Weekly Update

_{After spending time in a classroom just for students with significant disabilities, Terri Joyce’s son has enjoyed learning in a classroom that includes students with and without disabilities for the last two years. Credit: Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report}

Young kids with and without disabilities can learn side by side. One state has instead kept them apart for years

Under federal law, students with disabilities — who once faced widespread outright exclusion from public schools — have a right to learn alongside peers without disabilities “to the maximum extent” possible. That includes the right to get accommodations and help, like aides, to allow them to stay in the general education classroom. Schools must report crucial benchmarks, including how many students with disabilities are learning in the general education classroom over 80 percent of the time.

More than anywhere else in the country, New Jersey students with disabilities fail to reach this threshold, according to federal data. Instead, they spend significant portions of the school day in separate classrooms where parents say they have little to no access to the general curriculum — a practice that can violate their civil rights under federal law.

Just 49 percent of 6- and 7-year-olds with disabilities in the state spend the vast majority of their day in a general education classroom, compared with nearly three-quarters nationally. In some New Jersey districts, it was as low as 10 percent for young learners. Only 45 percent of students with disabilities of all ages are predominantly in a general education classroom, compared to 68 percent nationwide.

Nebraska invested in having special education students learn alongside their peers — and is seeing promising results

One state is reimagining education for kids with disabilities.

A new way to help some college students: Zero percent, no-fee loans

Under ‘pay-it-forward’ programs, graduates’ repayments lift up those behind them.

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