Creeping Normality: Special Education’s Problem of a New Normal

Abstract

Many alternative opinions about how best to respond educationally to the reality of human diversity in abilities are possible. Opinions and rhetoric now dominant seem to us inimical to a thriving, vibrant, effective special education. We see trends in concepts or ideas, policies, and publications that we believe could lead slowly but inevitably to special education’s diminishment and eventual demise. We describe what could become the “new normal” through the process of “creeping normalization” and suggest seven alternative propositions that we wish to see affirmed by professional associations and policy-making organizations.