Evidence of the Regular Education initiative In Federally Funded Personnel Preparation Programs

Abstract

Cooperation with regular education to serve mildly handicapped special education students is a theme that has been recurrent throughout the history of special education and reiterated in the form of the Regular Education Initiative. Yet little documentation of the actual impact of this initiative on teacher preparation practices has been reported. This article presents the results of an analysis of 40 of the top-ranked federally funded special education personnel preparation proposals for programs to prepare teachers of students with mild-moderate disabilities. The article describes (1) the degree to which grant proposers explicitly articulated a philosophy of cooperation between regular and special education, (2) how this philosophical commitment was translated into specific program design components, and (3) changes in the extent of cooperation over recent years. Areas of strong support, inconsistencies, and issues of concern in pursuing the regular education initiative through teacher preparation programs are discussed.