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Annotation Provides students preparing for careers as special educators with an analysis of some of the basic professional and policy issues being rethought in the context of the beginning of the 21st century.
Special educators are facing new challenges at the beginning of the 21st century as public education is being reformed by a vision focusing on measurable student outcomes. The future course of the field will be shaped by the policy and programmatic responses to several issues, including demographic changes in student populations, a lack of certified special education teachers, criticism in the public media for the rising costs of services, and debates about the preferred philosophy of service delivery for students with disabilities. Additional chapters discuss university-school collaboration, charter schools, disability studies, school violence, disproportionality in placement, male African-American teachers, and ethics. This book has been written out of a context of research and program development activities with public schools over the past decade in one of the largest Colleges of Education in a diverse metropolitan area in the country. The issues selected for analysis and the perspective guiding those analyses grew out of this work and out of a national Delphi study of the views of parents and constituent organizations and leading researchers, teacher educators, and policy makers in Special Education.
Now in its second edition, Rethinking Disability introduces new and experienced teachers to ethical framings of disability and strategies for effectively teaching and including students with disabilities in the general education classroom. Grounded in a disability studies framework, this text’s unique narrative style encourages readers to examine their beliefs about disability and the influence of historical and cultural meanings of disability upon their work as teachers. The second edition offers clear and applicable suggestions for creating dynamic and inclusive classroom cultures, getting to know students, selecting appropriate instructional and assessment strategies, co-teaching, and promoting an inclusive school culture. This second edition is fully revised and updated to include a brief history of disability through the ages, the relevance of current educational policies to inclusion, technology in the inclusive classroom, intersectionality and its influence upon inclusive practices, working with families, and issues of transition from school to the post-school world. Each chapter now also includes a featured "voice from the field" written by persons with disabilities, parents, and teachers.
Must Inclusion be Special? examines the discord between special and inclusive education and why this discord can only be resolved when wider inequalities within mainstream education are confronted. It calls for a shift in our approach to provision, from seeing it as a conglomeration of individualised needs to identifying it as a conglomeration of collective needs. The author examines the political, medical and cultural tendency of current times to focus upon the individual and contrasts this with the necessity to focus on context. This book distinguishes the theoretical perspectives that are often associated with special or inclusive education and the broad range of interests which depend upon their ongoing development. This examination leads to a problematisation of mainstream education provision, our understanding of why social inequities emerge and how additional support can overcome these inequities. Further chapters explore the underlying challenges which emerge from our use and understanding of the notions of special and inclusive, outlining an alternative approach based upon a community of provision. This approach recognises the interconnectedness of services and the significance of context, and it encapsulates the aspiration of much international legislation for participation and inclusion for all. But it also assumes that we tend towards diffuse practices, services, policies, settings and roles, spread across provision which is variously inclusive and exclusionary. In seeking to create equitable participation for all, support needs to shift its focus from the individual to this diffuse network of contexts. Must Inclusion be Special? emerges from the research base which problematises inclusion and special education, drawing upon examples from many countries. It also refers to the author’s research into pedagogy, language and policy, and his experiences as a teacher and the parent of a child identified with special educational needs.
Building and supporting effective special education programs School leaders and special educators are expected to be experts on all levels and types of special education law and services, types of disability, and aspects of academic and functional programming. With the increasing demands of the job and the ever-changing legal and educational climate, many administrators and teachers are overwhelmed, and few feel adequately prepared to meet the demands. Trends and Legal Issues in Special Education helps you build and support timely, legally sound, and effective special education services and programs. Readers will find: the most up-to-date information on how to effectively implement special education programs, processes, and procedures examination of a wide variety of issues, from developing and implementing individual education programs (IEPs) that confer a free appropriate public education, Section 504, least restrictive environment (LRE), and successfully collaborating with parents, to issues regarding accountability, staffing, bullying, early childhood special education, multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), evidence-based practices, transition, discipline, and the school-to-prison pipeline extensive references and resources Written as a comprehensive reference for all who work with students with disabilities, this book offers the most up-to-date research and field-tested strategies from a range of experts that special education professionals can confidently and immediately apply.
Experts have yet to reach consensus about what a learning disability is, how to determine if a child has one, and what to do about it. Leading researcher and clinician Deborah Waber offers an alternative to the prevailing view of learning disability as a problem contained within the child. Instead, she shows how learning difficulties are best understood as a function of the developmental interaction between the child and the world. Integrating findings from education, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, she offers a novel approach with direct practical implications. Detailed real-world case studies illustrate how this approach can promote positive outcomes for children who struggle in school.
Updated to include changes in the field, this new edition addresses ethical issues that are most pressing to special education teachers and administrators. Using a case-based approach, students are encouraged to reason and collaborate about due process, the distribution of educational resources, institutional unresponsiveness, professional relationships, conflicts among parents and teachers, and confidentiality.
Diversity creates a rich environment for ideas to evolve into new and more refined forms. This pedagogical approach can help students to appreciate and value all forms of diversity and enrich learning. There is a need for administrators in education to institute policies that will support diversity and inclusion within special education classrooms. Rethinking Inclusion and Transformation in Special Education explores the latest findings on how children learn by discussing global policies and educational practices, considering professional expectations, establishing parent relationships that enhance communication, creating an effective learning environment that meets all students’ needs, and using technology wisely. Covering topics such as language development promotion, school leadership practices, and long-term skill support, this book is essential for special education teachers, diversity officers, school administrators, instructional designers, curriculum developers, academicians, researchers, and upper-level students.
In the movement toward standards-based education, an important question stands out: How will this reform affect the 10% of school-aged children who have disabilities and thus qualify for special education? In Educating One and All, an expert committee addresses how to reconcile common learning for all students with individualized education for "one"â€"the unique student. The book makes recommendations to states and communities that have adopted standards-based reform and that seek policies and practices to make reform consistent with the requirements of special education. The committee explores the ideas, implementation issues, and legislative initiatives behind the tradition of special education for people with disabilities. It investigates the policy and practice implications of the current reform movement toward high educational standards for all students. Educating One and All examines the curricula and expected outcomes of standards-based education and the educational experience of students with disabilitiesâ€"and identifies points of alignment between the two areas. The volume documents the diverse population of students with disabilities and their school experiences. Because approaches to assessment and accountability are key to standards-based reforms, the committee analyzes how assessment systems currently address students with disabilities, including testing accommodations. The book addresses legal and resource implications, as well as parental participation in children's education.
