A Brief History of Inclusion in Schools

Let’s tell the truth:

Inclusion didn’t come from kindness.

It came from refusal.

REFUSAL to let our children be locked out of classrooms.

REFUSAL to accept a world where disabled kids were treated as broken, disposable, or better off out of sight.

REFUSAL to let IGNORANCE dress up as policy.

Before 1975, over a million children with disabilities in the U.S. were completely excluded from public schools.

Another 3.5 million were hidden in separate classrooms with little to no meaningful education—warehoused, not taught.

Families were told their kids were “uNeDuCaBLe.”

That they should “jUsT sTaY hOmE.”

That school wasn’t the place for those children.

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[BRIEF INTERRUPTION.
BECAUSE YOU DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH.]

A DOCTOR RECENTLY USED THOSE VERY WORDS, SENTIMENTS, BELIEFS, AT AN APPOINTMENT.

AND SAID THEM TO MY FACE.

AND EVEN WENT ON TO SAY, “SCHOOL WILL JUST SAY NICE THINGS TO PARENTS BECAUSE…

...NO ONE WANTS TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH."

...NO ONE WANTS TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH."

Breathe. And now back to the article….

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But we pushed. We organized. We legislated.

And in 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed.

It didn’t come easy. And it didn’t come clean.

But it cracked the door open.

That law—now called IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—said that disabled kids have the right to a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE) possible.

It meant no more locking kids away just because they made you uncomfortable.

It meant no more pretending “separate but equal” was enough.

It meant schools had to make room.

Real room.

But laws don’t change hearts.

And hearts drive culture.

So what happened?

Inclusion became a checkbox.

A strategy.

A PR word.

Instead of transformation, we got tokenism.

Instead of training, we got tolerance.

Instead of accountability, we got silence.

And the hardest truth?

Too many kids with disabilities are still being segregated. Still being disciplined more harshly. Still being underestimated, mislabeled, and left behind.

In the U.S. alone, only 63% of students with disabilities spend 80% or more of their school day in general education classrooms, despite inclusion being the legal default—not the exception.

This isn’t just a gap.

It’s a system of exclusion dressed in paperwork.

We can’t talk about inclusion without talking about
race, power, and access.

We can’t fix what we won’t name.

So when we talk about inclusion, let’s not whisper it.

Let’s say it like the gospel it is.

Inclusion is not a favor.

It’s not about helping disabled kids “fit in.”

It’s about building a world where

THEY NEVER HAD TO ASK

IN THE FIRST PLACE.

It’s about designing schools where everyone belongs from the start.

Where the child who stims, the child who doesn’t speak, the child who needs extra time, the child who learns differently isn’t treated as a disruption but as a full human being with a full future.

Inclusion isn’t soft.

It’s radical.

It’s sacred.

It’s what justice looks like in the classroom.