Background on the study:
Dr Jackson and I agreed to take on the task of framing the National report for Inclusion National which is an emerging group of interested parents, citizens and professionals who are basically “friends of the idea of an inclusive society” that was formed at the 1999 NCID conference in Melbourne. On the invitation of the National Council on Intellectual Disability, Inclusion National (IN) took on the task of developing a report card on inclusive education in Australia for an international report that was being put together by UNESCO as part of the UNESCO study ‘Education for All The Year 2000 Assessment: Thematic Study on Inclusive Education’. Inclusion National saw this offer as an opportunity to develop some initial understanding about where we are as a nation, to discover which States were doing which things that promoted inclusive society particularly well, to discover which things may require further attention and where we, as interested citizens, might be encouraging our program funders and developers to attend to more rigorously over the next years.

 

What the research says:
For at least two decades now we have viewed an array of research supporting the inclusive education position. For example, Calberg and Kaale (1980) found significant benefits in inclusive education for children Report Card on Inclusive Education in Australia Darrell Wills M.Ed., Educational Consultant, PLEDG Projects and Associate Professor Robert Jackson PhD, Edith Cowan University with intellectual disabilities, with those in segregated education losing percentile ranks in comparison to their peers who were included in regular classrooms. Furthermore, the proportion of the time that children are included is directly related to the educational and social outcomes, with children fully included outperforming those partially included in some form of “pull-out” or semiintegrated situation (Brinker and Thorpe, 1984). The impact on other children in the classroom has been found generally to be positive, and the feared impact on teacher attention does not seem to be the issue it is often made out to be (Peltier, 1997). The situation is perhaps best summed up by Sobsey and Dreimanis (1993):

“Research to date leaves little doubt that the vast majority of students with intellectual disabilities do better in integrated classrooms rather than segregated special education programs.”

However they add:
“It is only the delivery of special education services in segregated settings that is called into question – not the need for individualized and intensive education.” (pp10-11).

We concur with their conclusion based on an extensive review of the comparative literature in this area (References in Full Report).

It also cannot be concluded that inclusion is only applicable to children with mild disabilities, as there is an extensive literature on the inclusion of children with severe and moderate disabilities into the regular classroom. The broad findings of this research are that the majority of children with severe or profound disability will not be able to keep up with their non-handicapped peers, but they do develop more skills educationally and socially in an inclusive school environment (References in Full Report).

Overall, the recommendation of segregated alternatives by many school personnel reported by parents in the national report card is not supported by the empirical literature. This includes the currently favoured model of a segregated unit on the grounds of the regular school campus. In fact the comparative experimental literature strongly favours inclusion even though many opinion articles written from within special education favour the segregated model.

Method:
Wills looked at the works of UNESCO over the past decade, particularly the Jomtien Conventions and Salamanca statements and formed 7 ratings based on headings from their thematic study (EFA 1999). He also developed 3 ratings that he thought reflected the 3 critical attributes of inclusive education as described in Wills and Jackson (1996). Inclusion National have called these the Aus 3 Ratings. Each of the items to be rated was defined with criteria set for allocating each of the different grades from A-F. (The definitions and criteria are set out in Appendix 1 of the Full Report). The 10 ratings were then incorporated into a report card, complete with key considerations and rating level descriptors and trialed with focus groups in Victoria by Tim Loreman and Professor Deppler, Monash University.

This process was then repeated in each State to assist in the completion of the report cards that form the basis of this report. Inclusion National members collated the data and sent it to Wills. Each State authored its own report. The States’ data and findings used to form this National Report Card were drawn together with the extensive review of literature by Dr Jackson, Daniella Haglich, my research associate, and I.

Raters:
Raters included parents of children with disabilities, teachers, principals, education bureaucrats and academics. It was delightful to see the seriousness with which the raters took to the task. Particularly for ‘consumers’, whose choice of inclusion is still more imagined than real, when they were asked to ‘grade’ their State education systems using a method that has been used for centuries to ‘grade’ their children, we found them to be mostly conservative in their marking and concerned to ensure that the system had the benefit of the doubt. The criteria made it difficult for a State to reach an A (such is the definition of highest quality), but the raters did discern near ‘top marks’ (B’s) for some aspects of their State’s current practice. This is both encouraging and telling of the deep desire of consumers to find good where it does exist.

Report Card on Inclusive Education in Australia
State by State Results (Averages)

Score Range:

Note: Although an increment to 1.3 should extend F+, this is not a traditional mark; thus D- was extended to 1.5.

Editor’s Note: Due to lack of space, it was not possible to include all the data in the above table. Please see Full Report for individual State’s rating figures.

Analysis:
A repeated measures analysis of variance on the Australian ratings (physical, social and curricular inclusion) gave a significant difference across ratings (p<.005) and States (p<.000) but a non- significant interaction effect (p<.188). Post Hoc comparisons on overall scores (Scheffe) yielded the following significant differences across States:

The physical ratings overall were significantly higher than both social and curricular inclusion ratings (p<.04). On the individual Australian ratings, the following differences were found. Differences were significant at 0.01 level or greater unless otherwise indicated.

 

Physical Inclusion:

 

Social Inclusion:

 

Curricular Inclusion:

A Key finding of each rating:

 

And the final word on the ratings:
“…efforts the education department has made to provide for children with disabilities are usually driven from a‘special Ed’ mind set rather than an inclusive one. The Department of Education and Training keeps employing special education teachers to advise on inclusion - something they know little or nothing about. The Learning Together Resource, which no doubt the department [NSW] is very proud of, makes it crystal clear that there is great confusion about what inclusion actually is, as segregated examples continue to be called ‘inclusive’. Within schools it is usually ‘pot luck’ if you strike a teacher who is willing to learn something about inclusive practice. There is then no flow through into the rest of the school. As a parent, you just start ‘educating’ the next teacher each year. Because there is little or no values training for teachers, parents often have to spend six months or more trying to get the teacher to understand the importance of an inclusive education to a child’s life and justifying their choice to enrol a child in the regular class. Some teachers feel that if they don’t agree with inclusion they have no obligation to teach a child, even if they are enrolled in their class!”

 

Discussion:
The data are limited in that they did not involve a random sample of raters from each State and so could be open to positive or negative bias. A random sample was impossible without huge resources to conduct the study, which we did not have. In fact the study was done without funding. However, it is reasonable to assume that, as a similar process was used in each State to collect data, the differences between States are real. The study then gives us a ‘baseline’ to measure improvements in coming years and gives an indication of current overall best practice in Australia. While the Australian data fall far below the world’s best practice (see the WA report card), it does indicate that some States in particular are taking the issues on board and making honest attempts to improve their performance. We can therefore be confident that future report cards will show a real move along this critical dimension embodied in the Disability Services Act and the Disability Discrimination Act.

Even with the use of descriptive definitions and a rating criteria that goes beyond those used to ‘grade’ our children in schools, we appreciate that evaluation of human endeavours is always going to be woven with a value-based thread. Kaufman and Hallahan (1995) are correct in pointing out that the move to inclusion is primarily philosophical. However, this is as it should be. A society should determine what direction it wants to take and then employ its tools or invent those needed to progress towards that vision. When Kennedy announced that Americans would land on the moon he hadn’t the tools to take them there. Still they went. Like Kennedy, Don Grimes announced a New Direction to Australia in 1986, without the tools to take us to an inclusive society. The Australian Parliament set the vision, which has been reinforced by the Disability Discrimination Act. Like the race to the moon, ours is a challenge of inventing the tools and putting in place the safeguards to secure the vision without too many more casualties. Like the race to the moon, we have those with limited vision who believe we should not go where no civilisation has gone before. For those who dream of making inclusive society a reality, the tools of inclusive education are clearly needed. For those without the vision, the old tools of segregation become the barriers to finding our nation’s New Direction.

It pains us deeply to discover the view of raters in seeing an increasing trend in our society to the killing thought about children with disabilities. It seems sadly ironic that at the same time as raters viewed society as improving the collective thoughts about people with disabilities, they also saw wider acceptance of killing thoughts about the unborn child with a disability. For whatever ‘rational’ reason this may be, for the student with a disability this can only lead to increased confusion of their self-identities as those who are ‘missed’ in the culling process. It surely must also confuse their peers’ view of them as invaluable, important friends, neighbours and future workmates. This one finding may indeed be the core of the greatest difficulty we face in moving to schools and society for ALL.

 

Complete References in Full Report or available on request.

 

 

Reference:  Wills, D; Jackson, R. (2001). Report Card on Inclusive Education in Australia. Interaction v.14 #2&3  p.4-11.
Reprinted with permission from the National Council on Intellectual Disability.

 

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