A substantial minority of children in the public school system start out at-risk of behavioral or academic problems within that system. Other children become part of that at-risk group when events occur, or problems arise, that make it difficult for them to succeed in a standard classroom situation.
Until recently, many at-risk children were misdiagnosed, placed in special education classrooms, or simply neglected until they dropped out of school, unsuccessful. However, with a new focus on mainstreaming in the 1970s, which developed into the inclusive classroom movement of the 1990s, the emphasis has been on finding ways to help each child succeed.
There have been various models and techniques devised to accomplish this. There is a new emphasis on collaborative efforts, teacher planning time, team learning, hands-on projects, and new evaluative methods. Still, each year, there are children who fail in the standard classroom situation, and increasing numbers of drop-outs. The problem does not seem to be lack of knowledge, but the lack of will to implement what is known to be most effective in working with a variety of students in an inclusive classroom. Teachers resist diverse classrooms, often because they lack training and support systems. If training and support are made available to them, this would go far to reduce the problems of the at-risk student population.
There is a sizable body of children in the United States who enter the school system with inadequate skills and never catch up. Engelmann (1999) indicated that this is essentially the problem of at-risk children. Because they start at a disadvantage, but are expected to learn material that places them at the norm for their grade level, they must actually be able to learn more than the advantaged child in order to end up at the same place (Hart & Risley, 1995). When they are unable to do this, they are adjudged failures. They are placed in a position o...