Helping SPED Students by Increasing Their Class Sizes?
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| Full Inclusion or Full Immersion? (Image from Flickr, by Gui Seiz) |
One of the latest trends in Special Education is “Full Inclusion.” The idea is that all students benefit from being in the “least restrictive” environment. Special day classes (SDC)—where many special needs students were traditionally exposed to much of their curriculum—segregated them from the general student population and relied on special education (SPED) teachers who were not necessarily credentialed in the subjects which they were teaching.
Many schools are now placing these same students in regular education classes (e.g., science, English, social studies, math). In California, this means they are sometimes in classes with 35-38 students. In the past, most SDC students would have been in small classes of 7-14 students, with a SPED teacher and another 1-3