Is Inclusion effective?

While many places tout the successes of Inclusion, if it were that absolutely a good thing, I don't think it would be talked about this much. One can assume something is a successful practice in a school if it increases the quality of the education. Perhaps the most objective means of measuring success in a school is the graduation rate, which does not bode well for policy:

As the inclusion rate increases, the graduation rate decreases. 

Now, I don't know about you, but I think this is a very important fact, and one which our textbook completely overlooks. The rate of inclusion for eighth graders went from 28.0% to 38.2% (a 34 percent increase) in five years. However, the graduation rate for students with disabilities went from 26.8% to 26.7%. While granted, there are loads of things that could also be contributing to this, one must ask if it's truly effective. Even if it's just a curious happenstance that it went down slightly, that the graduation rate would have dropped with or without this program, one is forced to ask why it wasn't raised from where it would otherwise have been.

So perhaps inclusion just isn't done correctly, as Angela Richeson in her paper titled "Factors Affecting the Success of Inclusion". She suggests that teachers need to be shown how to run an included classroom properly. She says that the rate of success will increase as we get teachers who are better at dealing with the situation. So even though the teachers haven't worked it out yet, there is still hope for the program.

But isn't that something that should be worked out before you implement it in a classroom? While I understand some things need to be tested under real-world conditions, these are the lives and futures of children that we are essentially gambling with. Therefore, I think the program should be suspended such a time as teachers are properly trained.

http://www.comaat.biz/Inclusion_Strategies_Brochure_(LEGAL).pdf
http://www.inclusion-international.org/priorities/education/policies/
http://www.advocacyinstitute.org/advocacyinaction/Inclusion_GradRates.shtml
http://gothenburg.k12.ne.us/StaffInfoPg/Papers/A_Richeson.pdf

-J