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John McDonnell, an inclusion researcher and the chairman of the special education department at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City argues that inclusion has not been found to hurt nondisabled students.

"There really has been no effect on the educational progress of kids without disabilities by including kids with disabilities at the regular classroom level," he says.

In Auburn, Calif., about 40 miles east of Sacramento, administrators at the 468-student Rock Creek School are working through some of those obstacles. The K-6 school, which lies in a pocket of poverty within an otherwise affluent community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, has begun inclusion of some disabled students in classes where the teachers are willing, but it has a long path ahead to become...