Confusion among stakeholders regarding some aspects of the special education process--chiefly the triennial reevaluation--leads to misapplication of rules across districts and states based on interpretations of informal lore-based reasoning. Local education agencies (LEA) can determine that no additional data are needed and advise parents to…

Increasingly, employers are demanding further development and attainment of soft skills from college graduates; namely, the cluster of personality traits such as time management, decision-making and creativity that characterize positive working experiences and relationships (Kamin, 2013; IBM, 2010). This phenomenon is due to employers recognizing…

Distance education has historically had lower completion rates. Several models of persistence, for on-campus students, indicate that students' financial status affects their decision to persist. This study involved providing distance education students' financial aid in the form of institutional scholarships (N = 545) at Penn State University in…

Learning community programs, like many other forms of higher education, are at risk from the effects of financial constraints, systemic racism, and pressures from outside constituents that are forcing institutional leaders to face difficult decisions that result in cutting budgets and closing programs. During these tumultuous times, learning…

Background: The Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS) is administered biennially to adolescents; it covers knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors about risk and protective factors. Purpose: This study explored 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students' attitudes and beliefs about current trends regarding drugs, alcohol, and mental health. Methods: We asked…

The use of social media in teaching and learning has been widely recognized in academic practice and research. Despite the noticeable increase, many of the social media studies particularly focused on the student's perspectives and self-reports. Previous studies have explored potential and pedagogical use of social media tools, however, there…

Specific learning disability (SLD), although moderately declining in recent years, continues to account for the highest enrollment among the eligibility classifications under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; Zirkel, 2013b). The recognition of response to intervention (RTI) in the 2004 amendments of the IDEA as an approach for…

This qualitative narrative research study explores the reasons that undergraduate transfer students make college and career planning decisions. The insights of community college students who expressed interest in completing a bachelor's degree but did not enroll at a university were compared with the perspectives of university students enrolled in…

Students with or at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders pose an immense challenge for educators, and typical practices to address them are punitive and exclusionary, leading to poor academic and social outcomes for students. To address the complex needs of students with intensive emotional and behavioral needs, evidence-based practices and…

Argumentation is an important component of scientific education (Osborne, 2010). However, how students create and evaluate competing arguments in scientific investigations is a complex construct, which presents significant challenges for assessment. We engaged 349 middle and high school students in a virtual scientific investigation based on an…

In response to federal accountability measures, the Pennsylvania Department of Education introduced the School Performance Profile, shifting the student achievement spotlight from school districts to individual schools, thus placing the onus squarely on the shoulders of teachers and school leaders. Shared leadership has been touted in the…

This study examined the effects of a school improvement project involving Distributed leadership (DL), a perspective for studying or developing organization leadership through the interaction of organizational members and activities. This research was part of a larger DL Project taking place in York City School District, PA, which sought to…

When beginning music teachers enter a new classroom for the first time, they start a journey toward understanding a new context and community. Place consciousness develops as they become embedded in their community and begin to recognize how its culture and environment interact with their teaching practices. By mapping the objects, people, and…

This manuscript presents findings from a study of the contributing factors and details of special education due process hearings in the United States that involved students with emotional and behavioral disorders. The study examined 101 due process hearings conducted over a three-year period in a five-state sample: California, Illinois,…

A Pennsylvania high school newspaper published an editorial in Fall 2013 announcing its decision to cease using the name of the school's sports teams, Redskins. That decision prompted the local school board to institute a policy giving administrators more editorial control over the newspaper. The controversy resonated with U.S. professional…