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Special Education Teachers Essay The current directions toward inclusion are varied. Some hear opinions that students with mild and moderate disabilities will be placed in classes. Then, there are also those who say that special education students will be placed in inclusion, including those with the most severe disabilities. Definitions of inclusion already abound including issues on its subsequent translation into programming. On the question, â€Å"Which students with disabilities will most benefit from inclusion, the different levels of responses are: Level 1—Students with mild disabilities participate full-time in regular education classrooms. Students with moderate to profound disabilities attend separate classrooms on the regular education camps. Level II – Students with mild and moderate disabilities participate full-time in regular education classrooms, with the elimination of all pull-out programs. Students with severe or profound disabilities would be served in a separate classroom on the same campus. Level III – All students participate in regular education classrooms except students with the most severe disabilities who would be in normalized and age-appropriate classroom on the same campus. Few students are excluded. Level IV – Despite the degree of disability, all students are fully included in general education classrooms. Specialists and teaching assistants provide support for students with the most severe disabilities within the classroom. The regular education teacher is responsible for structuring social interactions with typical peers. The least inclusive proposal places most students with mild disabilities in regular classes, but excludes those with moderate through severe disabilities, placing them in separate rooms within the regular school building (Lilly, 1986). This proposal is closest to the traditional manner of service delivery and is the easiest to implement in terms of using available special educators as support personnel and providing training in methods for regular education teachers to include these children. More inclusive is the proposal to place students with mild or moderate disabilities in regular education classes (Reynolds Wang, 1983; Wang, Reynolds Walburg, 1987). The essence and meaning of inclusion evolved from the historical concepts in early childhood special education, that is, mainstreaming and integration. Bricker (1995) discusses the evolution of these terms, noting that mainstreaming refers to the â€Å"reentry of children with mild disabilities be served totally in these settings eliminating the need for pull-out programs. While students with organically-based learning disabilities or moderately demonstrated behavioral disorders would not have been included in regular education rooms in the Level I proposal, they would be included here. Yet, proponents of both levels agree that there will be students with severe and/or multiple disabilities whose needs will not be served optimally in a mainstream environment. They feel that these students will need to participate full-time in separate settings. Level III includes a more extensive involvement of severely impaired students in regular education. All students are included except those who are unable to be involved in academic or social interactions (Gartner Lipsky, 1987). However, even these students would participate in nearby classrooms which would be as normalized and age-appropriate as possible. The most extreme view is that of full inclusionists, who propose that all students should participate in general education classes. Claiming that to do otherwise would be to support a â€Å"dual-system† for the most disabled, Level IV proponents propose the integration of even profoundly-impaired students into totally normalized classes (Stainback Stainback, 1984). This position has prompted the strongest reaction of implausibility from those opposed to the Regular Education Initiative. Yet parents and professionals supporting Level IV inclusion do acknowledge that there are situations in which these students cannot be grouped with other s because of instructional differences. Thus, the Regular Education Initiative gives a sense of inclusion for students. Yet, a number of researchers and educators have opposed the Regular Education Initiative strongly. They cite the historical inability and lack of desire of regular education to meet students’ needs. That is the reason why the IDEA cropped up. They worry about the loss of funding and parental right. They also note that most regular educators are not trained to have students with disabilities in their classes. They say that teachers cannot meet societal demands for excellence if they are expected to have vastly different levels of student academic and behavioral performance in their classes.