Viable Alternatives for Students With Disabilities: Exploring the Origins and Interpretations of LRE

Abstract

In the flux of restructuring schools toward higher student outcomes, the challenge is tremendous for educators to provide, with confidence and integrity, a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE) as required by law for their students with disabilities. This inquiry is intended to further a deeper understanding of the principles that undergird placement decisions by examining the relation over time between the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act requirements for an appropriate education for learners who are exceptional and the restrictiveness of the educational environments in which they have been served. LRE is examined through sociopolitical, legal, and educational data and illustrated through interviews with several of the law's developers, contemporary theorists, and parental advocates. It is argued that concerns about placement in the LRE have dominated the special education discourse, obscuring and distorting the preeminent issue of individually appropriate instruction. It is concluded that the legal meanings of FAPE and LRE remain unchanged but that the complexity of the dynamic LRE concept has defied consistent understanding and application. In conclusion, principles of practice grounded in the conceptual foundations of special education are offered to build the capacity of individualized educational program/placement teams as they seek to provide a full educational opportunity for each student with a disability.