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Miriam Klingler
Mark Gooding
English 102
April 23, 2010
What’s Best for Our Students?
As everyone who works with special education students or has a special needs
child knows, those kids are… well, special. Their friends, family, and teachers want
them to have every opportunity to excel, and want only want what’s best for them. Not
surprisingly, their ideas of what’s best range from home-school to full inclusion and
everything in between. However, the concept of inclusion has by far received the most
attention, and the most controversy. In 1975, the Education for All Handicapped
Children Act, now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), mandated
that “students with disabilities be provided an appropriate education designed to meet
their unique needs in the least restrictive environment.” But what is the best way to go
about that? Every school district has different programs and different opportunities for
the special education students at their school, but what really is the best classroom
environment for special education students? Is inclusion the answer? Notice that
Miriam’s introduction does a nice job of introducing her topic and framing the issue for
her reader.
In an online article titled “Mainstreaming Benefits All Students,” the author,
Diane Haas, argues that inclusion is the best way to go. Here Miriam introduces the
source she’s critiquing and its author, and she succinctly summarizes the source’s thesis.
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She points out that special needs students benefit socially from inclusion, and that
segregation sends the message to special education students that they are different and
can’t function in regular society. She believes that special education students can teach
regular students valuable life lessons. She also mentions some ways teachers can do
their best in a full-inclusion classroom. Haas makes a moving argument, but her case is
more emotional, without any hard data or evidence of her claims. She also makes
multiple assumptions, and she does not address any counterarguments. Miriam’s
summary of the source could perhaps be more thorough—but it does give us the gist of
the source’s argument. Miriam’s thesis, conveyed by the last two sentences of this
paragraph, is quite appropriate for this type of paper.
Haas’ argument is stirring, but she uses the words “may” or “I believe…” many
times. For example, she believes that “children with disabilities can teach children
without disabilities valuable lessons.” She also says, “A healthy child may see that a
child with disabilities can excel in certain areas” (emphasis added). These statements
seem to be her personal opinion. She does not cite any outside sources or give a works
cited, and she makes statements that are very definitive for someone with no data to
back up her claims. In one statement she says, “Advocates of full inclusion argue that
the practice of segregating children with disabilities from children without disabilities
fails to serve the individualized needs of each student with disabilities.” She does not
mention who these advocates are or where she got this information. One other
statement she makes sounds official, but once again, she does not cite the source of her
information: She says, “Direct observations of the behavior of students with disabilities
in the regular class have suggested that their behavior resembles that of students
without disabilities.” She does not say where these observations came from or who
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made them. According to a study of student development in special and regular
education done by the Educational Review journal, Haas’ claim that the special needs
students’ behaviors became more like regular students’ behaviors is not reliable. The
journal found that “on the psychosocial functioning of the matched pupils, no
differences were observed after 4 years of participation in either special or regular
education” (134). A poll conducted by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in
West Virginia revealed that "78 percent of respondents think disabled students won't
benefit from inclusion; 87 percent said other students won't benefit either" (ctd. in Leo).
The opinion of the people is not in Haas’ favor. To get them to see her side of the
argument, she needs to provide proof for her statements. Notice how, in this first
paragraph of analysis, Miriam has made excellent use of her other sources to raise
questions about her source’s claims. This is an effective use of outside sources to
support her evaluation of Haas’ argument.
Another flaw in Haas’ article is that she makes multiple assumptions. In one
part, Brenda says that “[s]egregated schools generally offer few, if any, opportunities for
children with disabilities to interact with peers without disabilities” (qtd. in Haas). Haas
has assumed that the majority of segregated schools have this problem, but since she
does not say where she got this information, this cannot even be a credible assumption.
Another assumption is when she says, “These children are deprived of valuable learning
and socialization experiences.” She is assuming that only if these kids are in regular
classrooms can they learn valuable things and have socializing experiences. There is no
hard data that says otherwise, but then again, there is no also hard data that supports
her claim, either. Notice that in this, her second paragraph of analysis, Miriam has
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questioned a couple of key assumptions in the source’s argument. Notice her effective
use of the source’s own words (the direct quotes) to make her point.
One other flaw in Haas’ article is that she does not address any
counterarguments. She focuses strictly on the benefits of inclusion, and does not seem
to take into account exceptions to the rule. For example, inclusion would seem to work
well with mildly mentally disabled (MIMD) or learning disabled (LD) children, but then
there are the moderately and severely disabled (MOMD and SMD) children whose
issues are so large that it is almost impossible to have a functioning regular education
classroom when they are included in it. The IDEA dictates that “students with
disabilities be educated to the maximum extent appropriate with peers without
disabilities” (emphasis added). It is neither appropriate nor beneficial to anyone in a
regular education classroom if the special needs student uses yowls and screams as a
means of communication or if regularly stripping down is their way of expressing
themselves. One big counterargument against inclusion is how MOMD and SMD
children will fit in. Another big counterargument is teacher attitudes. What do regular
education teachers think of inclusion? Can they handle it? L. M. Lieberman says, “The
barrage of curriculum materials, syllabi, grade-level expectations for performance,
standardized achievement tests, competency tests, and so on, continue to overwhelm
even the most flexible teachers.” Do regular education classrooms have the materials
and do the teachers have the adaptability to handle inclusion? Parents believe that the
“special education system emerged precisely because of the non-adaptability of regular
classrooms and that, since nothing has happened to make contemporary classrooms any
more adaptable ..., inclusion most likely will lead to rediscovering the need for a
separate system in the future” (Skrtic 206). Haas does not address any of these glaring
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counterarguments. Go back and look at Miriam’s thesis statements. You’ll see that this
last paragraph of analysis supports the final “prong” of her thesis.
Overall, Haas argument does have emotional appeal, and does seem logical.
Inclusion is a sensitive subject, and those who are new to this debate may be swayed by
her argument. Still, her assumptions have the possibility to offend some people, namely
parents, and they definitely seem to be trying to point out the disadvantages of
segregation. Her lack of response to counterarguments wasn’t too devastating, but if
she had addressed some concerns about inclusion, it would have given her paper
something more solid to stand on. Her biggest mistake, however, was her lack of
evidence. The fact that she didn’t cite any sources and gave no proof of any of her claims
weakened her argument to a point that it turned her paper into an interesting read
rather than a serious contender in the endless debate that is inclusion. This conclusion
does an excellent job of summing up Miriam’s evaluation of the source. It’s a very
strong conclusion.
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Works Cited
Haas, Diane. "Mainstreaming Benefits All Students." Current Controversies: The
Disabled. Ed. Brenda Stalcup. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997. Opposing
Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Mesa Community College. 23 Apr. 2010.
Leo, J. “Mainstreaming's 'Jimmy Problem.'” U. S. News & World Report 27 June
1994:22. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.
Lieberman, L. M. “Preserving Special Education . . . for Those Who Need It.”
Controversial Issues Confronting Special Education: Divergent Perspectives.
Ed. W. Stainback and S. Stainback. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 1992. Web. 23 Apr.
2010
Peetsma, Thea, et al. "Inclusion in Education: Comparing Pupils’ Development in
Special Education." Educational Review 53.2 (2001): 125-135. Psychology and
Behavioral Sciences Collection. EBSCO. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.
Skrtic, Thomas M. "The Special Education Paradox: Equity as the Way to Excellence."
Harvard Educational Review 61 (1991): 148-206. ERIC. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.
United States. Dept. of Education. Archived: IDEA '97. 1998. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.
Miriam’s Source Critique follows the prescribed pattern for this essay very nicely. Its
greatest strength is that she has chosen her points of analysis (the things she will
evaluate in the source’s argument) very well and used her other sources very
effectively to support her evaluation. This is good work.