Why are African-American students disproportionately placed in "special education?" - take 1

[This paper represents my first formal attempt to synthesize my personal research on this question. I will post later modifications as well. The bibliography is at the end of the post. You may wish to skip to the thesis statement]

Across the United States, African-American students are disproportionately assigned to special education programs (Grenot-Scheyer, et al, 2001; Lipsky 1996). In some districts, as many as 70% of African-American students are placed in special education (Perry and Delpit, 1998, p. xi). Since special education in its current (largely segregated) form often fails to educate at all (Lipsky 1996), these placements contribute to other horrifying statistics like the drop-out rate of African-American high school students (MIPR 2002). These terrible realities should be, but rarely are, treated as an emergency and a crisis whose origins must be identified and whose solution must be found and implemented without delay.

In attempting to identify the reasons for the over-representation of African-American children in special education, I begin with the assumption that these students are over-represented not because they are inherently less intelligent or less capable than their counterparts, but because the school system is failing to meet their educational needs.(1) A brief review of some relevant literature reveals multiple ways in which school systems fail African-American children; in this context, special education placement may almost be seen as an attempt by the school to avoid responsibility by labeling the children as inherently deficient. This is not to say that there are no African-American children who have genuine disabilities, but rather to say that many children are mis-diagnosed as having disabilities, when in fact it is the school that has thwarted their ability and quashed their desire to learn.


[click any assertion in the following paragraph to go directly to the supporting paragraph; you may also wish to skip to my solutions/recommendations]

First, schools fail to help children who speak “Black English” acquire proficiency in “Standard English,” which negatively affects these children’s ability to learn to read. Second, schools fail to make learning accessible to children from non-dominant-cultural backgrounds. Third, school systems fail to combat racism in schools, particularly among teachers, where racism manifests as low expectations, negative assumptions or blindness, and denigrating demeanor. Fourth, when these school failures have hindered students’ learning, the tests meant to establish their need for special education often are biased. Last, teachers who have always been over-achievers may fail to understand and respond empathetically to children’s reactions to their own low achievement.

We begin with language, and a success story. In the 1990’s in the Oakland, California public schools, African-American students were failing in large numbers. There was only one exception: African-American students were succeeding at the one elementary school that had implemented a program that affirmed the validity and distinct nature of “Black English,” and taught “Standard English” as a second language (Perry and Delpit, 1998, p. xi). In discussing this school’s success, Lisa Delpit notes two important reasons why its “Standard English Proficiency” policies are so helpful. First, she explains that “the linguistic form a student brings to school is intimately connected with loved ones, community, and personal identity,” and thus it is profoundly confusing and alienating to students when their “native language” is denigrated and suppressed. Under these circumstances, accepting the acquisition of “Standard English” may feel like a betrayal of their loved ones and community (Delpit 1998, p. 19).

The second aspect of acknowledging “Standard English” as a second language is more concrete: research evidence suggests that students have a very difficult time learning to read when their teachers fail to recognize the difference between reading comprehension and language acquisition (Delpit, 1998, p. 25). Many teachers, with the best of intentions, continually interrupt beginning readers to correct their “Black English” pronunciation; in so doing, they fail to notice the fact that if a student has “translated” a word into her own language, she has already read it and comprehended it (Delpit, 1998, p. 23). The continual interruptions have three negative effects: denying the child the useful experience of continuous fluent reading, directing her focus toward pronunciation and away from meaning, and discouraging her from future attempts at reading (Delpit, 1998, p. 24).(2)

If the school system’s first major failure is linguistic, its second is cultural. Most school systems are constructed in ways that facilitate learning with a particular cultural and cognitive style, one that is most associated with European-American children from middle- and upper-class families. John Taylor Gatto has revealed that the U.S. school system was designed after a Prussian model, whose main goal was to produce obedient soldiers and workers, and a populace whose opinions were molded as the state saw fit (Gatto 2001, chapter 7 passim). The result of this model of obedience and compliance is a school system that requires young children to be able to sit still and be silent for long periods of time—a behavior may or may not be taught in their cultural context. For example, Janice Hale-Benson notes the difference between many African-American church services, which emphasize participation and movement, and many European-American church services, which emphasize precisely the kind of silent attentiveness that is required in school (Hale-Benson 1986, p. 80). Young children who arrive in kindergarten or first grade without much experience of prolonged silent sitting may start out at a disadvantage, being perceived as “disruptive” or “out of control.” This can result in a mis-diagnosis of ADD or any number of personality disorders.

There are also cultural differences in communication, which can damage student-teacher relationships and lead the teacher to mis-label the student. For example, Hale-Benson and others have pointed out that African-American children are often taught to show respect by lowering or averting their eyes, but that this may be interpreted by their European-American teachers as disrespect or inattentiveness (Hale-Benson 1986, p.16). She also reviews research indicating that playful banter between children and adults is more acceptable in some African-American communities—the kind of banter that a European-American teacher might interpret as “backtalk” or “impudence” (Hale-Benson 1986, p. 80). Misunderstandings along these lines may ultimately may result in a child being labeled as having “oppositional behavior disorder” or other behavior issues. It is worth noting that, with any behavior “problem,” removing the student from the classroom (via suspension or simply a trip to the principal’s office) will cause the student even farther behind his/her peers.

On another cultural communication note, L. Janelle Dance looks at “tough fronts,” or “postures forged by social marginalization.” She writes of how teachers may persistently fail to understand that students sometimes adopt a “tough” appearance as a measure of self-defense. Teachers tend to take these appearances for reality and to treat these students as delinquent and violent, when in fact they are not at all inclined toward criminal activities (Dance 2002, passim). Similarly, Angela Valenzuela writes that teachers “tend to overinterpret urban youths’ attire and off-putting behavior as evidence …that these students ‘don’t care’ about school.” She notes that teachers may respond to these assumptions by withdrawing from any effort to connect with such students or help them (Valenzuela 1999, p. 22). There are no doubt many other cultural miscues that cause teachers to withdraw support from students who still need and want their assistance and attention.

We have reviewed the first two major categories of school failure: failure to address the needs of students who are acquiring “Standard English” as a second language, and failure to create a learning environment appropriate for students from all cultural backgrounds. The third major school failure that results in African-American students being unfairly placed in special education is the failure to combat institutional racism in schools. Some of the issues discussed under the cultural heading also fall under this category as well: teachers who are unaware of cultural differences are likely to misinterpret student behavior. Teachers may also engage in more overtly racist behavior, often without being aware of it. Julie Kailin has studied the degree to which racism permeates even the most would-be “liberal” schools, manifesting in lower expectations for African-American students, or stereotypes about African-American students and their families (Kailin 2002, p. 13). Kailin notes that children of color “may experience...differential treatment repeatedly throughout their school years.” Low expectations result in lower student achievement, while subtle discrimination may result in lower self-esteem, truancy, and other issues that lead to special education placements. Furthermore, many teachers may be unaware of times when their own behavior is discriminatory or disrespectful; in such instances, a student’s justifiably angry reaction may lead the teacher to label him/her as a “behavior problem” (Kailin 2002, p. 104-6).

The fourth major category of school failure lies in the area of testing. Eventually, when one or more of the above-mentioned problems affects a student’s performance, the student may be referred for special education testing and evaluation. Hoover et al have catalogued the ways in which tests may be biased against students from non-dominant ethnic, racial, or even geographic backgrounds—largely because, in various ways, they test something other than what they claim to test (Hoover et al, 1991, p.55). Scales gives the example of reading comprehension tests that ask questions about a passage, but often include questions that cannot be answered solely from the information in the passage; in effect they are testing general knowledge (Scales 1991, pp. 69-70). Tests that are ostensibly measuring intelligence may actually be testing Standard English grammatical knowledge, or simply testing how closely the student’s worldview matches that of the test designer (for example, by asking about golf or ballet, or what “policemen do”) (Hoover et al, pp. 59-60). Biased testing is another reason that African-American children may end up disproportionately in special education.

To these researched and documented examples I would add a personal observation. Exacerbating these problems, teachers may be unfamiliar with the range of reactions engendered by failure and low self-esteem. Teachers who have always been high achievers themselves may be particularly likely to miss the connection between failure and “acting out.” Students who react dramatically to their own overwhelming emotions around their failures (by disrupting class, destroying school materials, refusing to work, etc.) are likely to be labeled and pushed even farther away from possible resources that could help them.

Thus we have established an array of ways in which schools fail African-American students and increase the likelihood that they will end up in special education programs. What remedies might be imagined that could address these problems? It seems to me that the needed remedy is twofold: antiracist and intercultural education for teachers, and inclusion for students.

Julie Kailin’s book Antiracist Education describes her implementation of anti-racist staff development training sessions at schools in Madison and Milwaukee, in which she provided teachers with information about the experience of students of color, and challenged them to examine their own perceptions. These sessions appear to have been fairly successful at awakening teachers to some of the obstacles faced by students of color, as well as helping teachers to discover and attack their own biases, assumptions, and low expectations. In addition to courses like this, teachers need to learn simple information about cultural difference, such as the differing meanings ascribed to lowering the eyes before an authority figure.

In addition to implementing antiracist education for teachers, schools need to undergo massive reforms and become truly inclusive. African-American students who have fallen behind must not continue to be segregated in special education classes except under very unusual and particular circumstances (as, indeed, is mandated by law). Back in the general education classroom, under-achieving students would be helped by such inclusive strategies as peer tutoring, cooperative learning, and whole-class engagement in projects and activities (Walther-Thomas et al 2000, p. 7). It is by no means unimportant that all these learning strategies create a classroom that is more culturally accessible to some African-American students (as discussed above) than is the class of silent, motionless rows. Furthermore, as part of the creation of a welcoming and inclusive environment for all, all districts should also implement a version of the Oakland, California school district’s “Standard English Proficiency” program, discussed above, to help African-American children learn to read and gain proficiency in two languages.

In summary, special education in its current format tends to be a dead-end road, and African-American students tend to be set upon that road in disproportionate numbers. This must not be allowed to continue. The learning process in the general education classroom can and should be redesigned to include all levels of learner and all styles of cognition, so that each student can work with peers on projects, “from each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her needs.” Peer support, relational learning, and active engagement will help African-American students as much as, or perhaps even more than, others. In the final analysis, only inclusive education, combined with a determined attack on racism and a realistic and respectful approach to African-American students’ language, can hope to brighten the future of the thousands of children now doomed to failure in the current system.

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Notes:

1. Although many people assert that some African-American students fall behind because they arrive at school without enough academic preparation, there is no reason why inadequate academic preparation for school cannot be overcome. The question is why this initial disadvantage (when and if it exists) is allowed to persist. (return to text)

2. Evidence supporting Delpit’s arguments can also be found in Hoover, et al, 1991. (return to text)




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Works Cited

Dance, L. Janelle. (2002) Tough Fronts: The Impact of Street Culture on Schooling. Routledge: New York City

Delpit, Lisa. 1998, “What Should Teachers Do? Ebonics and Culturally Responsive Instruction.” In Theresa Perry and Lisa Delpit, eds. (1998) The Real Ebonics Debate: Power, Language, and the Education of African-American Children. Beacon Press: Boston, MA

Gatto, John Taylor. (2000/2001) The Underground History of American Education. The Oxford Village Press.

Grenot-Scheyer, M., Fischer, M., and Staub, D. (2001) A framework for understanding inclusive education. In M. Grenot-Scheyer,, M. Fischer, and D. Staub. Lessons Learned in Inclusive Education: At the End of the Day. Brookes Publishing: Baltimore, MD.

Hale-Benson, Janice. (1986) Black Children: Their Roots, Culture, and Learning Styles. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, MD

Hoover, Mary R., Robert L., Politzer, and Orlando Taylor. (1991) “Bias in Reading Tests for Black Language Speakers: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. In Asa G. Hilliard, III., ed, Special Issue of the Negro Educational Review: Testing African-American Students. Third World Press: Chicago, IL.

Kailin, Julie. (2002) Antiracist Education: From Theory to Practice. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Maryland.

Lipsky, D. (1996). An Inclusion Talkback: Critics’ Concerns and Advocates’ Responses. National Center on Educational Restructuring and Inclusion Bulletin, 3(1). The Graduate School & University Center of the City of New York.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (2002). Report: High School Graduation Rates in the United States http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm

Perry, Theresa, and Lisa Delpit, eds. (1998) The Real Ebonics Debate: Power, Language, and the Education of African-American Children. Beacon Press: Boston, MA

Scales, Alice M. (1991) “Alternatives to Standardized Tests in Reading Education: Cognitive Styles and Informal Measures.” In Asa G. Hilliard, III., ed, Special Issue of the Negro Educational Review: Testing African-American Students. Third World Press: Chicago, IL.

Valenzuela, Angela. 1999. Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring. SUNY Press: Albany, NY

Walther-Thomas, C., Korinek, L., McLaughlin, V., and Toler Williams, B. (2000). “Inclusive Education: Building the Case.” In C. Walther-Thomas, L. Korinek, V. McLaughlin, and B. Toler Williams, Collaboration for Inclusive Education: Developing Successful Programs. Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, MA.

WI has worst Af-Am grad rate (2002)

Here's the full study, with links to lots of different ways of viewing the data:

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

But here's the grisly truth: Wisconsin is the very, very, very worst. There are a few states with insufficient data, but the ones you'd hope could bail us out--Mississippi, Arkansas--are in the table, and doing much better than Wisconsin.

Wake up people. What does frickin' Mississippi know that the self-important, swaggering white liberals of Madison do not?

Sometimes I get excited about all the work to be done here... other times I just can't wait to leave. I'd almost rather be in Mississippi... conditions suck but there is a movement there, struggling though it may be. But that's another post.

State	Ranking	Graduation Rate
Wisconsin	39	40%
Minnesota	38	43
Georgia	37	44
Tennessee	36	44
Nevada	35	49
Ohio	34	49
Oregon	33	49
New York	32	51
Florida	31	51
Alabama	30	52
Hawaii	29	53
Michigan	28	53
Nebraska	27	53
Kansas	26	54
Arizona	25	54
Dist Columbia	24	55
Indiana	23	55
Colorado	22	55
N. Carolina	21	55
Illinois	20	57
Iowa	19	57
Mississippi	18	58
New Mexico	17	58
Alaska	16	58
Missouri	15	58
California	14	59
Texas	13	59
Rhode Island	12	61
Louisiana	11	62
Pennsylvania	10	63
Oklahoma	9	64
Connecticut	8	64
Virginia	7	64
Delaware	6	64
Maryland	5	66
New Jersey	4	66
Arkansas	3	67
Massachusetts	2	70
West Virginia	1	71

Insufficient data: Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming.

inclusion: history

[This paper was written in response to a lecture on the history of the education of people with disabilities]

It is quite striking that as far back as 1908, a superintendent made a statement in which he appeared to consider the options of inclusion or segregation. But this appearance is fleeting—the second part of his statement makes clear that he only posed the option of inclusion (all students in desegregated settings, fewer students per teacher, more classrooms, etc.) as a rhetorical device, meant to clarify that segregation was somehow the “natural” choice.

Why, I wonder, was it so easy for him to assume with such certainty that his audience would concur with his automatic rejection of the idea of inclusion? What was so “obviously” wrong with this idea? In 1908, if memory serves, industrial efficiency was just beginning to become an obsession; perhaps the inclusion option seemed too inefficient, in that it required more than the minimum number of workers to produce the desired “product.” 1908 also followed many years of Enlightenment-era obsession with scientific sorting, cataloguing, and labeling; perhaps inclusion seemed sloppy, mixing different “types” of children “indiscriminately.”

Whatever the context, it is saddening to contemplate the loss of the world that might have developed if this superintendent’s assumptions—and his society’s—had run in the opposite direction!

inclusion: history of educ for people w disabilities - notes

[these notes were typed up to be passed on to others; they are a bit flippant and probably unclear; I will revise them if I ever have time. pwd="people with disabilities" throughout]


History of education for people with disabilities

General split between pre- and post-“enlightenment” eras:

PRE-enlightenment:
1200 – 1700 - Dominant belief = disabilities are supernatural

• Mental illness = possession by evil spirits
  
• Disease and ill fortune = sign that god(s) were turning against you
  
• “abnormal” babies killed, ppl mistreated
  

POST-enlightenment:
1800s - Science begins to replace religion as explanatory concept
Problems explained as genetic instead of spiritual
Results

• care is medical and supportive instead of punitive
  
• institutions have benevolent goal of “protecting” and “training”
  
  • protect: pwd are seen as “eternal children” in need of protection
    
  • train: goal that behavior or intellect can be improved & can return to society (transitional schooling)
  
  
• basic idea is still paternalistic
  
• some are seen as “unteachable” and they are permanently institutionalized
  

POST-ENLIGHTENMENT TIMELINE

1. 1800s through early 1900s - Urbanization / industrialization
   
   • Rural social order could absorb “misfits” but new economic order is more demanding of conformity and ability
     
   • “Alms houses” created where those who cannot support selves (widows, orphans, pwd) are “warehoused.”
     
   • Less charitable era—pwd chained like animals & kept in abusive conditions
     
   • Beginning of compulsory schooling
     
     • Schools get larger, more factory-like
       
     • students begin to be segregated by age and ability
       
     • again, more “misfits” created
       
   
   
   
   
2. Mid- to late 1800s: emergence of special education
   
   • idea of educating students w disab: blind and deaf first, then others
     
   • schools were “clearing house” for all different kinds of pwd, and had wide age ranges
     
   • “separate but equal” endorsed for perceived racial and ability differences —definitely excluded from mainstream schools
   
   
   I am trying to make sense of the lecture notes from the history lecture—I think the attitude gradually got more compassionate during the 1800s, but I didn’t want to put that down without stating that I am not 100% sure about it.
   
   
3. 1920s Attitude shift: from protecting pwd to protecting society from the “deviant”
   
   • growing sense that fed’l gov’t is responsible for caring for all people
     
   • pseudo-scientific categorizing and labelling
     
     • Such labels as “idiot, moron, imbecile”
       
     • tests for determining which category people fit into
       
     • include alcoholics and “morally degenerate” like prostitutes
     
     
   • Development of the idea of “hereditarianism”
     
     • Pwd pass on “undesirable” characteristics
       
     • Institutionalize them to prevent them from “breeding”
       
     • Psuedo-scientific justifications for racism
     
     
   • All kinds of bad stuff
     
     • Eugenics movement (US mvt inspires Nazis)
       
     • Restrict immigration / test immigrants
       
     • Forced sterilization of “defective women” (60K people sterilized!) and immigrants
       
   
   
   
4. Depression and New Deal
   
   • FDR has a disability but it is carefully hidden from public
     
   • First federal money for pwd – money to states to support “blind, dependent or crippled”
     
   
   
   
5. 1940s – 1950s
   
   • Death camps make Eugenics movement look bad
     
   • Postwar laws help wounded veterans with acquired disabilities
     
   • Eventually these laws expanded to help everyone else incl those w genetic disab and mentally ill
     
   • Brown v Board 1954 overturns separate but equal
     
   • Beginnings of advocacy by parents of pwd for their inclusion in these rights
     
   
   

racism: response to McIntosh & Ferguson

[another response paper]

I have seen Peggy McIntosh’s clear and concise list of privileges in other contexts and always found them very thought-provoking. However, this is the first time I have read McIntosh’s article in its entirety and I actually found one aspect of it quite annoying. In the beginning, she writes as though she is entering uncharted territory; and, at the end of the article, she writes as though she will have to figure out for herself, unaided, what “we” can do to dismantle our privilege. As if thousands of books and articles have not been written by people of color (e.g. bell hooks) illuminating the existence and function of white privilege with tremendous brilliance and clarity, and providing us with many ideas and plans for change! In fact, it is sadly revelatory that McIntosh’s article is so often chosen to represent this information. People designing anti-racist curricula assume that many white students will not listen to a person of color giving them this same information; unfortunately, they are probably right.

In the Spring selection, I agree with his insistence on distinguishing racism from prejudice and his implied distinction between institutional/systemic racism and individual attitudes. The idea that racism is only about individual attitudes is precisely what causes the current generation of college students to deny that racism exists. If racism is merely attitude, then they are right—attitudes have changed. The Tom Metzgers of the world are extremist and outcast in 2003, and most people are happy to “celebrate diversity.” However, the pernicious evil of institutional racism continues to play out through our unconscious reproduction of the status quo. To help students feel less defensive about unpacking their participation in this system, I think it is important to emphasize that everyone in this society absorbs racist ideas, so there is no shame in having such thoughts and perceptions. The only shame lies in refusing to educate oneself to consciously combat institutional racism.

The Ferguson* article helped me in precisely that way—it showed me one persisting blind spot of my own. Although my approach is empathetic rather than punitive, I can definitely observe in myself that tendency to “adultify,” to see young black men’s behavior as more significant than that of young white boys. This also correlates with my own observations, in the past as well as in the first few days of practicum experience. One of the special ed teachers I observe is particularly appalling about this. When the sole white student is loud and disruptive, the teacher ignores him; when one of the African-American boys is disruptive (even when one called out, “Can I read next? Please miss, can I?”), he is reprimanded unkindly and even sent to the principal. Altogether, it is clear that while we all know how to “talk the talk,” we need a lot more work and education before we or our society will “walk the walk” of true multiculturalism.

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FYI: Description of Ann Ferguson's book from the Gustavus Myers website, which gave the book an award in 2001.


Ferguson, Ann Arnett,
Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity
University of Michigan Press, 2000

Explores what getting into trouble means for African American boys. Ferguson follows a group of 11-12 year old boys labeled "at-risk" throughout a school year observing their interactions with teachers, administrators, and parents. She theorizes that Black boys' behavior is "adultified" - their alleged transgressions are interpreted by others as sinister. Ferguson discerns as well the children's views of this phenomenon of getting into trouble. A cutting-edge book that will appeal to parents, teachers, educational reformers and others. Ferguson examines the institutional racism present in deciding who gets punished or not. Ferguson teaches at Smith College in western Massachusetts.

inclusion: devil's advocate

Assignment: Develop a position that is critical of inclusive education

In reality I do favor inclusive education. The strongest criticism that I think could be made against it is that it does seem to depend on having highly capable, strongly committed teachers, as well as (preferably) sufficient funding for multiple special ed teachers and paraprofessional support staff. One could argue that both the old and new models work when (1) teachers are flexible and committed, and (2) teachers have a low student-teacher ration so that they can provide significant individual attention. If these are the key ingredients to both models, then perhaps one could argue that the desired change will not come about through changing the model, but rather through reducing class sizes and recruiting better teachers. If this is the case, then changing the model is a waste of time, money and students’ lives.

One could further argue that organizing the curriculum around critical thinking skills and problem-solving is ineffective. One could argue that these exercises require so much additional time—especially when students with disabilities are included and time must be spent explaining the exercises to them—that they minimize the content learned to an unacceptable degree. One could argue that there is no money for the amount of training that is needed for teachers to be comfortable and capable in these new teaching styles AND to be comfortable and capable with diverse learners. This would mean that we are not only moving students with disabilities into classes where the teacher is not ready for them—we are also asking all the other students in the class to accommodate to new “critical thinking” approaches which fall flat when implemented by a teacher who lacks creativity or insight. All students are seeing the level of their education go down, and implementing inclusion at this time, when so much else is wrong, could be seen as further muddling a complex and difficult situation.

inclusion: struggling to understand finer points

Assignment: Based on discussion and readings, describe any misconceptions you had about inclusive education that have now been clarified for you.

I had (mis)understood from some of the earlier readings that all students would in fact be included in regular education classrooms 100% of the time. Mandy’s question during the class discussion—“Does inclusion mean that the student is in the regular education classroom full-time?”—and Prof. Udvari-Sollner’s response clarified my misconception on this point.

The slides shown in class of the young man learning to negotiate life skills (e.g. cooking and employment) helped me to understand why he would not always be in the same setting as his peers. The slides clarified the difference between an “appropriate” setting and a “segregated” setting. The young man was not always with his peers, but he was always in “real world” settings interacting with a variety of other people, instead of being hidden away in an over-protective artificial environment.

One reason for my misconception may be that the Davern et al and Grenot-Scheyer et al articles, which I read last week, were not as clear as the Lipsky and Arnold/Dodge articles about the amount of time a student might spend in the general education classroom. The latter two articles specifically spell out that 100% inclusion 100% of the time is not the goal. One of the interesting things about the Fuchs & Fuchs and Shanker pieces was the way they emphasized almost exactly the same points as the inclusion advocates, in terms of what they felt children with disabilities needed to succeed in school and life. The Maloney commentary inset into the Fuchs & Fuchs article sounded almost exactly like the inclusion advocacy articles. These observations made me wonder whether inclusion opponents were deliberately caricaturing inclusion advocates, or whether some more extreme form of inclusion advocacy really does exist, or whether these opponents had just misunderstood some of the literature as I had.