This article is part of a case study of U.S. federal leadership in special education from the perspective of those who served in the roles of Assistant Secretaries of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services and Directors of the Office of Special Education Programs or their equivalents in the former U.S. Office of Education and…

The authors discuss an urban public school district's efforts to reinsert play after its mandated disappearance for fourteen years under a scripted curriculum imposed to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind law. The authors analyze field notes, teacher and administrator interviews, coaching records, and surveys to chart the impact on…

Despite a long history of overrepresentation in segregated settings (Brock, 2018), students with disabilities who require extensive supports are more likely to receive inclusive placements in rural schools. In this paper, we present findings from a narrative literature analysis of inclusive education for students with disabilities in rural schools…

Research on teacher professional development (PD) reveals teachers do not implement what they learn at professional development with consistency or fidelity. This quantitative predictive correlational study examined whether special education teaching experience, administrator support through time and planning, administrator support through…

The qualitative study shows how 20 teachers from 4 districts in the same state enacted mandated school-wide writing curricula. Analyses of the observations and interviews revealed that 4 teachers were faithfully following the district-adopted curriculum, 4 rejected it, and 12 teachers adapted the curriculum to meet their students' needs. The…

Since the passing of No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), teacher autonomy over curricular decisions has been restricted. As a result, state and local school districts faced increased pressures to adopt highly prescriptive and standardized literacy curricular programmes. Given this context, literacy curriculum adoption has become a widely…

This paper analyzes the history, current practice, and dangers associated with Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). With roots in American progressive education and particularly in the movements for Outcome-Based Education and Self-Esteem, SEL is now pushed onto state and local education systems by the federal government and even international…

The move toward assessments that measure student growth, rather than just proficiency, has been perceived as an improvement in state accountability systems. However, Michael Watson explains that, for many students, these measures present an incomplete picture. Because they are based on grade-level assessments, any growth achieved by students who…

This survey study examined 164 in-service special education teachers' perceptions of training strategies in their cross categorical teacher preparation program in the United Sates for developing knowledge and skills in systematic instruction, an evidence-based practice for students with extensive support needs. Both classroom-based and field-based…

The researcher briefly reviewed the Response to Intervention (RtI) framework and explained how Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA, 2004) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) enhanced RtI implementation in general education classrooms. The main focus of this paper is to identify general educators' roles when implementing RtI…

Formerly "Educators Resource Directory," "Educators Resource Guide" is designed to provide educators, administrators, and other education professionals with immediate access to a unique combination of educational resources, along with important educational statistics and rankings. "Educators Resource Guide" includes…

Assistant teachers are an integral component of the preschool classroom, planning and implementing educational activities and supporting individual children and small groups, and often bring linguistic, cultural, and racial/ethnic diversity to the teaching field. However, there is limited research on the impact of assistant teacher qualifications…

This report uses data from the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels to understand the state of infrastructure to support elementary social studies instruction during the 2021-2022 school year. The report is focused at the elementary (specifically, kindergarten through grade 5 [K-5]) level because the authors hypothesized that infrastructure…

The purpose of this article is to review current research about the struggles facing effective inclusive schooling and the role the principal plays in bringing about improved equity, access, and achievement in K-12 public schools. Also, we examine the leadership pipeline and how principal preparation and professional development should address…

The rhetoric of the reading wars has become more than just an armchair academic debate, but is encoded now in the very laws, house and senate bills, and legislative policies of the majority of the states. In turn, these policies are powered by staggering sums of money such as the 90-million-dollar investment of Fulton County, Georgia in a revamp…