Heather A. Cole

From Dewey to No Child Left Behind: The Evolution and Devolution of Public Arts Education

This historical narrative tracks the evolution and devolution of visual arts education from Deweys progressive era pedagogy and the theory of the arts as experience through the modern accountability movement. Archival material, state curricular documents, and conversations with policymakers show an increasing focus on core subject areas of reading, writing, and mathematics at the expense of arts education. Texas House Bill 3, the third generation of accountability legislation in the Lone Star State, provides a case study of the status of arts education after more than fifteen years of high-stakes testing and accountability. Policy considerations are offered for arts education and its future standing within the public educational curriculum.

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.

Ethnicity Reporting Practices for Empirical Research in Three Autism-Related Journals.

This review examines ethnicity reporting in three autism-related journals (Autism, Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, and Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders) over a 6-year period. A comprehensive multistep search of articles is used to identify ethnicity as a demographic variable in these three journals. Articles that identified research participants’ ethnicity were further analyzed to determine the impact of ethnicity as a demographic variable on findings of each study. The results indicate that ethnicity has not been adequately reported in these three autism related journals even though previous recommendations have been made to improve inadequacies of descriptive information of research participants in autism research (Kistner and Robbins in J Autism Dev Disord 16:77–82, 1986). Implications for the field of autism spectrum disorders are discussed in addition to further recommendations for future research.

A Synthesis of Academic Interventions for Incarcerated Adolescents

This article contains a synthesis of academic intervention studies conducted between 1970 and 2012 with adolescents who were incarcerated in residential juvenile correctional facilities. Literacy, mathematics, written expression, and multicomponent interventions were included if they measured effects on at least one academic outcome measure. Of the 16 studies synthesized, 7 studies employed an experimental or quasi-experimental design, 4 used a single-case design, and 5 used a single-group design. Because the results are restricted due to methodological limitations and a general lack of research in this area, we discuss the existing gaps in the literature and explore initial findings using these 16 studies. Results suggest the potential of implementing explicit, targeted, academic interventions that have previously shown promise with adolescents in the general school setting (e.g., peer-mediated instruction). Implications and guidance for future research regarding effective delivery of evidence-based practices for adolescents in the incarcerated setting are discussed.

The Ecological and Population Validity of Reading Interventions for Adolescents: Can Effectiveness Be Generalized?.

This article examined the ecological and population validity of research on reading interventions for adolescents in Grades 6 through 12. The 26 studies meeting selection criteria were analyzed to determine the characteristics of the students, interventionists, classroom structures, and school environments used, as well as whether there were differential effects of treatments across those characteristics. In the 20+ years since the calls by the Council for Learning Disabilities and National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities for greater specificity in descriptions of study participants and contexts, the findings of this study suggest that researchers have provided greater detail on participants, but many questions remain about the extent to which findings can be generalized. Specifically, gaps in the research exist with regard to African American and Native American students; English language learners; students in suburban, rural, and adjudicated schools; students in high school; interventions delivered by regular classroom teachers; interventions focused on vocabulary; and interventions in large groups and general education classrooms.

Community-Based School Finance and Accountability A New Era for Local Control in Education Policy?

Top-down accountability policies have arguably had very limited impact over the past 20 years. Education stakeholders are now contemplating new forms of bottom-up accountability. In 2013, policymakers in California enacted a community-based approach that creates the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) process for school finance to increase flexibility. The reform also seeks to involve stakeholders at the local level by creating a Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP). We conducted a statutory analysis of the state’s new funding formula in comparison to its predecessor. We also analyze the state’s new system of district implementation, support, and intervention. We then discuss the implications of California’s reforms for future K-12 funding and accountability policy.

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.