frequent intervals; that is, progress monitoring. Wakeman, Browder, and Flowers (Reference Wakeman, Browder, Flowers, Karvonen, Russell and Kavanaugh2011) reviewed the application of emerging ‘alternate assessments’ geared to ‘alternate achievement standards’ and curriculum-based measures (CBM) as critical tools in assisting teaching teams, as well as individual teachers, to make timely decisions concerning movement of students with additional needs for academic support within and across the tiers of instructional intensity.
School team configurations
The term ‘adhocracy’ has been applied to descriptions of organisational arrangements characterised by democratic decision processes as opposed to top down ‘bureaucratic’ decision models (cf., Skrtic, Reference Skrtic, Meyen, Vergason and Whelan1993). Collaborative teaming arrangements in whole-school, equity-based applications of inclusive schooling afford the opportunities for discursive problem-solving necessary to engineer successful applications of fully integrated inclusive schools. Ryndak, Lehr, Ward, and DeBevoise (Reference Ryndak, Lehr, Ward, DeBevoise, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014) provided a review of successful teaming arrangements in inclusive settings. Hunt, Soto, Maier, and Doering (Reference Hunt, Soto, Maier and Doering2003) similarly reviewed successful teaming arrangements directed to ensuring that students with the most extensive support needs could achieve successful outcomes in inclusive schools. What is clear from all sources on team planning arrangements is that team-building practices need to be incorporated into preservice personnel preparation programs. Team planning is essential to the adhocratic, problem-solving discourses necessary to guide successful applications of whole-school MTSS. All meetings need to start and end on schedule, have an agenda, report out all decisions to the school community of practice, and, most importantly, be time-managed for efficiency.
Conclusion and Summary
Inclusion, as it is typically advanced in educational policy and practice, poses a wicked problem. From a global perspective, the Salamanca Conference (Ministry of Education and Science, Spain, & United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 1994) advanced the human rights agenda by calling for education of all children together. In the US, efforts to advance inclusion have come through litigation associated with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Acts of 1990 (IDEA), the former Education of the Handicapped Amendments (EHA-1974). Several Supreme Court decisions have affirmed the rights of students to be educated in the least restrictive environment. Further, federal policy initiatives since the 1980s have attempted to increase inclusive opportunities for students with extensive support needs (Sailor & Burrello, Reference Sailor, Burrello, Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013). Finally, a preponderance of rigorous research found better academic and social outcomes for students receiving special education services and supports in inclusive settings. Yet, despite these three fronts of activity, inclusion remains elusive, particularly for students with more extensive needs for services and support.
I argue in this paper that the problem is unsolvable because of the way the problem is framed within the greater context of education. Globally, the prevalent model for addressing learning challenges has been quasi-medical, simply locating the problem as a characteristic of the individual rather than one of interplay between student issues and the learning ecology. We have framed the problem as ‘disability’ rather than a more pragmatic frame of identifying resources, and evidence-based supports and services to address any and all challenges in the teaching/learning process. Ainscow (Reference Ainscow1991, Reference Ainscow and Florian2014) has been advancing a similar position for two and a half decades, as have others, but the medical model frame in education of disability and other categorical marginalising influences (e.g., ‘gifted’, ‘economically disadvantaged’, ‘language learners’) keep moving the policy discourse toward a conundrum
of tensions that reflect the intersection of the social justice principles of inclusion, where education is a human right of intrinsic value, and education reform policies that are based on the principles of the marketplace, where education is a means to other ends such as individualism and economic competitiveness. (Florian & Rouse, Reference Florian, Rouse, McLeskey, Waldron, Spooner and Algozzine2014, p. 510)
Reframing the education project as an equity issue, wherein the distribution of resources generated through rigorous research becomes available to all students on the basis of measured need for assistance, allows us to move away from the medical model. Instead, we recast ‘special’ education as a set of particular evidence-based resources directed to specialised applications for learning issues related to physical, social/behavioural, perceptual, or cognitive characteristics of individual students, including combinations of any of the above challenges. Further, it enables us to replace the ‘disability’ construct with a human capabilities framework that seeks to build on individual strengths rather than focus on limiting issues (Burrello et al., Reference Burrello, Sailor and Kleinhammer-Tramill2013).
Finally, I argue that the advent of MTSS, whole-school rather than classroom-focused applications of instruction, UDL, and fully integrated teacher preparation and licencing programs enable the reframing project to emerge with successful models of application in practice (Sailor, Reference Sailor2015). Halle and Dymond (Reference Halle and Dymond2008–2009) set the tone for transformational discourse on schooling with this thought: ‘Rather than striving for “sameness” by limiting instructional contexts to general education classrooms, . . . expand educational contexts for all learners to incorporate inclusive settings outside the classroom and in the community’ (p. 197).
Acknowledgements
SWIFT Center supported the production of this paper under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Grant No. H326Y120005. OSEP Project Officers Grace Zamora Durán and Tina Diamond served as the project officers. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service, or enterprise mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred.
