Many current teachers' education programs offer only one class about students with disabilities to general-education majors.
Studies increasingly show that children with disabilities who are integrated into general education classrooms fare better than their peers in non-inclusive classrooms.
Not only to do these students get more instructional time, but they also are absent less frequently, and have proven more successful in post-secondary settings.
Students without disabilities also benefit from inclusionary classrooms: The interactions help build positive relations and friendships, and the normally-abled youngsters learn to be more at ease with people of all kinds.
Educators and school administrators know this, and have become comfortable with placing students with and without disabilities in the same classrooms.
But as positive as this trend is, there's one area where the system breaks down, NJSpotlight reports.
Teacher training has failed to keep up with the new reality, leaving general-education teachers ill-equipped to handle the needs of the wider variety of students.
"It's not just getting a child included ... that is only a small portion of the battle," said Mike Flom of Allendale, co-founder of the advocacy group New Jersey Parents and Teachers for Appropriate Education and the father of seventh-grade twin daughters.
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Although he praised the motivation of the girls' teachers in a disabled-inclusive classroom, he was concerned that they had not had enough training to handle the multiple challenges.
And indeed, NJSpotlight notes, many teachers' ed programs offer only one class about students with disabilities to general-education majors.
It's a step, but not nearly enough to provide them with the tools to engage a roomful of students ranging from those with IQs in the stratosphere to those who struggle to read at grade level.
Two teachers in Bloomfield told the news outlet they wished teacher-education programs would include in the curriculum such matters as the different kinds of disabilities they were likely to encounter in their classes, and how to address the varied challenges with which their students grappled.
To be sure, some universities in the state have already incorporated such lessons.
Montclair State University students can receive a dual certification - special education and subject-level or grade-level range - which allows them to be hired in either capacity.
Also available at Montclair: a laudable program called iSTeM, geared to future teachers of science, technology engineering and math who will work in inclusionary classrooms.
One challenge, of course, is making sure all efforts are made to help not only tomorrow's teachers, but also those who are already in the classroom, no matter how long they've been in the field.
It falls to the school districts to make on-the-job training not only available but also convenient, so these teachers and the students they interact with have the full and total benefit of inclusionary education.
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