I would agree that lack of funding and implementation fidelity are huge factors in the success or failure of inclusion. The most successful settings I have seen have staffed all inclusion settings with a minimum of one content (general education) teacher, and one special education teacher, and had ongoing training and follow-up with general education teachers on universal design. Also, inclusive settings are not supposed to ever go over 50% students with special needs.
I'll quibble with platypus a little in that inclusion does not mean that 25 different special needs students are now split across 25 different classrooms. They are typically clustered in inclusion settings like those described above. This ought to apply to both ends of the spectrum.
The best year my DD had in K-8 was a year (6th grade) in which she was in a classroom like this. Same number of total students, probably about 22, re were 2 teachers there, one special ed, and probably between1/3 to nearly half the class was some flavor of special ed. It worked beautifully for both ends, because everyone got mostly what they needed. Both ends of the group were instructed outside of the classroom for limited periods of time as well, but the majority of instruction was in the same classroom. They did a lot of fluid grouping, and a lot of project based stuff. The highlight was putting onGreek plays, after a study of Ancient Greece. They made the sets, acted, had music, advertisements during the interludes, handled tickets, food, etc. The kids were truly a cohesive group who were respectful and understanding of differences. A remarkable year, especially because it came after a bad one marked by intense bullying. The teachers made all the difference.
We also experienced pretty good differentiation in a couple AP classes- the calculus teacher has been experimenting with some projects, which have been great from my view. One was related to claclulating material for a nuclear reactor, with a lot of twists thrown in, the volume of material could not get below a certain point without danger, the reaction speed charged depending on the volume, etc. They had to do a lot of calculations, but the thinking and presentation of their work was where the real deep understanding came in. We had pretty good results with AP bio, too- but again, because the teacher was allowed to think outside the box. He allowed and semi-orchestrated lab groups based on ability (not sure how this got past the admin, but he’s a very respected teacher, and the kids kind of ability group on their own when given the opportunity) and much of their lab work was self designed by group. They had to write posters as well as lab reports and be able to present their work to the class, where it was critically evaluated, etc. Great experience.
