PA-597-152 Final paper report. An Inclusive Publicly Funded Education System.
Course Information
The purpose of this course is to introduce graduate students to a set of analytical concepts for understanding incentive structures, decision-making and barriers to mutually beneficial outcomes, and to introduce innovative tools for analyzing questions relating to public policy. An integral part of this course is to spend time and effort analyzing and discussing these concepts and tools. Students will find many of the tools introduced in class and out of class, will provide them with useful exposure to adapt to their everyday management lives. The course instructor will have the class master the following: • Align their organizational values and resources with targeted strategic objectives. • Employ varied motivational arrows to appeal to a broad spectrum of stakeholders. • Build and manage diverse and often dispersed teams that can learn continuously and collaborate productively. • Improve operations continuously, measure performance and foster organizational learning; and • Transform social networks into coalitions for social change. A successful public administrator has the job of identifying, understanding, or offering solutions to issues of public concern and possibly identifying, understanding, and resolving the public concern. Examples will be taken from social justice, transportation, municipal government, state and federal government, nonprofit management, and non- governmental entities. The course will be infused with issues that take into consideration managerial ethics, diversity, inclusion, and the ways various groups (immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, suburban, urban, college-educated, non- college educated, religious, non-religious, LGBTQ+, married, single, and other “non- conforming” groups) are treated in the United States and internationally. All forms of decision-making involve dealing with the human condition. As current or budding public or private sector administrators, you will be involved with the supervision of staff. It is imperative that we question and challenge our perceptions of the people we will soon call our colleagues. Please note, this class is an elective and is designed for students with multiple expectations and needs. There will be students who are taking the class simply to complete an elective. There will, however, be students in the class who are fulfilling a final requirement: The Capstone. I will be available for individual meetings via Zoom, Google Hangout, or Blackboard Collaborate to see that each student’s expectations are met.
Objectives PA 597 builds on and applies the analytical methodology taught in PA 580 (Policy Evaluation) and PA 581 (Policy Design); as well as, PA 570 Ethics and Professional Responsibility. The expectation is by the end of the course students will recognize the importance of leadership and how to exercise decision-making to improve organizational design and functioning in dealing with special problems. For each in-class/out-of-class meeting, the objective for each student will be to demonstrate his or her ability to write by using the following techniques. • Problem or opportunity definition: Identify and document a client-oriented public policy or management problem or opportunity. Conduct a thorough, original assessment of the problem, goals, sub-goals, objectives, and specific quantifiable goal criteria. Your goal criteria should allow you to determine whether the extent to which the policy is successful. Goals should be outlined at the level of consideration of the government or organization that will implement them and should be within the capacity of the implementing government or organization to achieve. • Identify and develop several (usually 3-5 as a rough guide) policy alternative as solutions or options to remedy the problem. These alternatives and your projections across various goal criteria should be charted in a summary Goals/Alternatives matrix (sometimes called a Consequences Matrix). We will discuss the Consequences Matrix in class. An example will be supplied to the class. • Analyze Alternatives: Analyze several possible solutions, addressing the programmatic, fiscal, human, legal, ethical, organizational, and implementation aspects of each alternative. • Analyze & Plan Implementation: Analyze the implementation challenges and solutions that each major alternative would face to realize the policy goal. • Communicate: Present the analysis and recommendations developed in the study in an extensive written and brief oral report to the class. • Recommend: Recommend one alternative (or several if they are not mutually exclusive).
An Inclusive Publicly Funded Education System
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An Inclusive Publicly Funded Education System
The American education system has undergone various changes since the 17th centenary when it was established. Dramatic changes are currently underway influencing how youth and children with disabilities and people from other backgrounds are educated in the US (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). Pressure has been put on inclusion promotion and deinstitutionalization in local and national social welfare and education systems by international legislation influence and related legal cause, non-governmental organizations' actions, and general population attitude changes because of globalization. For America, this means getting rid of handicap, disability, and other defectology old models to favor academic and social inclusion models. Because of these complicated socio-political elements, the country has established several policies and started implementing inclusive education (IE) approaches intending to change educational and societal resources, strategies, attitudes and support towards youths and children who are disabled, or from different backgrounds, or any other segregated areas concerning general education classrooms and schools. This paper analyzes the different aspects of an inclusive, publicly funded education system and the extent to which it has been successful.
An inclusion education system historical analysis will help outline the milestones and dissect the topic capable of being used as a system success measure. The education role in individuals' lives is decided by their choice of career and the education system support. All students of different ages are required to be involved in various topics and studies and let them choose the ones they find more interesting and relevant to the profession they prefer. The current education system involves a narrower approach that requires students to make their choices concerning different professions, and parents and tutors can only play the role of guiding them. Students can choose many careers and many different ways they can utilize to achieve their set goals and targets. These steps cannot be seen as a success without understanding the definition of the inclusive education system and its history; therefore, this paper addresses the inclusive education context from its US historical underpinnings. It also outlines the universal and critical IE components and further reviews the academic and social IE impacts on youths and children both without and with disabilities.
Definition of The Inclusion System
It is essential to understand the inclusion of operational education definitions before discussing its other concepts that determine how it has transformed, thus being successful. Firstly, inclusive education and inclusion on its own are philosophies that rely on a specific value system aiming at maximizing all individuals' full participation in education and society by reducing discriminatory and exclusionary practices (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). The general inclusive education understanding entails a continuous essential strategy for designing policies and strategies. Still it refers to a particular service given with the aim of adapting and changing the system of education to suit students with distinctive needs. According to this concept, IE cannot be considered as limited to the individuals with disabilities inclusion, but instead, is centered on all students’ inclusion despite their socioeconomic status, language, sexual orientation, gender, disability, ethnicity, race, or other different identity aspects as seen by others.
In the educational context, inclusion means that all children and youths should be considered valued community members. None of them should face exclusion, rejection, teasing, humiliation, alienation, or marginalization (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). The inclusive education concept has transformed, changing its basis from youngsters with special educational needs to a much larger framework that internalizes the need for school systems reforms by implementing targeted policies that can accommodate diversity in schools. Generally, people know that inclusive education is essential for achieving social inclusion and democratizing education goals.
History
Inclusive education has a significant grassroots history in the US. Education in the US was implemented first by Puritans who had separated themselves from the England church in the past centuries. They did this because they believed that the Church of England was strongly linked to the Roman Catholic in similar practices, thus deciding to go to America. After all, there was freedom of religion. Education was introduced mainly to facilitate bible studies and impart various skills. It was first established in the Latin language and was communal. The first public institution to be established is the Boston Latin institution, where the studies taught involved mixing fundamental academic skills and religious values. The school is still operational since it was established in 1635 and acts as a monument that shows the significant transformation in the education sector. Back then, the studies given emphasized the practice and importance of the puritan values and were biblical. In the old system, unlike the inclusion education systems, students could not specialize in certain studies depending on their preferred profession, and there were no colleges or high schools.
Education in the US was symbolized by establishing the education rights movement, which gained popularity from the movement for civil rights then influenced by the disability rights and parents advocacy movements for youths and children with disabilities and of color. Self- advocates and advocates who represented these groups were successful in lobbying for state legislation, which led to the "Education for Handicapped Children Act (1975)" passing and the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004).” These legislations stand for appropriate and free public education to be offered to all children despite their ability, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or race (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). These legislations have created a way in the US for disabled students to get access to classrooms and education in general.
The appropriate and free public education did not specifically focus on inclusion in children with disabilities in the universal education setup. Although, due to the appropriate term, it led to a second mandate implementation that advocated for education to be provided to all children who are disabled and later on a provision of a least restrictive surrounding which refers to a legislative mandate suggesting that even if full inclusion is not necessary for all children, those with disabilities are supposed to be taught in an environment that is less restrictive as possible while resembling the universal education surrounding at a great extent at the same time ensuring that their specific educational needs are met (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). Additionally, this legislation concept argued that removing a child from a universal education environment was supposed to occur if it was indispensable, after considering how it could benefit the student both non-academically and academically, instruction cost, classroom impact, and prior services needed.
Within the different US state legislatures, mainstreaming, integration, and inclusion terms are mostly confused because of different views based on the philosophy and goals of underlying inclusive education. Integration and mainstreaming basically refer to the children with disabilities physical placement in universal education classrooms for some part of their day in school without considering the provision of necessary supports to enhance learning (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). The mainstreamed students' home base remains a unique education program that includes a universal education classroom that has required instructional and social supports to improve optimum learning outcomes. Outside the universal classrooms, minimal services such as occupational therapy or speech therapy are encouraged, and needed supports are given to the students instead of the students being taken to the necessary supports, which shows its relation to full inclusion. This framework requires exceptional and experienced education staff who can work collaboratively in this environment. They should also consult with the universal educators responsible for giving the most support and instructions.
In the United States, the decentralized education system and the many inclusion perspectives and definitions have contributed to general educators receiving less preparedness to deal with the needs of students with disabilities together with additional learning requirements in the universal education setting for a prolonged period. Students with disabilities were seen as the amazing teaching staff's primary responsibility (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). This created a context where disabled children's physical integration in learning institutions was confused for an inclusive education system and seen as capable of meeting the United States' federal guidelines. Due to this situation, handicapped youths and children were physically placed in universal education environments and learned together with non-disabled students. Thus in most cases, they were not given the type of supports they required to make sufficient social or academic progress.
Current State of Inclusive Education in the US
As the inclusive education system has achieved a foundation in America, an attitude concerning the approach viability has become much better. Still, it has not fully gained universal acceptance by educational administrators, teachers and some parents, especially those who prefer full inclusion instead of partial inclusion (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). In this case, partial inclusion involves students spending most of their day in education settings perceived as regular but are transferred if need be to get the required special education at that time. On the other hand, full inclusion involves a particular context where children are given all services in terms of education in the common education classroom, including special needs education and services related to ensuring they are not shifted to a different environment.
The current state of the inclusive education system in the US shows that it is successful and has undergone various transformations to ensure it best suits all children's educational needs, especially the ones who are disabled in any way. The apparent modifications show that the education system has come a long way, and changes are perceived to continue occurring in the education field, impacting inclusive education (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). Many students have benefited from the US's inclusive education system by achieving their goals of getting educated despite their ability, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or race.
Inclusive Education Expenditures
Inclusive education expenditures are very different even in the most developed nation shown by the financing type, GDP dedicated for education and the education expenditures allocation across different hierarchical levels. The provision of inclusive public education is mostly viewed as a way of income redistribution (Di Gioacchino, Sabani & Usai, 2020). Correspondingly, the income ladder position should decide on conflicting preferences concerning educational investments. In most voting environments, massive income inequity should be based on a strong public education n support. The US inclusive education system results from a complicated connection between political and education competition. Both rely on the existing interest conflict characteristics, thus the differences in inclusive education expenditures. The disadvantaged households produce the population segment that should be more concerned with striving to increase opportunities equality by creating a coalition with the non-disadvantaged population segment to minimize overall education expenditure levels. This is most likely to happen in nations where the education system is non-inclusive, and the population share with higher education is minimal.
Inclusive education financing has become a significant topic for many countries, including the US, due to the assumption suggesting that human rights include an education for all people and inclusive education systems in learning institutions bring about learners’ positive outcomes for all children. Many nations fear comparison in the education field due to the different educational outcomes of the education systems implemented and the complicated funding modes (Di Gioacchino, Sabani & Usai, 2020). More so, spending cuts have been made in various fields such as education due to economic crises that have hit several nations, forcing nations to get desired outcomes with little funds. Education expenditures, therefore, differ from nation to nation. Still, the US has ensured some funds are allocated to finance the inclusive education system to ensure that the nation achieves desired outcomes in the education field.
The Role of the Federal Government
The government plays a significant role in ensuring that an inclusive education system is adopted nationwide by establishing and implementing various policies and allocating resources to fund this education system. However, the government allocation of funds to finance social and educational resources is not enough (Abery, Tichá, & Kincade, 2017). The government has further ensured that the established inclusive education systems are of hig...