Excerpted from chapter 1 of Restructuring for Caring and Effective Education: Piecing the Puzzle Together, Second Edition,edited by Richard A. Villa, Ed.D., & Jacqueline S. Thousand, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2000 Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Current Situation

Tremendous attention at the federal, state, and local levels remains focused on educational reform. Policy makers are emphasizing the establishment of national and state standards; greater flexibility in the use of funds to support categorical programs; and new, more authentic forms of assessment. Among the most notable comprehensive school reform programs and models that have been developed and disseminated across the United States are the Coaltion of Essential Schools (Sizer, 1984), Accelerated Schools (Levin, 1987), Success for All (Slavin, Madden, Dolan, & Wasik, 1993), and the School Development Program (Comer, 1988). Each of these models involves a large network of schools, all of which are attempting to effect comprehensive reform in school organization and instruction. All of these restructuring efforts embrace the values of inclusive education (e.g., valuing of diversity, collaboration, unified services, problem solving, and expanded options in the classroom to support student learning).

The Accelerated Schools program is based on three underlying principles: purpose, empowerment, and building on the strengths of the entire school community. Accelerated Schools lessons are designed to enrich learning through higher expectations, relevant content, and stimulating instruction (Keller, 1995). The Coalition of Essential Schools comprises secondary schools that emphasize collaborative problem solving and decision making among administration members, teachers, students, and families to create significant long-term reform (O'Neil, 1995). The Success for All program emphasizes the prevention of learning problems and addressing learning challenges through intensive interventions designed to minimally disrupt students' participation and progress in the general education program (Slavin, 1997). Schools that adopt the Corner model establish teams of stakeholders to create a comprehensive plan for the school. The model is based on the belief that the relationship between the school and individual families is at the heart of an impoverished child's success or the lack thereof and includes a comprehensive staff development program (Ramirez-Smith, 1995).

In 1995, the National Center for Educational Restructuring and Inclusion canvassed these and other major nongonvernmental reform efforts (e.g., Foxfire, Paideia, National Center for Effective Schools) to determine the extent to which children with disabilities were included in their reform efforts. The results of this canvassing noted increased attention to the inclusion of children with disabilities in these reform efforts but a less-than-coherent plan for supporting students with disabilities in general education environments. Lipsky and Gartner concluded that, for the most part, inclusive education activities are initiated at the local school district level rather than through state-level or federal restructuring efforts. In too many school districts, inclusive education remains an isolated activity. Increasingly, however, the placing of special education students into general education classrooms with the necessary supports and aids (i.e., inclusive education) precipitates broader school reform or school restructuring efforts that include both special and general education students. Basically, they become the cause and consequence of each other. (1997, 231).

Until the 1990s, the inclusive education movement was viewed as a separate initiative running parallel or even counter to concomitant general education reform efforts (Block and Haring, 1992). In contrast, as Udvari-Solner and Thousand (1995) illustrated, established and emerging general education theories actually emulate the principles and practices underpinning inclusive education. General education school reform initiatives that Udvari-Solner and Thousand identified as offering great promise for facilitating inclusive education included multicultural education; outcome-based education; multiple intelligences theory; interdisciplinary curriculum; constructivist learning; authentic assessment of student learning; multiage groupings; use of technology in the classroom; forms of peer-mediated instruction such as cooperative group learning, teaching responsibility, and peacemaking and collaborative learning among adults and students.