OP ED ARTICLE ON INCLUSION:

ANECDOTAL ‘RESEARCH’ WON’T CUT IT

VALUE OF PUPILS TOGETHER IN CLASS NOT PROVEN

By Avi Raphaeli, Joanne James and Beth Ann Bryan

Special to the Houston Post

Sunday, February 20, 1994

There are bumper stickers which read, “Don’t confuse me with the evidence.  My mind’s already made up!” 

This appears to be the motto of today’s education bureaucracy.

Every few years, educators come up with an appealing idea which they feel will reform education.  The idea is then “sold” to other educators and school systems without first being subjected to research scrutiny. Schools nation-wide jump on a bandwagon and gear up with materials and programs. Teachers, parents, and students are told that everyone benefits. After several years, educators discover that practices put in place to implement the new idea are ineffective. The practices are discarded and our schools are ready for yet another round of reform.

Last August, in an article in The Houston Post, we raised questions about recent trends in public education. One of the most worrisome to us was the above-mentioned tendency of educational systems to embrace new ideas without careful study and deliberation. As a result of embracing unproven reforms, public education has had fiascoes such as the “New Math” and the “Open Classroom.” While not averse to change, we emphasized the need for careful study of new proposals and the need for parents - as educational consumers - to inform themselves and not be afraid to question “innovative reforms.”

The article resulted in a large number of responses. Responses from teachers, students and laymen were overwhelmingly positive.

However, many bureaucrats, administrators and education professors strongly objected to our suggestions. These objections were seldom well-reasoned; more frequently they were strident.

Almost all of the objectors failed to address the issues raised and, instead, questioned the ability of the “lay” public to participate in a meaningful dialogue. In their opinion, parents and the public at large lack the knowledge and the expertise needed to question the opinion of experienced educators.

This refusal to debate, to allow inquiry, or to engage in dialogue, represents the very weakness in the system which we tried to address. A case in point is the reaction to the questions we raised about the current trend to eliminate all advanced courses of high-achieving students. We have chosen to elaborate on this issue only because it well represents the malady.

The “in” educational program that we question is called the Regular Education Initiative (REI) or Inclusion.

Inclusion maintains that heterogeneous classrooms are preferable to homogeneous grouping.  Those who advocate this practice assert that it is academically beneficial to both low-achieving and high-achieving students to be grouped together. We now see task forces nationwide designed to put this philosophy into practice. In fact, the Texas Education Agency is currently implementing an experimental, multi-million-dollar program to promote Inclusion. Because of Inclusion, many efforts have been made at state and local levels to cancel all “honors” classes.

In our earlier article, we presented serious misgivings about Inclusion. Our misgivings were directed toward the very conceptual foundations of the practice. We question its impact on the poor student who can never excel because the competition is above his level, the bright student who cannot be challenged and the teacher faced with the impossible task of teaching students with different abilities and interests while making the classroom interesting and relevant to all. 

As we noted, our misgivings were met with agreement by teachers and parents, but were violently opposed by the education bureaucracy.

The bureaucrats informed us in no uncertain terms that specific issues notwithstanding, our arguments were faulty because “research indicates” that both weak students and good students academically benefit from being grouped together.

The assertion that Inclusion is a research-proven practice has been repeated by the state communion of education, school principals, professors from local universities, and various educational gurus.

A rebuttal to our first article in The Houston Post (October 3, 1993) by a Sam Houston State University graduate student, stated categorically, “There is ample evidence that ability grouping is detrimental to most of our students.”

Accordingly, we lowered our heads in shame and prepared to retire into our corner, severely admonished for our lack of preparation.  Before doing so, however, we asked our chastisers to point us in the direction of their research base.

The university professors instructed us to do an ERIC computer search. The Texas Education Agency sent us a bulky package containing numerous articles.  We received material from Ivy League schools and from the U. S. Department of Education.

We read the material carefully, and indeed, repeatedly found the assertion that research indicates that both good students and poor students benefit from Inclusion. However, none of the material contained actual, substantial empirical research finds.

An exhaustive computer search has failed to elicit such data. Calls to two principals resulted in promises that they would get back to us with references, but we have yet to hear from them. A telephone inquiry to the Texas Education Agency brought a comment from an official who stated that he knew of “no real empirical research, only some anecdotal information." 

In desperation, we called the American Federation of Teachers in New York whose research department was kind enough to conduct an independent search for research supporting Inclusion. The teachers’ group was unable to find any significant empirical studies supporting Inclusion. The AFT did send back a cryptic note wishing us good luck in our effort to uncover such data.

Most importantly, our search did produce two statistical analyses that analyzed all available empirical research on Inclusion.

These studies indicate that certain kinds of ability groupings were actually beneficial and preferable.  Further, these studies said that bright students actually were held back, and poor and average students did not benefit as much from Inclusion as they did when given appropriate group-specific instruction.

What shocked us most during our search process was the tendency of many Inclusion advocates to characterize as “research” mere anecdotal reports or quotes by others making positive statements without foundation.

We found also that Inclusion advocates attempt to use non-academic indicators, such as reduced absenteeism or self-reports of satisfaction as measures of effectiveness when there was no evidence of improved student performance.  It was interesting also that when advocates encounter experienced teachers who question the program’s value, they look for ways to change the teachers’ opinions, rather than develop data that shows that Inclusion works. 

After four months of searching, it is apparent that the assertion that “research indicates” that Inclusion is beneficial to both high-achieving and low-achieving students is mythical, nonexistent and actually a big lie. 

We found that the push for Inclusion started in 1985 after the publication of a book by Jeannie Oaks, education researcher.  The book was based not on research, but on idiosyncratic feelings and uncontrolled classroom observation.

Little “research” has been done since.  Real research has neither confirmed the idea that bright students benefit from Inclusion, nor that poor students benefit from it.  In fact, the opposite is true.  A recent report of the U. S. government strongly suggests that we need to give more attention to our highest performing students.

We suggest that the recent blitz toward Inclusion is unfair and potentially damaging to students, teachers and the general public.

First, students may suffer; the best students because they are not challenged to their full potential, and less prepared students, because they cannot be taught in a manner that will address their specific needs.

Second, Inclusion is unfair to teachers who are given the impossible task of managing heterogeneous classrooms and yet are asked to make sure that content is relevant to all students.  Teachers are being “set up” for inevitable failures.  Indeed, there are complaints that the Inclusion initiative has been advanced in the absence of input from those most likely to be affected: students, parents, and teachers.

Finally, the practice is unfair to the American public which is being asked once again to support and finance an unproven educational fad under the false assertion that it is a proven approach.

We are not against the practice of “Inclusion” as part of a total school program, a part designed to promote cooperation and understanding.  However, we are angry at the attempt to force Inclusion in its extreme form, resulting in both the abolition of programs for our more able students and abolition of programs for students with special needs.  In trying to make one size fit all, school may damage all.

Most of all, we feel angry that an ideology is being forced on us under the guise that it is derived from empirical research.

We have no problems with people advocating an ideology.  If one believes in Inclusion, so be it!

But, let it be stated openly that Inclusion is an experimental, unproven approach.  This will open the issue to public debate and allow questions to be raised 

Stifling debate by misrepresentation should not be allowed.  We can only wonder how many other so-called “research based” but really unproved trends in education are being forced on an unsuspecting public.

Rapheli, James and Bryan work together in a private psychological practice and have extensive experience with learning, assessment and public education policy.  Each holds one or more advanced degrees.

http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/newsletter/archives/inclusion.pdf