Should Children With Disabilities Be Mainstreamed Or Not?

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The debate on whether children with disabilities should be mainstreamed or not has been argued for a multitude of years. To mainstream is the “integration of children with special educational problems, as a physical handicap, into conventional classes and school activities” (dictionary.com). As of right now, parents have a choice for their children on whether they are sent to a separate school to cater to their learning disabilities or to a public, private etc. school of their choice. There are many different opinions on this issue, as would be expected. Whether those opinions are from parents of healthy children, parents of children with learning disabilities, teachers, principals, the list goes on. “It has been more than 30 years since the federal government first declared that children with different abilities shouldn’t be automatically separated from one another in school,” says Shah, in her article about the idea of mainstreaming students. The way society will feel about the idea depends a lot on how you present the argument. People may believe that students should not be mainstreamed just because the disabled children are not good enough to be in classes with all the other students in the school. Some people may have the opinion that pupils with the learning disabilities should be sent to different school and/or classes, simply because there the students would be able to receive the help specifically catered to their disability. In her article, Shah also quotes Whitbread, who says, “Is the child breathing? Then they belong in a regular class. I think that people respond to the civil rights argument, that it’s wrong to separate children. Would you put all the blue-eyed children in one classroom? Of course you wouldn’t,”. Of... ... middle of paper ... ...r is was in a special school for their disability or a regular school, then that student should be able to adapt to the learning and requirements for higher learning. Those disabled students are just as important as every other student and, therefore, should have the same opportunities to pursue a major experience college. Every student who graduates high school has the decision to make on whether they would like to attend college in the following fall. The choice of where, should be a decision made by the families, and that should be the case for every family, a family with disabled or not. The determination of where the student attends college should not be made by the government nor should the college accept or turn away students based on their learning abilities. The student’s qualification should not be based on IDs in the realization that everyone has potential.

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