Whose IDEA Is This? An Examination of the Effectiveness of Inclusive Education

The inclusion of students with disabilities in general education versus more restrictive settings has steadily increased since the 1990s. Yet little is known about inclusion’s effectiveness for these students or their nondisabled peers. I examine the impacts of a district-wide inclusion policy, leveraging the staggered, school-level implementation to estimate the policy’s causal effects on academic and behavioral outcomes. Elementary and middle school test scores and attendance rates were unaffected by the policy. High school graduation and ninth grade promotion rates increased by two and six percentage points, respectively, in the years following implementation. Findings suggest that inclusive education does not come at the expense of students’ academic progress in the short term and may improve academic outcomes in the longer term.