So how’s that mainstreaming working out?

The Wall Street Journal (subscriber’s link) recently reported on a rebellion against the idea of mainstreaming special education students by placing them in classrooms with, for lack of a better word, "normal" students. The twist in the story is that some parents of special ed-students are speaking out against the practice.

As policy makers push to include more special-education students into general classrooms, factions are increasingly divided. Advocates for the disabled say special-education students benefit both academically and socially by being taught alongside typical students. Legislators often side with them, arguing that mainstreaming is productive for students and cost-effective for taxpayers.

Some teachers and administrators have been less supportive of the practice, saying that they lack the training and resources to handle significantly disabled children. And more parents are joining the dissenters. People like Ms. Travis believe that mainstreaming can actually hinder the students it is intended to help. Waging a battle to preserve older policies, these parents are demanding segregated teaching environments -- including separate schools.

Since 1990, the Journal says, the percentage of students in special classes has declined from a high of 25 percent to just over 16 percent today. Says one federal official, "The burden is on school districts and states to give strong justification for why a child or group of children cannot be integrated."

At the same time, the percentage of students receiving special education services as soared 43 percent since 1989, meaning that more of these students (or at least more students with the label) are in classrooms than ever before. Currently, there are 6 million students receiving educational services for the disabled, and over half spend most of their time in a “normal” classroom.

Today, over 10 percent of all children with mental retardation, and 40 percent of those with traumatic brain injury are considered "fully mainstreamed."

Color me elitist, but none of these strikes me as particularly useful. To go into full codger mode, in my day, mainstreaming was unheard of, or at least not practiced. Even then, the ethos of egalitarianism and non-academic goals for education was strong. We didn’t even have Advanced Placement classes, meaning that a few of my classes were largely a waste of time. I’d hate to think of what my experience would be today with the demands on many teachers to accommodate students who require a different environment and teachers with a different skill set. As one person writes in today's letters section, "While many normal students benefit socially by learning to treat the disabled with respect, their academic education suffers, and this is disturbing to their parents."

Once again, we have a story of a government agency pursuing a one-size-fits-nobody-well strategy.

Here’s a different idea: create a simple voucher program for these students. (Utah, for example, has the Carson Smith scholarship program; Kentucky has seen a different proposal. Another proposal has been advanced in Nevada, and other states will follow.) Free educational entrepreneurs to create schools that focus on special-ed students. Win-win-win, for those students, for all students, and for taxpayers.