General education is the kind of education which is supposed to be taken by developing children. This education is based on the standards set by state governments but is authorized by the central government. It is also known by one of its synonyms, which is ‘regular education.’

The term regular is used here because the children gaining education which can provide them later with some sort of employment is quite irregular. The basic aim of this education is that every child should spend some specified time of himself/herself in the general education classroom unless it is in the best interest of the child or the child is a danger to himself or others. The time spent by the child in the general education program is a part of his or her placement.

The curriculum of general education is compulsorily supposed to meet the standards of the state. If wanting to provide FAPE for special education students, the goals of IEP should be aligned with Common Core State Standards. To be lucid, they are supposed to show that a student is being taught upto the standards. In some special cases, like children whose disabilities are very severe, IEP’s will provide a more ‘functional’ program. This program will not be strictly aligned with the Common Core State Standards. These students are more commonly in self- contained programs. These students also belong to 3% of all who are allowed to give an alternate test.

Unless the students are in a very restrictive environment, they will spend some amount of time in the regular education environment. Usually, the children who are in self-contained programs are supposed to actively participate in the “specials” such as physical education, art, and music along with the students who are in “regular” or “general” education programs.

While assessing the amount of time which is spent on regular education time, which is spent with typical students lunchroom or on the playground for lunch, is also counted as the time in the “general education” environment.

Unless more states eliminate the process of testing, the participation is required by the special education students in high stakes state tests, which are aligned to the standards. This is done to check how much the students are evolving alongside their regular exam papers. The states have also been permitted to require that the students with some very severe disabilities are supposed to be offered an alternate assessment, and it is compulsory that the alternate assessment needs to address the state standards. These are needed by the federal law, in ESEA( Elementary and secondary education Act) and IDEIA as well. Only about 1% of all the students there are, are allowed to give this alternate assessment, and this is supposed to represent 3% of all students among those who are receiving special education. The general education program or the regular program is also the program which the state’s annual test, which is required by NCLB( no child left behind ), is there to evaluate.