In this paper we provide commentary on the “state of play” of inclusive education in the United States. We focus on the promises and limitations of interrelated accountability- and market-driven policies and Response to Intervention (RTI) (Vaughn & Fuchs, 2003). We argue that these policies and practice have hopscotched their way through inclusive education reform, hopping over core tenets of the global inclusive education movement.

We acknowledge that inclusive education has been a global movement with multiple local faces, ethos, and telos (Artiles, Kozleski, Dorn, & Christensen, 2006; Clough, 2000). While the central aim of inclusive education internationally (For example, Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education of 1994) is the educational inclusion of all students, U.S. inclusive education has remained focused on mainstreaming students receiving special education into general education settings, despite efforts to broaden this agenda (Artiles & Kozleski, 2007; Baglieri et al., 2011). As Slee (2004; 2011) noted, the idea of inclusive education has crossed so many geographical boundaries that it has become jet lagged to the point of losing its original radical meaning: that of school transformation and reconstruction of the ‘normal’ school.

We use a definition of inclusive education with potential to reclaim the original radical concern of inclusive education. Waitoller and colleagues (Waitoller & Artiles,

2013; Waitoller & Kozleski, 2013) framed inclusive education using Fraser’s (1997; 2009) dimensions of justice: Inclusive education is a continuous struggle toward (a) the redistribution of quality opportunities to learn and participate in educational programs [the redistribution dimension], (b) the recognition and value of differences as reflected in content, pedagogy, and assessment tools [the recognition dimension], and (c) the opportunities for marginalized groups to represent themselves in decision-making processes that advance and define claims of exclusion and the respective solutions that affect their children’s educational futures [the representation dimension]. (Waitoller & Kozleski, 2013, p.35)

This definition foregrounds economic injustices of misdistribution, cultural injustices of misrecognition, and political injustices of misrepresentation (Fraser, 2008). Therefore, it can guide efforts to address complex and intersecting forms of exclusion at the intersections of multiple markers of students’ differences (For example, race, disability, social class, and gender) that vary according to related legacies of injustices (That is, misdistribution, misrecognition, misrepresentation) (Waitoller & Artiles, 2013; Waitoller & Kozleski, 2013). Thus, it positions inclusive education as a struggle in economic, cultural, and political domains. In addition, framing inclusive education as an ongoing process (Ainscow & Booth, 2002) highlights that efforts never end because “margins and centers are in constant flow as a result of how individuals and groups interact within political, historical, and sociocultural contexts” (Waitoller

& Artiles, 2013, p. 322). The dynamic nature of educational exclusion demands constant “cultural vigilantes” (Corbett & Slee, 2000, p. 134) who attend to how margins and peripheries are formed, for whom, and for what purposes.        

Subsequently, we use this definition to examine promises and limitations of current policies and practice that have been promoted in general and special education research, policy, and practice communities as promising tools to foster educational inclusivity. Though we agree with the international focus of inclusive education efforts on all students, we attend to students with (dis)abilities as they have been the historical focus of inclusive efforts in the U.S. As we examine inclusion of students with (dis)abilities in the U.S., we critique the myth of the “normal child”, which affects all students who differ from the dominant-culture of schools (Baglieri et al.,

2011).

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