Topic “inclusion”

Nov. 11, 2011, 11:34 a.m. [Op-Ed in New York Times] By Cheryl M. Jorgensen Cheryl M. Jorgensen, Ph.D., is a member of the affiliate faculty with the National Center on Inclusive Education at the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire. In 2008 she received the National Down Syndrome Congress Education Award for her leadership and pioneering research supporting the inclusion of students with Down syndrome. She has written this open letter to Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer for New York City schools. It’s time to restructure all of our schools to become inclusive of all of our children. We have reached the tipping point...

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By Janaki Mahadevan Thursday, 02 June 2011, Children & Young People Now Six young ambassadors for charity Whizz Kidz have produced a video explaining three articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by describing their experiences of discrimination. Referring to the right to go to school and not be excluded from education, George, a 13-year-old from York, said he had been excluded from practical science lessons because he was not allowed to use a Bunsen burner due to health and safety reasons. "I can do all the practicals now because I have a different teacher who is nicer," he said. "She doesn’t mind my partner getting all the equipment and setting it up so I can do the experiment, which is more fun that sitting in the corner and watching everybody else doing the work." Nineteen-year-old Lucy from Leicester also described being excluded because of her disability. "I wanted to take French lessons at school but because the class was upstairs and the teacher refused to bring it downstairs, I was told to drop the subject," she s...

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Include, Belong, Learn, by George Theoharis and Julie Causton-Theoharis (associate professors at Syracuse University in New York) Two schools serving many students with disabilities show it's possible to let everyone learn together. --------- Kenny is a student at River View, a public K–8 school in central New York. Kenny spent his first few school years in a self-contained special education class because, according to an evaluation, he was "too disabled to be in the general education setting." In Kenny's 4th grade year, River View undertook a new schoolwide intervention. As part of that change, Kenny began learning in a general education classroom. Within a year, he no longer qualified for special education because he had made such significant academic progress. At River View—and a similar school that serves K–6 grades called Summer Heights—more students are now achieving at grade level in math and at a proficient or advanced level in reading than was the case before these schools rolled out a schoolwide intervention. Achievement went up for both nondisabled students...

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