Louis Danielson

Special Education Teacher Quality and Preparation: Exposing Foundations, Constructing a New Model:

The authors trace changes in conceptions of special education teacher quality and preparation in response to developments in special education research, policy, and practice. This developmental arc is a backdrop for understanding contemporary special education practice and charting future directions for preparing special education teachers. Federal policy, and recent research on teaching and learning, and the response-to-intervention (RTI) movement require a shift in thinking about how to prepare quality special education teachers and the expertise they need to be effective. To function effectively in RTI and fulfill federal highly qualified teacher requirements, special education teachers must master an increasingly complex knowledge base and sophisticated repertoire of instructional practices. The authors contend that preservice preparation is inadequate for this purpose and that preparation for special education teaching should build upon an existing knowledge base and demonstrated competence in classroom practice.

State Variation in Placement of Children with Handicaps in Segregated Environments

Data provided by states over the past 10 years demonstrate little change in the use of separate facilities for students with handicaps. However, state-to-state variation in reliance on the various educational placements is quite high, indicating far less stability in service patterns than the national data would suggest.

Extensive Reading Interventions for Students With Reading Difficulties After Grade 3

This synthesis extends a report of research on extensive interventions in kindergarten through third grade (Wanzek & Vaughn, 2007) to students in Grades 4 through 12, recognizing that many of the same questions about the effectiveness of reading interventions with younger students are important to address with older students, including (a) how effective are extensive interventions in improving reading outcomes for older students with reading difficulties or disabilities and (b) what features of extensive interventions (e.g., group size, duration, grade level) are associated with improved outcomes. Nineteen studies were synthesized. Ten studies met criteria for a meta-analysis, reporting on 22 distinct treatment/comparison differences. Mean effect sizes ranged from 0.10 to 0.16 for comprehension, word reading, word reading fluency, reading fluency, and spelling outcomes. No significant differences in student outcomes were noted among studies related to instructional group size, relative number of hours of intervention, or grade level of intervention.

Special and General Education Teachers in Public Schools: Sources of Supply in National Perspective

In view of the chronic shortage of qualified special education teachers and the pauciij, of data on the sources of supply of entering teachers, this research provides such data from a national probability sample of 46,599 public-school teachers from the 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey. The analysis focused on two main teaching fields (special and general education) and five main sources of supply of public school teachers (first-time teachers who recently graduated, first-time teachers who delayed entry to the teaching profession, reentering experienced teachers, teachers migrating from private to public schools, and public school teachers continuing from the prior year). Results showed significantly, greater annual inflow of entering teachers in special education (8.5%) than in general education (5.9%). The main source of entering public teachers in 1990-91 was the reserve pool (68% in special education; 69% in general education), composed of (a) delayed entry first-time teachers and (b) reentering experienced teachers. The other sources of entering public teachers were first-time teachers who recently graduated from college (24% in both special and general education), and migrant teachers from private schools (8% in special education; 7% in general education). Although special and general education were more similar than dissimilar in their respective sources of supply of teachers, these two fields differed somewhat in the following respects: (a) there was a greater percentage demand in special education for teachers to fill open positions, and (b) special education filled a higher percentage of open positions with reentering eaperienced teachers Implications for teacher shortage, recruitment, and teacher education are discussed

Toward More Effective Tiered Systems: Lessons From National Implementation Efforts:

Based on the 2015 evaluation of response-to-intervention (RTI) efforts and our own 2 decades of experience in supporting educators’ implementation of RTI efforts, four recommendations are presented to advance effective implementation of tiered systems of intervention. We suggest that by (a) assessing readiness and capacity, (b) providing content and coaching as part of professional development, (c) using evaluation data, and (d) including students with disabilities, educators can make strides to implement RTI more effectively and help to meet the needs of all students in today’s schools.

An Examination of the Peer Review Process

The purpose of this study was to identify ways to improve the quality of the Training and Personnel for the Education of the Handicapped program (CFDA 84.029) review process by determining how much training would be beneficial to ensure that the reviewers have similar orientations to the process. To do this, the study examined the degree of consistency among groups of reviewers who received various amounts of orientation training.