The Effects of Inclusion on Classmates of Students with Special Needs: The Case of Serious Emotional Problems

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the current policy of full inclusion of children receiving special education services into regular education classrooms. Specifically, this paper focuses on the policy's effects on the classmates of children with special needs, with a particular focus on classmates of students with serious emotional problems. Results suggest that students with a classmate with a serious emotional problem experience reductions in first grade test scores, especially students in low-income schools. Results that attempt to capture sorting across and within school, using school-level random and fixed effects specifications and matching estimation, are qualitatively similar. The magnitude of the reduction in mathematics achievement is similar to the adjusted achievement gap between Hispanic and white students and 30%-50% of the size of the adjusted black-white gap. Since nearly 10% of the student population has a classmate with a serious emotional problem, the aggregate effect on test scores of the policy of inclusion of these students is potentially quite large.

Keywords: Inclusion, Peer Effects, Special Education