There was a longish article by Michael Winerip in the Times the other day that I've seen making the rounds of my various lists: it talks about the bennies of inclusion. Not well-researched: an observational article, and he offers this

Those who've seen it done right swear by it. Last year, at another school, Johanny Lopez taught a "self contained" class of a dozen learning- and emotionally disabled second and third graders. "Their bad behaviors fed off each other," she says. This year, at P.S. 75, Ms. Lopez is team teaching in a first grade of 22, 8 of them special ed. "I love it," she says, "It's a lot more hopeful for children."

But the collaborative model is also a lot more work. The fifth grade team of Mayra Fernandez and Daisy Miranda arrive an hour early each morning to choreograph who will lead which lesson and what support the other will provide. Ms. Lopez and her teaching partner, Chante Martindale spent a recent Saturday afternoon planning the coming week.

It takes the proper mix of students - one child with too serious an emotional problem can undo a class. And teachers must provide extra enrichment for bright general ed students so they stay challenged and their parents stay cooperative.

A recent independent study of the city's special education system praised the expansion of this model under Chancellor Joel I. Klein, but found that too often, the classes are poorly run, resisted by parents of general ed students, and become "dumping grounds" for the lowest tracked children.

The example of how one student can undo a class I don't think is on the money: you can have emotional issues in any general education class, and behavioral issues, which I think is what he's really talking about her, are not impermeable to teaching. That's kind of the whole point of operant conditioning and ABA, and one of the things I love about it is that no behavior is, in effect, inoperable: it all depends on the teaching, which is a hopeful thing. The other problem I had was with the issue of the bright kids not being challenged. Was this based on any observations or on parents' concerns? Because that's what these issues sound like.

A couple of things: learning disabled does not mean not bright. I've repeatedly heard beginning teachers referring to kids w/ADD as "slow." As a group, kids with IEP's are not going to function as well as general ed kids, but as individuals, you don't want to make the assumption that they're not as bright, b/c you will be wrong a lot of the time.

The other thing that's interesting is something I hear from a lot of administrators that parents don't believe: some gen ed parents WANT their kids in collaborative b/c it's an extra teacher in there and they feel their children can benefit. This is not the kind of thing parents tend to share with each other, perhaps b/c it seems an admission that the child is struggling, but apparently it happens frequently enough in this district.