Rhode Island schools are keeping too many special-education students in separate classrooms, a practice that educators say prevents many of these students from receiving the same education as their peers in regular classrooms.

About 8,900 of Rhode Island’s 31,000 students in special education — 29 percent — spend the bulk of their class time in small, “self-contained” classrooms, even though research has shown that both students with — and without — learning disabilities benefit from learning side by side.

In many cases, the practice violates federal laws.

The percentage of special-education students in separate classrooms varies widely from district to district — ranging from 11 percent in Scituate to 50 percent in Central Falls, according to June numbers from the Rhode Island Department of Education.

Educators across the state acknowledge there is a heightened sense of urgency to address the problem now, as two federal laws are receiving more attention.

One requires that special-education students be placed in regular classrooms whenever possible, and another stipulates that students must have a “highly qualified” teacher in each core subject: English, math, science and social studies.

The latest round of state testing further exposed the issue, as special-education students in many schools failed to meet state standards. For example, more than a quarter of Rhode Island high schools reported that their special-education students failed to meet proficiency last year in either math or English or both.

Separate classrooms are partly to blame, educators say.

“When you look at the national research, there is no doubt in my mind that as a general rule, kids who participate in the general-education curriculum perform better and have better outcomes when they come out of school,” said Anthony Antosh, director of the Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College.

Antosh said he believes that at least half of the students in separate classes would be more successful in integrated classrooms. “For many kids, self-contained settings tend to decrease expectations and narrow the scope of the curriculum that is taught to those kids,” he said.

Rhode Island already claims the highest percentage of students in special education in the country – 21 percent compared with the national average, 13.7 percent, a dilemma the state has been grappling with for several years. It costs far more to educate a special-education student in Rhode Island – $22,893 a year, compared with $9,269 for a regular-education student. But officials say it is unclear whether integrating students would cost less than separate classrooms, as the special-education students would still need extra services.

Most students in special education have mild to moderate learning disabilities, and state educators concede that most of them would benefit – and perform better on state tests – if they were placed in integrated classrooms with support from special-education teachers. (Just 1 percent has disabilities severe enough to be exempted from standardized state tests. These students take an alternate assessment.)

“We are finally at a critical juncture where people are starting to question the educational models we’ve all become comfortable with and are looking at the student performance data to highlight the need for change,” said Kenneth Swanson, director of special populations for the state Department of Education. “We are in a different era now and our models have to change.”

IN THE 1970S, CONGRESS passed Public Law 94-142, which guaranteed a free, appropriate public education for every child with a disability.

Before then, U.S. schools “educated only one in five children with disabilities and many states had laws excluding certain students, including children who were deaf, blind, emotionally disturbed or mentally retarded,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Over the years, the federal law has been expanded to include early-intervention for infants to age 3 and programs to help people with disabilities enter the work force and find appropriate living environments after they turn 21. The law, now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, was reauthorized in 2004.

In the early years after the law was passed, some educators and parents thought separate classrooms, with 10 or fewer students, would be more effective in special education. With smaller class sizes, those students would receive more attention and a tailored lesson plan.

In the 1980s, the focus turned to “mainstreaming” special-education students. The federal law now requires that most students in special education be “educated in their neighborhood schools in regular classrooms with their non-disabled peers.”

State education officials say there are many reasons – both well-meaning and less noble – that some districts have been slower to embrace integrated classrooms.

“The mentality for a long time was, ‘these kids are broken and regular education teachers don’t know how to fix them – only special-education teachers do,’ ” said Swanson, of the state education department. “Special education almost perpetrated the myth that self-contained is better. Sometimes parents thought a small classroom of 10 students would be a protected environment for their children.

“It’s also sometimes an attitude of ‘If they’re not in my class, they’re not my problem.’ ”

The federal education law No Child Left Behind has changed that, holding school districts and individual schools responsible for bringing all students up to the state standard.

Two provisions of the law, in particular, put pressure on schools:

•One is the yearly testing of students and the public reporting of the performance of various student groups, including those in special education. Schools now face sanctions if they do not lift all students to the standard.

•The other is the requirement that all students be taught by teachers who are “highly qualified” in their designated subject. The mandate has focused attention on middle school and high school special-education teachers across the country. Many of them are highly qualified in one area, but virtually none can meet the definition in all the core subjects they teach in self-contained classrooms.

But educators say integrating more students into regular classrooms does not mean all separate classrooms should disappear.

“I think there will always be a need for self-contained classrooms,” Swanson said. “But currently in Rhode Island, there is an over-reliance on self-contained settings to deliver services to students with disabilities.”

AS MANY DISTRICTS MOVE toward a more integrated system, some teachers and union leaders warn against pushing students into regular classrooms without first reviewing each student’s Individual Education Plan, which is required for all students in special education.

“In some cases, there have been children placed in regular classrooms as inclusion students without changes in their IEPs,” said Marcia Reback, executive director of Rhode Island’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. “We would hope that there would be appropriate deliberation in terms of changing students’ placement.”

Other teachers worry that districts will not finance needed changes, such as professional training for teachers and smaller class sizes, which would be necessary when special-education students are added to an integrated classroom.

“What has held [integration] back is the fear that we will do wholesale integration and mainstreaming without having adequate supports for students,” said Mary Ann Canning-McComiskey, a school social worker and president of the Lincoln Teachers Association. “Teachers and parents have a fear that, ‘OK, great, you’re going to kick them out of special ed, and then what?’ The real fear is that once students are integrated, the support will not be available to them through general ed or special ed. Frankly, it’s a legitimate concern.”

Canning-McComiskey said she doesn’t think switching to integrated classrooms “is really that complicated,” and she said many districts have already embraced successful methods.

But, she said, schools should review all education plans and make necessary accommodations, such as adding extra time for assignments and tests, creating study guides for quizzes and providing individual or small-group instruction in the regular classroom.

She also said both regular-education and special-education teachers need extra training and support to teach in integrated classrooms.

“It is a process and it doesn’t happen overnight,” Canning-McComiskey said. “There may be some initial reservations on the part of some teachers in the beginning, but I firmly believe that the vast majority of teachers embrace the idea of change for the betterment of student progress.”

RAELENE HORNBY, of North Kingstown, and Tina Egan, of East Greenwich, both parents of special-education students, have different opinions about what works best for their children.Hornby’s daughter Lizzie Hartford is in seventh grade at Davisville Middle School in North Kingstown. Lizzie, 13, is autistic and reads at a first-grade level. She has spent time in both integrated and separate classes, with varying degrees of success.Hornby still chafes at the thought that her daughter was not allowed to attend a musical performance on a field trip with general-education students a couple of years ago. But she likes Lizzie’s current schedule — 60 percent in a separate classroom.

“These kids need both the individual attention and they also need to see and hopefully emulate their age-appropriate peers’ behavior,” Hornby said. “They have two different needs, academic and social, that need to be addressed.”

Egan’s daughter, Tessa, has Down syndrome. Tessa, 10, is a fifth grader at Eldredge Elementary School in East Greenwich and is in an integrated classroom.

“My goal has always been as much inclusion as possible, to keep the bar as high as possible and treat her as much like a typical child as I can,” Egan said.

When Tessa was in kindergarten, she needed physical, speech and occupational therapy during the school day. But once she improved, her parents pushed for her to spend more time in a regular classroom.

An assistant works with Tessa in the classroom, modifies homework assignments and helps her transition back to class after lunch and recess. Tessa takes yearly standardized tests with her classmates and participates in class presentations.

Her social-studies class studied explorers last fall, and Tessa presented a report on Christopher Columbus. Her presentation was shorter and simpler than the others, but she enjoyed the experience and was challenged by it, her mother said.

“This is the big point: spending your day in a separate resource room — that’s keeping all the kids with special needs staring at each other all day. That is not raising the bar to me,” Egan said. “I believe that she is entitled to be with her age peers and it’s best for her to be successful in life, because the world is inclusive. The world is not a resource room.”