Barbara L. Pazey

The Role of Special Education Training in the Development of Socially Just Leaders: Building an Equity Consciousness in Educational Leadership Programs.

Over the past two decades, colleges of education along with a number of national organizations and specialized professional associations have sought to improve educational administration programs through the incorporation of a broad policy framework designed to develop socially just leaders. Central to the growth of these new leaders is a commitment to acknowledge and embrace difference and to create educational spaces within which all children can learn. As the notion of social justice within education has been evolving, certain students, particularly those with disabilities, have been railing against persistent inequities within schools. Special education has emerged as one of the most litigious issues that school leaders must confront in their daily practice. Nevertheless, content related to special education and special education law has been a long neglected area within university-based administrator preparation programs and has been strangely absent in conversations relevant to the creation of administrator preparation programs that embrace a social justice model of leadership. Beginning with the current literature base of social justice and leadership preparation in special education and special education law, and using the recently revised Educational Leadership Constituents Council Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership Standards for building-level administrators for context, this article proposes an imperative to include curriculum content and leadership training that embraces and honors the inclusion of students in K-12 special education programs and enables building-level administrators to fulfill their role as socially just leaders.

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness Through Meaningful Evaluation Can Reform Models Apply to General Education and Special Education Teachers

While teacher quality is recognized as a critical component in school reform and the pursuit of new teacher evaluation systems has gained national attention, the question of whether proposed teacher assessment models recognize and account for the unique roles and responsibilities of special education teachers has gone largely unnoticed. The purpose of this article is to (a) provide a review of current efforts to reform practices in teacher assessment, (b) describe recommendations for emerging teacher evaluation systems that accurately distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers, and (c) consider the difficulties of implementing these reform measures in the evaluation of teachers who serve students with disabilities. Important consideration is given to understanding the unique roles and responsibilities of the special educator, as well as the use of observation protocols to evaluate instructional practices in the general and special education setting. In addition, this article elucidates the difficulties of incorporating valid measures of student performance as a component of the teacher evaluation process for special education teachers. A summary of recommendations for policy makers serves as the conclusion.

A Nostrum of School Reform? Turning Around Reconstituted Urban Texas High Schools

A mainstay in NCLB and the Obama administration education plan is turning around low-performing schools. This study utilized surveys and interviews with school leaders from four turnaround urban high schools in Texas to understand student outcomes before and after school restructuring and reconstitution. Although some organizational changes were apparent; overall, respondents cited rapidly changing technical strategies and haphazard adjustments from external sources as a great challenge. Reconstitution also magnified challenges that existed before and after restructuring efforts. Most importantly, the evidence suggests that school reconstitution did not immediately improve student achievement, impact grade retention and decrease student dropout in the study schools.

How Building Principals Made Sense of Free and Appropriate Public Education in the Least Restrictive Environment

Confusion among school leaders regarding how to interpret and implement special education legislation, and specific federal and state policies and mandates such as a free and appropriate public education (FAPE), in the least restrictive environment (LRE) at the school-site level has existed since the 1970s and continues to exist. This metasynthesis explores the literature surrounding sensemaking by which building principals adapt and transform policy as they enact it in their schools. Findings suggest that a phenomenon of internal forces had a more significant influence on the actions that took place throughout their sensemaking of LRE and FAPE.

The Enemy Among Us Do School Administrators Perceive Students With Disabilities as a Threat

In the United States, students with disabilities are disproportionately exposed to exclusionary discipline. Using Intergroup Threat Theory, literature was analyzed to identify expressed perceptions from school administrators that indicated perceived threat. Analysis revealed perceived threats to administrator beliefs, values, job performance, and available resources for themselves and their school communities. Intervention to alleviate this perception of threat should seek to expand administrators’ knowledge of diversity, specifically for students with disabilities, and provide increased opportunities for personal contact between administrators and students with disabilities.

What We’ve Learned and How We’ve Used It: Learning Experiences From the Cohort of a High-Quality Principalship Program

The effectiveness of leadership preparation programs has been contested for a number of years. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the identified components that exist within a “high-quality” principal preparation program through the lenses of the members of a principalship cohort at a university-based leadership development program. Qualitative data were collected via online survey. Social Justice theme and the cohort model were identified as most influential factors on leadership development. Findings from this study may assist educational administration departments, program directors, and researchers when evaluating the effectiveness of their graduate-level administrator preparation programs.

Incorporating Quality of Life Concepts Into Educational Reform Creating Real Opportunities for Students With Disabilities in the 21st Century

This article discusses how education initiatives reflected in federal education reforms, statutes, and proposed agendas might be integrated and aligned using a quality of life (QOL) conceptual model. The article incorporates key aspects of the following into such an integrative framework: the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act; a framework for 21st-century learning; previous, current, and new reform agendas and policy initiatives; and the QOL construct. The authors discuss how education initiatives reflected in federal education reforms, statutes, and proposed agendas might be integrated and aligned using a QOL conceptual model.

Chapter 11 Toward a Framework for an Inclusive Model of Social Justice Leadership Preparation: Equity-Oriented Leadership for Students with Disabilities

This chapter offers an integrated framework for the design of educational leadership preparation programs that situate disability in the vision of social justice leadership (SJL) and equity for all students. We examine the extent to which current standards for building-level administrators inform their ability to implement programs for students with disabilities. Utilizing Theoharis’ (2007) definition of social justice leadership (SJL), we propose a broader framework for SJL that accounts for students with disabilities and present four key components upon which the broader framework of SJL rests. We align the updated standards for building-level leaders with the professional standards for special education administrators and describe how the skill sets for special education leaders complement and inform the design of leadership preparation programs to support candidates’ ability to create, sustain, and implement programs that meet the needs of all children. Finally, we argue for an integrated framework of professional standards that provides a more comprehensive set of skills necessary for meeting the needs of each and every student in the school, and we provide recommendations for leadership preparation programs to achieve this integration.

Student Voice From a Turnaround Urban High School An Account of Students With and Without Dis/Abilities Leading Resistance Against Accountability Reform

The Every Student Succeeds Act redefines the priorities of our nation’s education system. Prior to its passage, turnaround strategies advanced solutions for low-performing schools. Research literature examining how these reforms impacted the schooling experiences of students attending these schools is lacking. We present the results of a qualitative case study of a reconstituted urban school in the Southwest United States, providing the perspectives of 10 students with dis/abilities and the effects accountability reform efforts had on their high school experience. Three expressed needs and desires were identified: (a) a positive school identity, (b) stability, and (c) to be recognized and heard.

Teacher Evaluations in the Special Education Setting: Voices from the Field

This article uses a qualitative, multi-case study research design to gain insight into the perceptions and experiences of special education teachers and administrators.