Philadelphia's Urban Model Project: A System-Wide Effort to Integrate Students with Severe Handicaps

Abstract

School systems across the country are at different stages in the integration of students with severe handi caps into regular schools. As part of a settlement agree ment arising from a lawsuit filed against the School District of Philadelphia, placement of students with severe handicaps was among a list of conditions ordered to improve the services provided to this population. This report describes the activities and accomplishments of Philadelphia's Urban Model Project, a federally funded model demonstration program designed to effect changes in services for students with severe disabilities. As a result of this project, a majority of these students are currently attending regular schools along with their chronological age peers.

Public Integration of Students with Handicaps: Where It's Been, Where It's Going, and How It's Getting There

“…The present data base may be loosely categorized into articles concerning the generic issue of mainstreaming (Atterbury, 1986;Gottlieb, 1981;Gresham, 1982;Gresham, Elliott, & Black, 1987;Gresham & Reschly, 1986;Knoff, 1985;Meisel, 1986;Ray, 1985;Sabornie, 1985;Sansone & Zigmond, 1986;Saur, Coggiola, Long, & Simonson, 1986;Silon&Harter, 1985;Travis, Thomas, & Fuller, 1985), the legal implications of least restrictive environment (Cullinan & Epstein, 1986;Laski, 1985;Yanok, 1986), public school integration (Certo, Haring, & York, 1984;Colozzi et al, 1986;McGregor, Janssen, Larsen, & Tillery, 1986;Singer, Butler, Palfrey, & Walker, 1986;Stainback & Stainback, 1985), segrega tion (Brady & Cunningham, 1985;Silverstein, 1985), and the comparison between integrated and segregated settings (Beckman & Kohl, 1987;Brinker, 1985;Brinker & Thorpe, 1985Gibb&Flavahan, 1987;Hunt, Goetz, & Anderson, 1986). In addition, the data base includes the related areas of special education and school or social policy (Algozzine, Morsink, & Algozzine, 1986;Hersh & Walker, 1983;Reynolds & Wang, 1983) and the area of investigation involving social effects of interactions between persons with and without disabilities (Bak & Siperstein, 1986;Cole, Meyer, Vandercook, & McQuarter, 1986;Esposito & Reed, 1986;Jenkins, Speltz, & Odom, 1985;…”