The education of disabled children provokes fierce debate

Their main target is a pamphlet by Baroness Warnock, architect of the policy of including children with special needs in mainstream schools.

Her views have been widely interpreted as a U-turn. The campaigners say the problem is poor integration.

In an open letter, they say inclusion should mean "changing the school so all children can flourish".

'Undermining'

Disability organisations, educationists, parents and others have signed an open letter in a full-page advertisement in the Times Educational Supplement.

They say they are "extremely concerned at the huge amount of media time given to the distorted view of inclusive education that is currently being created by Baroness Warnock, David Cameron MP and a small group of parents."

It says they are "undermining the inclusion of disabled pupils in mainstream schools".

David Cameron is the shadow education secretary. A Conservative Party spokeswoman said it was not against inclusion.

Baroness Warnock is talking about the problems of poor integration - not inclusion, which means changing the school so all children can flourish Open letter

In many ways the policy had been right, she said, because it was wrong "to brand some of these children as ineducable and right to include them in mainstream schools with children of their own age where possible".

But many parents of children with special needs and many teachers in both mainstream and special schools believed it had gone too far.

The government had become "obsessed with inclusion for its own sake".

In her pamphlet, Lady Warnock called for a fundamental rethink of the approach to special educational needs.

The ideal of inclusiveness "springs from hearts in the right place", she said, but its implementation and the consequent moving of pupils out of special schools was a "disastrous legacy".

The open letter argues that the problem is not the policy, but the way it has been handled.

It says: "Baroness Warnock is talking about the problems of poor integration.

"This is not inclusion, which means changing the school so all children can flourish."

It says discriminatory attitudes, lack of training and funding in many mainstream schools still lead to some disabled children becoming "refugees" in special schools - forced out of mainstream classes because of a lack of capacity to meet their needs.

The campaigners argue that this is not a reason to revert to the past, but demonstrates a need to intensify efforts to make inclusion a reality - to the benefit of all children, disabled or not.

Regional variations

One of the signatories is the Centre of Studies in Inclusive Education.

It published statistics ranking local education authorities (LEAs) on where they placed children with "statements" of need - the formal declarations of the more severe needs and how they are to be met.

These showed that pupils in South Tyneside were 24 times more likely to be placed in special schools or other segregated settings than those in the London borough of Newham.

The centre's founder, Mark Vaughan, said: "All LEAs are working to the same laws and regulations, which call for inclusion of disabled pupils.

"It is time for the government to take a firmer hand and get the higher segregating authorities to develop stronger inclusion policies."

But statements themselves are part of the debate.

Lady Warnock wrote that the process of statementing had become too bureaucratic and unresponsive to parents, and needed reviewing.

But the campaigners' open letter says a lack of monitoring and implementation is the issue rather than the mechanism - statements are a safeguard for parents.