The inclusion of students with disabilities in general education versus more restrictive settings has steadily increased since the 1990s. Yet little is known about inclusion’s effectiveness for these students or their nondisabled peers. I examine the impacts of a district-wide inclusion policy, leveraging the staggered, school-level implementation to estimate the policy’s causal effects on academic and behavioral outcomes. Elementary and middle school test scores and attendance rates were unaffected by the policy. High school graduation and ninth grade promotion rates increased by two and six percentage points, respectively, in the years following implementation. Findings suggest that inclusive education does not come at the expense of students’ academic progress in the short term and may improve academic outcomes in the longer term.
AffleckJ. Q.AdamsA.LowenbraumS.MadgeS. (1988). Integrated classroom versus resource model: Academic viability and effectiveness. Exceptional Children, 54(4), 339–349.
2.
AngristJ. D.PischkeJ. (2015). Mastering ‘metrics: The path from cause to effect. Princeton University Press.
3.
BallisB.HeathK. (2019). The long-run impacts of special education (EdWorkingPaper No. 19-151). Annenberg Institute at Brown University.
4.
BerryA.GravelleM. (2018). The benefits and challenges of special education positions in rural settings: Listening to teachers. The Rural Educator, 34(2), 1–13.
5.
BradyF. (2010). The influence of inclusion on language arts literacy and math achievement of non-disabled middle school students [Doctoral dissertation]. Seton Hall University.
6.
BrewtonS. (2005). The effects of inclusion on mathematics achievement of general education students in middle school [Doctoral dissertation]. Seton Hall University.
7.
CarrellS. E.HoekstraM.KukaE. (2016). The long-run effects of disruptive peers (Working Paper No. 22042). National Bureau of Economic Research.
8.
CrockettJ. B. (2020). Inclusion as an idea and its justification in law. In KauffmanJ. M. (Ed.), On educational inclusion: Meanings, history, issues and international perspectives (pp. 25–46). Routledge.
9.
DanielL.KingD. (1997). Impact of inclusion education on academic achievement, student behavior and self-esteem, and parental attitudes. Journal of Educational Research, 91, 67–80.
10.
De ChaisemartinC.D’HaultfœuilleX. (2018). Two-way fixed effects estimators with heterogenous treatment effects. American Economic Review, 110(9), 2964–2996.
11.
DessemontetR. S.BlessG.MorinD. (2012). Effects of inclusion on the academic achievement and adaptive behaviour of children with intellectual disabilities. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 56(6), 579–587.
12.
DornS.FuchsD.FuchsL. S. (1996). A historical perspective on special education reform. Theory into Practice, 35(1), 12–19.
13.
FletcherD. (2010). Spillover effects of inclusion of classmates with emotional problems on test scores in early elementary school. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 29(1), 69–83.
14.
GilmourA. F.HenryG. T. (2018). Who are the classmates of students with disabilities in elementary mathematics classrooms?Remedial and Special Education, 41(1), 18–27.
15.
GiordanoG. (2007). American special education: A history of early political advocacy. Peter Lang.
16.
Goodman-BaconA. (2021). Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing. Journal of Econometrics, 225(2), 254.
17.
GottfriedM. A. (2014). Classmates with disabilities and students noncognitive outcomes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(1), 20–43.
18.
HanushekE. A.KainJ. F.RivkinS. G. (2002). Inferring program effects for special populations: Does special education raise achievement for students with disabilities?The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(4), 584–599.
19.
HoA. D. (2009). Nonparametric framework for comparing trends and gaps across tests. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 34(2), 201–228.
20.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA]. (2004). 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.
21.
JenkinsJ. R.JewellM.LeicesterN.JenkinsL.TroutnerN. M. (1991). Developing a school building model for educating students with handicaps and at-risk students in general education classrooms. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 24(5), 311–320.
22.
JonesN.WintersM. A. (2020). Are two teachers better than one? The effect of co-teaching on students with and without disabilities (Working Paper 2020-1). Wheelock Educational Policy Center, Boston University.
23.
King-SearsM. E.StefanidisA.BerkeleyS.StrogilosV. (2021). Does co-teaching improve academic achievement for students with disabilities? A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 34(2021), 100405.
24.
KurthJ. A.MorningstarM. E.KozleskiE. B. (2015). The persistence of highly restrictive special education placements for students with low-incidence disabilities. Research and Practice for Persons With Severe Disabilities, 39(3), 227–239.
25.
LindsayG. (2007). Educational psychology and the effectiveness of inclusive education/mainstreaming. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(1), 1–24.
26.
McDonnellJ.ThorsonN.DisherS.Mathot-BucknerC.MendelJ.RayL. (2003). The achievement of students with developmental disabilities and their peers without disabilities in inclusive settings: An exploratory study. Education and Treatment of Children, 26(3), 224–236.
27.
McLeskeyJ.RosenbergM. S.WestlingD. L. (2018). Inclusion: Effective practices for all students (3rd ed.). Pearson.
28.
MorganP. L.FriscoM. L.FarkasG.HibelJ. (2010). A propensity score matching analysis of the effects of special education services. The Journal of Special Education, 43(4), 236–254.
National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). (2019b). Education demographic and geographic estimates (EDGE). ACS-ED District Demographic Dashboard.
31.
PeltierG. L. (1997). The effect of inclusion of non-disabled children: A review of the research. Contemporary Education, 68(4), 234–239.
32.
ReaP. J.McLaughlinV. L.Walther-ThomasC. (2002). Outcomes for students with learning disabilities in inclusive and pullout programs. Exceptional Children, 68(2): 203–222.
33.
ReardonS. F.ShearB. R.CastellanoK. E.HoA. D. (2016). Using heteroskedastic ordered probit models to recover moments of continuous test score distributions from coarsened data (Working Paper No. 16-02). Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis.
34.
RobinsonC. M. (2012). The influence of inclusion on the academic performance of general education students on the New Jersey assessment of skills and knowledge in grades 6, 7, and 8 [Doctoral dissertation]. Seton Hall University.
35.
RothJ. (2019). Pre-test with caution: Event study estimates after testing for parallel trends [Unpublished manuscript]. Department of Economics, Harvard University.
36.
RuijsN. M.PeetsmaT. T. D. (2009). Effects of inclusion on students with and without special educational needs reviewed. Educational Research Review, 4(2009), 67–79.
37.
SalendS. J.DuhaneyL. G. (1999). The impact of inclusion on students with and without disabilities and their educators. Remedial & Special Education, 20(2), 114–127.
38.
SangerC. S. (2020). Inclusive pedagogy and universal design approaches for diverse learning environments. In SangerC. S.GleasonN. W. (Eds.), Diversity and inclusion in global higher education: Lessons from across Asia. Palgrave Macmillan.
39.
SchifterL. A. (2015). Using survival analysis to understand graduation of students with disabilities. Exceptional Children, 82(4), 479–496.
SchulteA.StevensJ. J. (2015). Once, sometimes, or always in special education: Mathematics growth and achievement gaps. Exceptional Children, 81(3), 370–387.
42.
SchwartzA. E.HopkinsB. G.StiefelL. (2019). The effects of special education on the academic performance of students with learning disabilities (EdWorkingPaper No. 19-86). Annenberg Institute at Brown University.
43.
SharpeM. N.YorkJ. L.KnightJ. (1994). Effects of inclusion on the academic performance of classmates without disabilities: A preliminary study. Remedial and Special Education, 15(5), 281–287.
44.
SmithP. (2007). Have we made any progress? Including students with intellectual disabilities in regular education classrooms. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 45(5), 297–309.
SunL. (2020). EVENTSTUDYWEIGHTS: Stata module to estimate the implied weights on the cohort-specific average treatment effects on the treated (CATTs) (event study specifications). Statistical Software Components, Boston College Department of Economics.
47.
SunL.AbrahamS. (2021). Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects. Journal of Econometrics, 225(2021), 175–199.
TrabuccoM. (2011). The influence of co-taught inclusion on the academic achievement of third grade non-disabled students in mathematics [Doctoral dissertation]. Seton Hall University.
50.
TremblayP. (2012). Comparative outcomes of two instructional models for students with learning disabilities: Inclusion with co-teaching and solo taught special education. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 13(4), 251–258.
51.
WinzerM. A. (2012). History of special education: From isolation to integration. Gallaudet University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
