Still Left Behind: How Behavior Analysts Can Improve Children’s Access, Equity, and Inclusion to Their Entitled Education

In 1968, a group of professionals commissioned a task force to study the issue of children being excluded from school in the city of Boston, MA (Task Force on Children Out of School, 1970). What they found shocked them: thousands of children were systematically excluded from attending school or accessing meaningful instruction based on cultural, physical, and mental and behavioral differences. However, despite the advancement of legal protections and improved methods to educate even the most complex students, many coming from behavior analysis, children across the country still face school exclusion for essentially the same reasons. Coordinated advocacy is needed urgently to address this issue. This article discusses the history of school exclusion, the advancements that should allow us to prevent it, and a description of advocacy efforts behavior analysts should engage in to prevent school exclusion from occurring.