Issues in Educating Students with Disabilities

disability label is best for all students. May not such a presumption devalue the complexity of individual needs and actually undermine those needs?

At this point in time, special educators have taken a number of initiatives that go beyond the current federal legal framework. The Regular Education Initiative (a misnomer because it was initiated by special educators) is an example. So is the inclusion movement; so is the interest in outcomes, authentic assessment, and decategorization. At what point should these initiatives be adopted as legal mandates? What if they have not yet been institutionalized as customs; can they successfully be reinstitutionalized as law? It may well be that IDEA's future will be better assured if we try to consolidate what we have, allow experimentation to continue without legalizing it, and work to change the system from within rather than prematurely imposing major new legal mandates from without.

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