Jean B. Crockett

Special Education's Role in Preparing Responsive Leaders for Inclusive Schools:

This article examines special educations role in preparing knowledgeable and skillful leaders for inclusive schools that strive to serve a wide range of students. Special education and educational leadership intersect, and the professional literature of both fields has been used to describe the work of school administration at their interface. A conceptual framework for special education leadership is presented, with suggestions for its use in planning cooperative leadership development. This analysis proceeds from the perspective that special education can add value to educational leadership preparation by articulating and communicating not only its legal requirements but the core principles that guide the meaningful education of learners with exceptionalities.

Investigating Instructional Leadership for Special Education

Instructional leadership has been studied since the inception of public education in the United States, but few studies have addressed the supervisory practices used to ensure that students who have disabilities receive an appropriate public education. We used grounded theory methods to investigate how instructional leadership for special education occurs in elementary schools. Our analysis produced detailed descriptions of the central processes, influencing factors, and resulting strategies used to support teaching and learning for students who have disabilities. The grounded theory portrays principals as the designated leaders of instruction for all students in their schools. Principals negotiated among competing priorities and contextual factors in attempting to provide instructional leadership for special education. The outcome of this negotiation was the dispersal, rather than the distribution, of responsibility among administrators and teachers in ways that weakened instructional leadership for special education and risked its potential benefits.

Reclaiming the History of Special Education for More Effective Practice

Special educators seem susceptible to the adaptation of untried and ineffective interventions. A vexing question related to the credibility of the field is why, historically, ineffective interventions persist and appear with cyclical regularity. We suggest that one way to reduce adaptation of questionable interventions is to place more emphasis in our professional culture on the history of special education, specifically the history of effective and ineffective interventions. We further suggest that educators more familiar with the history of special educations effective interventions will be better prepared to actively discriminate effective from ineffective interventions in their current work. We also offer a rationale explaining the confluence of influences to be considered in teaching the history of special education as a catalyst for more insightful and selective special education practice.

Viable Alternatives for Students With Disabilities: Exploring the Origins and Interpretations of LRE

In the flux of restructuring schools toward higher student outcomes, the challenge is tremendous for educators to provide, with confidence and integrity, a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE) as required by law for their students with disabilities. This inquiry is intended to further a deeper understanding of the principles that undergird placement decisions by examining the relation over time between the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act requirements for an appropriate education for learners who are exceptional and the restrictiveness of the educational environments in which they have been served. LRE is examined through sociopolitical, legal, and educational data and illustrated through interviews with several of the laws developers, contemporary theorists, and parental advocates. It is argued that concerns about placement in the LRE have dominated the special education discourse, obscuring and distorting the preeminent issue of individually appropriate instruction. It is concluded that the legal meanings of FAPE and LRE remain unchanged but that the complexity of the dynamic LRE concept has defied consistent understanding and application. In conclusion, principles of practice grounded in the conceptual foundations of special education are offered to build the capacity of individualized educational program/placement teams as they seek to provide a full educational opportunity for each student with a disability.

The Changing Landscape of Special Education Administration

Effective leadership and administrative support for special education are critical issues in todays schools. The field of special education administration is gaining attention in the literature as professionals seek ways to foster accountability and drive change in ways that support the success of students with disabilities and their teachers. The purpose of this special issue of Exceptionality is to address current issues in special education administration and to explore promising directions. This introductory article provides a conceptual overview of the collaborative nature of special education administration, including issues of instructional, ethical, and teacher leadership. This article is intended to serve as a foundation for the succeeding articles within this special issue addressing key concerns within the field.

Relationships Between Working Conditions and Special Educators’ Instruction

Students with disabilities (SWDs) depend upon special education teachers (SETs) to provide effective instruction. SETs, in turn, depend upon school leaders to provide conditions necessary to learn and engage in effective instructional practices for students with the most significant learning needs. A promising body of research indicates that working conditions such as administrative support and school culture influence general educators’ effectiveness and their students’ achievement. This literature review examines research investigating relationships between SETs’ working conditions and instructional quality and SWDs’ academic achievement, to provide insights into how working conditions might be leveraged to improve SETs’ instruction and SWDs’ achievement.

Included, but Underserved: Rediscovering Special Education for Students with Learning Disabilities

Special education occurs in the context of public schools in the United States, where instruction is shaped by two often countervailing forces: the governance of educational policies, and the guidance of educational research. This chapter examines how these forces interact by reviewing descriptions of special education instruction for elementary and secondary school students with LD in recent research studies. The authors emphasize the importance of meeting the unique educational needs of students with LD and teaching them effectively in what for each is the least restrictive educational environment, using the most promising and proven practices. The authors assert that to do so means drawing on the respective expertise of general and special education teachers by clarifying, not blurring, their traditional distinctions.

Workload Manageability Among Novice Special and General Educators: Relationships With Emotional Exhaustion and Career Intentions:

Novice special educators (those in their first 3 years) consistently report their workloads are unmanageable. Yet, it is not clear whether their perceptions of workload manageability contribute to outcomes of concern such as emotional exhaustion (a component of burnout) or intentions to continue teaching in their schools and districts. This pilot investigation used structural equation modeling to analyze data collected for the Michigan Indiana Early Career Teacher Study. We found (a) novice elementary and middle school special educators rated their workloads less manageable than novice elementary and middle school general educators; (b) novice special and general educators’ ratings of workload manageability predicted emotional exhaustion, which mediated a relationship between workload manageability and career intentions; and (c) the magnitude of the relationships was stronger for novice general educators. Results have implications for supporting and retaining novice special and general education teachers.

Reflections on the Concept of the Least Restrictive Environment in Special Education

Abstract The Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act address factors to consider in educating students with and without disabilities together to the maximum extent appropriate. This chapter is designed to examine the origins and evolving interpretations of the LRE concept in special education policy and practice. Discussion traces the evolution of the concept as a legal principle, and reviews its application to educational strategies for students with learning and behavioral disabilities in contemporary schools. In conclusion, the future of the LRE concept is addressed in light of competing policies promoting presumptive inclusive education, and publicly funded school choice programs promoting greater involvement of parents in choosing where their children with and without disabilities should be educated.

Included, but Underserved

Special education occurs in the context of public schools in the United States, where instruction is shaped by two often countervailing forces: the governance of educational policies, and the guidance of educational research. This chapter examines how these forces interact by reviewing descriptions of special education instruction for elementary and secondary school students with LD in recent research studies. The authors emphasize the importance of meeting the unique educational needs of students with LD and teaching them effectively in what for each is the least restrictive educational environment, using the most promising and proven practices. The authors assert that to do so means drawing on the respective expertise of general and special education teachers by clarifying, not blurring, their traditional distinctions.