The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is committed to the cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional development of all children in Illinois. ISBE's Multilingual/Language Development Department is focused on ensuring that students with diverse linguistic repertoires and those who may benefit from additional support have equitable access to…

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is committed to the cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional development of all children in Illinois. ISBE's Multilingual/Language Development Department is focused on ensuring that students with diverse linguistic repertoires and those who may benefit from additional support have equitable access to…

The Board of Education's mission is to equitably educate the whole child so that every student graduates with the tools to reach their full potential (Houston Independent School District (HISD), 2019). To succeed in their mission, the board participates in Lone Star Governance, whose intent is to provide a continuous improvement model for…

On March 22, 2017, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that schools are obligated to provide more than de mimimus services for students with disabilities. The core issue in "Endrew F. v. Douglas County Schools" is how schools are to define the "A" in FAPE: What is an appropriate public education? Douglas County schools held…

As a result of the demanding 21st-century workforce, local education agencies are beginning to refocus and retool to ensure students with disabilities have the knowledge and skills to be productive adults and attain positive postschool outcomes. The skills 21st-century transition assessments address are relevant to teachers and students given the…

Over a relatively short period of time, states and districts across the country have embraced reform surrounding teacher evaluation and compensation. Public concern over teacher evaluations, combined with federal initiatives designed to support teacher evaluation reform, led many states to adopt more comprehensive evaluation systems that draw on…

With many states moving toward increased accountability for all teachers, special educators, who have long been held accountable through the implementation of individualized education programs and the use of evidence-based practices, have much to offer. Formative instructional practices are evidence-based techniques that are familiar to special…

Louisiana developed a time frame for compiling the State Performance Plan with as much opportunity for broad stakeholder input as possible before the required submission date. Bearing in mind the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, Louisiana's Steering Committee projected performance targets through the year 2014 for the…

The study described in this report examined whether the use of "daily report cards" ("DRCs") in elementary school classrooms improved behavior and academic achievement among students diagnosed with combined inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comorbid oppositional defiant…

The reporting policies across Australia are critiqued. In the Australian Capital Territory, the reporting is carried out against the goals and priorities identified in the Individual Learning Plan. Reporting in the Northern Territory is facilitated by providing a reference for communicating the level of student achievement through a standardised…

The education of students with disabilities in today's schools is being shaped by 2 very powerful laws: the 2004 Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004) and the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Title I, No Child Left Behind Act). These 2 laws are changing our conceptions about special education. Both of…

With the pressure of No Child Left Behind and state-ordered accountability initiatives building, local educators' angst with the challenges of documenting improvement on the part of special education students, as a function of their performance on high stakes content assessments, continues to grow. One major tool used to identify academic needs…

Achieving positive postschool outcomes continues to be a challenge for many students. These challenges are compounded for students with disabilities, even years after the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (1990; IDEA) required systematic transition planning. In this era of accountability through high-stakes testing, schools and families…

Reading affects a plethora of areas in life. Students with learning disabilities often fall into this category due to a lack of practice with reading and less time to focus on building skills. This paper examines the background, the relationship between reading and learning disabilities, the characteristics of students with learning disabilities…

Some accommodations that are offered to students with emotional behavior disorders (EBD) do little to remediate a diagnosed disability, resulting instead in enabling the continuance of the condition. IDEA specifies that access to educational opportunities include accommodations both in "instruction and assessment" (Byrnes, 2008, p. 307).…