• Review Chapter 52 in the Florian text, reflecting on how special education has evolved as a result of federal reforms.
• Review the Leko et al. article identifying aspects of personnel needed to prepare for the future of special education. Consider evidence from the research to support your plan.
• Review the teacher’s guide for involving students and parents in transition planning in the Cavendish et al. article.
• Review the Hirano et al. article, reflecting on the conceptual model for parental involvement and transition planning.

By Day 7 of Week 11

Professional and Theoretical Knowledge

Create a 2- to 3-page paper that includes the following components:

• A reflection on the evolution of the field of special education by describing where it is currently at and where it is heading.
• A reflection on how Walden’s mission of social change relates to and has an impact on you as a special educator.
• A description of how you will stay current on key topics, laws, and practices in the field of special education.
• An explanation of how you will ensure students with exceptionalities will be contributing members of society. Include at least one reference to college and career readiness skills and discuss how transition plans can support your ideas.

Journal of Disability Policy Studies
2016, Vol. 27(1) 43 –53
© Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1044207315583901
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Article

In the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB;
2001), parental involvement was defined as “the participa-
tion of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful com-
munication involving student academic learning and other
school activities.” The term parent refers to

a natural, adoptive, or foster parent of a child, a guardian, or an
individual acting in the place of a natural or adoptive parent
(including a grandparent, stepparent, or other relative) with
whom the child lives, or an individual who is legally responsible
for the child’s welfare. (Individuals With Disability Education
Act [IDEA], 2004, sec. 602).

From this point forward, the term parent will be used to
represent the variety of family constellations that exist
today.

NCLB emphasized promoting parent involvement and
building parents’ capacity to act as full partners in improv-
ing their child’s education by requiring schools to (a)
develop a written policy regarding involving parents and
(b) provide parents with resources and training on topics
such as academic content, achievement standards, monitor-
ing progress, and collaboration. Despite increased focus on
parent involvement over time, however, Section 1118—
Parent Involvement—in NCLB has drawn criticism for not
outlining clear procedures for measuring parent involve-
ment, and failing to implement federal monitoring of school
activities to meet parent involvement requirements (Epstein,
2005). Without guidance and oversight, schools are left to
interpret the intent of the law resulting in multiple practices

with inconsistent results (Epstein, 2005). Unfortunately,
this means that many families are not connecting with
schools. Teachers and administrators often report that one
of their greatest challenges is getting the parents they are
most trying to reach, involved. Most of these “hard to
reach” parents are “those who are of color, poor, economi-
cally distressed, limited English speakers, and/or immi-
grants” (Mapp & Hong, 2010, p. 346). Mapp and Hong
(2010) argue, however, that it is not the parents, who are
hard to reach, but the schools and the programs, policies,
and practices created by school personnel that are hard to
reach.

Moreover, NCLB does not specifically address students
with disabilities for whom parent involvement may be par-
ticularly important. One of the main components of IDEA
(2004) is parent participation in decision making related to
their child’s education. IDEA reaffirms the importance of
parent involvement in education by mandating procedures
offering a continuum of activities aimed at facilitating
parental involvement. Although parent participation is not
mandated, schools are required to make efforts and encour-
age parents to become partners in decision making regard-
ing their child’s education including, but not limited to,

583901DPSXXX10.1177/1044207315583901Journal of Disability Policy StudiesHirano and Rowe
research-article2015

1University of Oregon, Eugene, USA

Corresponding Author:
Kara A. Hirano, Department of Special Education and Clinical Sciences,
University of Oregon, 5208 Eugene, OR 97403-5208, USA.
Email: khirano1@uoregon.edu

A Conceptual Model for Parent
Involvement in Secondary Special
Education

Kara A. Hirano, MEd1 and Dawn A. Rowe, PhD1

Abstract
Parent educational involvement has been demonstrated to be a predictor of in-school and post-school success for all
students, including students with disabilities. However, traditional models of parent involvement tend to focus on academic-
oriented indicators of success whereas transition models tend to focus on post-school outcomes with limited parent
roles. The purpose of this article is to propose a model of parent involvement that addresses the limitations of current
approaches by (a) integrating transition and traditional academic-focused models of parent involvement, (b) incorporating
predictors of post-school success, and (c) accounting for the continued role parents play in the lives of their adult children.

Keywords
parent involvement, family involvement, transition planning, secondary education

mailto:khirano1@uoregon.edu

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F1044207315583901&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2015-06-08

44 Journal of Disability Policy Studies 27(1)

consent to evaluation and determination of eligibility for
services.

Despite positive associations between parent involve-
ment and student outcomes and corresponding mandates
that schools invite parents to be involved in decisions per-
taining to their child’s education, collaborative home–school
relationships remains elusive, particularly for low-income
and culturally diverse (CLD) families (Kalyanpur, Harry, &
Skrtic, 2000). A number of barriers and contextual factors
contribute to this lack of connection, and it is important to
address these as “these barriers to family-school partner-
ships create inequities and contribute to differential post-
school outcomes” (Trainor, Lindstrom, Simon-Burroughs,
Martin, & McCray Sorrells, 2008, p. 60).

Models for Parent Involvement

In general, previous models for parent involvement in edu-
cation view parents as having a role in promoting the
achievement of their child through school-based and home-
based activities (Epstein, 1987; Green, Walker, Hoover-
Dempsey, & Sandler, 2007; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994).
Home-based activities are aimed at supporting achievement
through homework and curriculum-related activities, and
promoting overall cognitive development of their child.
School-based activities are focused on participating in
meetings and activities at school and facilitating connec-
tions with both school staff and other families. Existing
models for parent involvement recognize the importance of
the home–school connection and emphasize that communi-
cation between these two spheres of influence is critical.

Previous models for parent involvement make a unique
contribution to the conceptualization of parent involvement
in education. For example, Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994)
and Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1995) both highlight
the importance of parents conveying their education-related
values to their child. Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) focus
more on the child’s affective experience in which parents
convey positive feelings toward the child by caring about
school and relating their enjoyment of interacting with the
child about school. Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1995)
suggest that parents convey not only their value of educa-
tion but also their goals, expectations, and aspirations for
their child’s future.

Parent Involvement in High Schools

Despite the benefits of parent involvement and the call to
increase parental participation in education, parent involve-
ment decreases as students transition from middle to high
school (Eccles et al., 1993). Newman (2005) reported that
parents of older students with disabilities were less involved
at home and school than parents of younger aged peers.
Several factors could be influencing this trend of decreasing

parent involvement as students age, such as structural
changes to the educational environment and shifts in paren-
tal and school personnel perceptions of the role of parents in
a student’s life during high school.

Middle and high schools are often large, complex sys-
tems with more teachers, which can make it difficult for
parents to find ways to connect (Adams & Christenson,
2000). In addition, high school curricula are more complex,
which makes it more challenging to support student learn-
ing (Hill & Chao, 2009). The systemic and curricular
changes evident between elementary and middle/high
schools also coincide with developmental changes as stu-
dents enter adolescence. Developing autonomy and inde-
pendence are two important developmental tasks during
adolescence as conceived by Western culture (Arnett,
2013). At this time, students often begin distancing them-
selves from their parents, and parents often support their
child’s emerging autonomy and independence by distancing
themselves from their teen’s life, including school life
(Hollifield, 1994). Parents seem to recognize that involve-
ment practices appropriate when their child was in elemen-
tary and middle school are no longer developmentally
appropriate, but are uncertain how exactly to continue to
engage.

High school administrators and teachers are also some-
times unsure of how to effectively engage families in their
child’s education and sometimes avoid partnering with
them (Greenfield, Epstein, Hutchins, & Thomas, 2012),
reflecting the decrease in parent outreach activities in high
schools (Adams & Christenson, 2000). With schools and
parents unsure about their roles in the lives of high school
students, a chasm between home and school can exist.
However, it is important to address this gap as high school
students continue to reaffirm the value of family in their
lives, education, and plans for college and career (Greenfield
et al., 2012), and research continues to underscore the
importance of parental involvement for in-school and post-
school success (Newman et al., 2005; Test et al., 2009).

The field of special education organized transition-
related research into models to begin to assist schools in
addressing the discrepancy in post-school outcomes
between youth with disabilities and their peers without dis-
abilities. Two examples are the Taxonomy for Transition
Programming (Kohler, 1996) and Guideposts for Success
(National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability
[NCWD] for Youth, 2009). These models identify the
importance of parent involvement in transition planning
and the central role parents play in their children’s school
life. Activities in these models are focused on empowering
parents to be active participants in transition planning by
arming them with essential knowledge and skills. Training
components include knowledge of transition, community
resources and supports for the youth and family, and infor-
mation on disability-related legislation. Kohler (1996)

Hirano and Rowe 45

stresses the importance of increasing parent knowledge of
community resources as well as concepts and strategies that
support student independence, such as self-determination.

A third model by Wandry and Pleet (2009) focuses spe-
cifically on parent involvement and the role parents can and
should play during the transition years. Wandry and Pleet
suggest that parents can assume five different roles during
the transition years both in school and in adult service agen-
cies: (a) collaborators in the Individualized Education
Program (IEP) process, (b) instructors in their youth’s
emergent independence, (c) decision makers and evalua-
tors; (d) peer mentors, and (e) systems change agents. This
model differs from previous models by expanding the role
of parents, recognizing them as instructors in their youth’s
emergent independence, and emphasizing the importance
of home-based activities.

Although all the models provide a useful lens for con-
ceptualizing parent involvement, several limitations of
these models affect applicability to transition-age youth
with disabilities and their families. First, general education
models (Epstein, 1987; Green et al., 2007; Grolnick &
Slowiaczek, 1994; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005) focus
mainly on linking parent engagement with student aca-
demic success whereas the transition frameworks (i.e.,
Kohler, 1996; NCWD Youth, 2009) focus primarily on
parental roles in transition planning in school. In reality, the
role of parents is multidimensional and often focused on
both in-school and post-school success.

Although models describe some knowledge parents need
to participate in transition planning (e.g., IEP process, com-
munity resources), parents could benefit from additional
resources (e.g., supports, programs, experiences, services
correlated with improved post-school outcomes for youth
with disabilities). For example, Test et al. (2009) identified
in-school predictors of post-school outcomes for students
with disabilities in education, employment, and indepen-
dent living (e.g., work study, community experiences, self-
determination). Integrating this information into a parent
involvement model is an important next step not only in
improving the home–school partnership, but also in improv-
ing post-school outcomes for youth with disabilities.
Although parents may not dictate curriculum and services,
if they are aware of evidence-based programs that increase
the likelihood of positive outcomes, they will be more fully
informed advocates and partners in transition planning.

Finally, although mentioned in Wandry and Pleet (2009),
the importance of the roles parents continue to play after
their students leave high school is not accounted for in a
meaningful way in most models. Many parents of students
with disabilities maintain active roles in the lives of their
student after high school. Although these roles may look
somewhat different than roles held during high school,
parents often continue to act as decision makers, collabo-
rators, instructors, and advocates for their child (Bianco,

Garrison-Wade, Tobin, & Lehmann, 2009; Timmons,
Whitney-Thomas, McIntyre, Butterworth, & Allen, 2004).
Parents are often critical in assisting and guiding their
young adults in receiving supports and services necessary
to achieve desired post-school goals. Therefore, in looking
ahead to promoting positive post-school outcomes for youth
with disabilities, it is imperative that there are support net-
works, including parents, in place that can continue to assist
students in developing the skills, knowledge, and resources
necessary to achieve their goals.

Given the weight of the role parents play in the lives of
their children and the complex nature of schools and transi-
tion planning, it is important to have a model for parent
involvement that defines how parents can be involved, what
skills and knowledge parents need to effectively support
their students, and what strategies high schools can use to
increase parent involvement for youth with disabilities. Not
only is it mandated by IDEA (2004) to provide supports to
parents, but research continues to demonstrate that parent
involvement increases the likelihood of positive post-school
outcomes (Test et al., 2009). If one goal of education is to
prepare students to meet post-school goals, schools must
recognize that parents continue to play a role in the lives of
their child long after they leave high school and should pre-
pare parents for their changing roles as students exit high
school and enter adult service systems (Bianco et al., 2009).
This requires recognizing that for many youth with disabili-
ties, post-school success is affected by students’ individual
characteristics and the knowledge, skills, expectations, and
resources of their family (e.g., Lindstrom, Hirano,
McCarthy, & Alverson, 2014).

Expanding Definitions and Dimensions of Parent
Involvement in Secondary Transition

Based on existing models of parent involvement (Hoover-
Dempsey & Sandler, 1997; Wandry & Pleet, 2009), parent
reports of transition experiences (Bianco et al., 2009;
Timmons et al., 2004), and research related to predictors of
post-school success for students with disabilities (Rowe et
al., 2014; Test et al., 2009), a conceptual model for parent
involvement in secondary special education and transition
is suggested. Addressing limitations of current approaches,
the model (a) integrates transition and traditional academic-
focused models of parent involvement, (b) incorporates pre-
dictors of post-school success, and (c) accounts for the
continued role parents play in the lives of their adult chil-
dren. Figure 1 presents an overview of the model.

School Values and Beliefs

Mapp and Kuttner (2014) outline research-based organiza-
tional conditions essential for parent engagement initiatives
to be implemented and sustained. Based on the work of

46 Journal of Disability Policy Studies 27(1)

Weiss, Lopez, and Rosenberg (2011), these conditions
include initiatives that are systemic, integrated, and sus-
tained with diverse funding streams and school leadership.
Initiatives should be a critical element of school and district
improvement plans with the capacity-building efforts inte-
grated into school structures and processes. These include
not only training and professional development but also
recruitment and mechanisms for assessment and evaluation.
Finally, district leadership must view parent engagement as
systemic and be able to coordinate parent engagement strat-
egies as part of the overall plan for school improvement.
Additional research also focuses on the importance of
school-level leadership and teacher beliefs and efficacy on
parent involvement (Dauber & Epstein, 1993; Lloyd-Smith
& Baron, 2010).

School leadership. School leaders often set the school cli-
mate and have the power to encourage or discourage school
practices, including parent involvement (Lloyd-Smith &
Baron, 2010). The foundation for parent involvement in the
proposed model relies on school leaders who (a) know and
understand the importance of parent involvement in pro-
moting students’ in-school and post-school success, (b)
value parents as partners in education, (c) believe that par-
ents want the best for their students and manifest their sup-
port in various ways, (d) effectively communicate values to
school staff and support ongoing professional development

and support for parent involvement, and (e) initiate and/or
actively support parent involvement programs (Campbell-
Whatley & Lyons, 2013).

Teacher beliefs and efficacy. In addition to school leaders, it
is also important to have teachers who support parent
involvement. There is consistent evidence in general educa-
tion that teacher attitudes and invitations they extend to par-
ents to be involved in their child’s education are important
influences on parents’ decisions to become involved
(Dauber & Epstein, 1993). Simon (2004) found parents
who perceived more outreach from their child’s high school
(e.g., school contacts about their child’s academic program,
contacts with information about how to help children with
homework or specific skill development) were more
involved. This increased involvement included more par-
ent–child discussions about post-school goals, school activ-
ities, and homework completion, and greater levels of
attendance at school activities.

Given the potential impact of invitations for parent
involvement, it is important that teachers make it an inte-
grated part of their teaching practice. Integrating parent
involvement into practice requires belief that it is important
(Pajares, 1992). School staff who do not support parent
involvement (e.g., believe that it is too much trouble) have
been found to actively discourage parent involvement
(Dauber & Epstein, 1993). In addition, teachers who held

Figure 1. Theoretical model for parent involvement in secondary special education.

Hirano and Rowe 47

low assessments of their ability to affect changes in levels
of parent involvement were less likely to believe that form-
ing partnerships was important for promoting parent
involvement than teachers with a more positive perspective
on parents (Landmark, Roberts, & Zhang, 2013).

School Interventions

A school culture that values parent involvement provides the
foundation for parent involvement programs and initiatives
(Mapp & Kuttner, 2014). Traditional forms of involvement
include volunteering at the school, attending parent–teacher
conferences, open houses, and school activities, as well as
participation in the schools’ Parent Teacher Association, and
supporting homework completion (Greenwood & Hickman,
1991). However, most of these activities along with school
structures and norms are most responsive to “middle-class,
U.S. born, able-bodied, standard English-speaking parents”
(Goodwin & King, 2002, p. 5). In an effort to provide cultur-
ally responsive involvement opportunities, several strategies
have been offered, such as schools (a) creating and clearly
communicating their commitment to culturally responsive
parent involvement, (b) obtaining parental perspectives
through surveys or interviews, (c) providing flexible meet-
ing and activity times so that more parents can attend, (d)
offering seminars and parent–teacher team building activi-
ties, (e) assigning a parent liaison, (f) creating a cultural
resource binder, and (g) providing a family space or room
within the school (Goodwin & King, 2002).

In addition to the aforementioned activities, some par-
ents, such as parents of youth with disabilities, play distinct
roles in their children’s education that may require extra
training and support. For example, Hoover-Dempsey and
Sandler (1997) proposed a model of parent involvement
that identified factors thought to affect parents’ decisions to
become involved in their child’s education (i.e., parental
role construction, parental skills and knowledge, and paren-
tal efficacy). Not present in the Hoover-Dempsey model but
included in this model are parent expectations, which have
been demonstrated to influence parent involvement behav-
iors (e.g., Doren, Gau, & Lindstrom, 2012). This conceptual
model proposes that school interventions should be aimed
at increasing these three constructs in the five roles that par-
ents play in secondary school and transition planning, as
well as in assisting parents in forming high and reasonable
expectations for their youth.

Parental role construction. Parental role construction is sim-
ply parents’ beliefs about what they should do as parents in
relation to their child’s education. Based on role theory
(Biddle, 1986), Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2005) defined it as
“parents’ beliefs about what they are supposed to do in rela-
tion to their child’s education and the patterns of behavior
that follow those beliefs” (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005,

p. 107). Parents’ beliefs about their role in their child’s edu-
cation are influenced by culture (Chrispeels & Rivero,
2001) and socioeconomic status (Lareau, 2003) and can
lead to different types and levels of parent involvement. For
example, several studies have identified Latino immigrant
families as holding the belief that teaching academic skills
is the role of the school; therefore, they often take a more
passive role in school- and home-based involvement (e.g.,
Chrispeels & Rivero, 2001). These findings have also been
replicated with low-income families (Lareau, 2003). Role
construction is also shaped by parent beliefs about child
development and effective parenting practices (Hoover-
Dempsey et al., 2005). Although there is currently no
research that assesses the impact of parental role construc-
tion on parental involvement in secondary school and tran-
sition planning, research supports the importance of role
construction in shaping parent involvement practices for
parents of elementary (Sheldon, 2002) and secondary stu-
dents (Deslandes & Bertrand, 2005).

Knowledge, skills, and parental efficacy. Hoover-Dempsey and
Sandler (1995) suggest that the particular skills and knowl-
edge parents possess will influence their forms of involve-
ment. For example, if parents feel knowledgeable about
writing but less confident in their math abilities, they are
more likely to help their student with writing tasks. Extended
to transition activities, if parents feel more confident in their
ability to create resumes or look for jobs than connecting
with resources in the community, they are more likely to help
their child find a job rather than pursue community support
services. However, possessing knowledge and skills to sup-
port a child in academics or transition does not guarantee that
the parent will indeed become involved. Parents must also
have a sense of efficacy for helping their child succeed.

Grounded in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997),
self-efficacy is a construct that refers to one’s belief that
their efforts will positively affect outcomes (Bandura,
1997). It is important to note that self-efficacy is distinct
from skills and knowledge as it refers to the “beliefs about
what one can do with the sub-skills one possesses”
(Bandura, 1986b, p. 368). In regard to parent involvement
in secondary school and transition planning, parental effi-
cacy refers to parents’ beliefs that their efforts will posi-
tively affect their child’s in-school and post-school
outcomes. Previous research has demonstrated that parental
efficacy is linked to parent involvement. Hoover-Dempsey,
Bassler, and Brissie (1992) found that parents with higher
parental efficacy were more likely to be involved than par-
ents with a weaker sense of self-efficacy.

Parent expectations. For students in general, parent expecta-
tions have been linked to academic achievement (Chen
& Gregory, 2010), school engagement (Simons-Morton &
Chen, 2009), and college attendance (Crosnoe, Mistry,

48 Journal of Disability Policy Studies 27(1)

& Elder, 2002). Parent expectations have also proven to be
significant for students with disabilities. Recent studies
have found that parents of youth with disabilities who held
high expectations of their children tended to have better
post-school outcomes in employment and post-secondary
education (e.g., Doren et al., 2012).

Although there are not currently any research-based prac-
tices for raising parent expectations, several studies indicate
that parent expectations are dynamic and influenced by the
parents’ perception of how their child is doing in school
(Goldenberg, Gallimore, Reese, & Garnier, 2001) and
teacher expectations (Lareau, 2003), suggesting schools
could potentially affect parent expectations. Parent expecta-
tions are also influenced by knowledge of available services.
Francis, Gross, Turnbull, and Parent-Johnson (2013) found
that parent training on competitive employment options for
people with disabilities through the Family Empowerment
Awareness Training (FEAT) increased parent expectations
for competitive employment. A follow-up survey found that
parents reported accessing competitive employment
resources following the trainings with nearly one fifth
reporting competitive employment outcomes for their son or
daughter (Francis, Gross, Turnbull, & Turnbull, 2014).

Expanded Parent Involvement Roles in
Secondary Education and Transition

Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1997) suggest that the
beliefs underlying parental role construction are based on
experience with their own parent’s school involvement,
observation of their friend’s involvement in child’s school-
ing, and expectations for involvement held by groups to
which parents belong, including schools. Parents of youth
with disabilities may not have family or peer groups to
observe and model or who share similar experiences (e.g.,
attending transition planning meetings). The school, how-
ever, can develop parent involvement roles and expecta-
tions and communicate these to parents. For parents of
secondary students with disabilities, these roles extend
beyond attending meetings and helping with homework.
These roles include decision maker and evaluator, collabo-
rator, instructor, coach, and advocate (described below).
Schools should provide parents with knowledge and skills
to enable them to effectively fulfill these roles and develop
their efficacy for supporting their child.

Parent training has been effective at increasing parent
knowledge, skills, and efficacy. For example, Chrispeels
and Rivero (2001) reported that parents’ role construction
evolved as they gained new information through attending
six 90-min training sessions focused on how to interact with
teachers and support their child’s academic success at home.
Results indicated increases in parent-initiated communica-
tion, more positive and supportive interactions with their
child at home, and more engagement in teaching activities

at home. Parents also demonstrated an increase in advocacy
at school, as they pressed to see their child’s records and
understand more about the child’s progress. These behav-
ioral changes reflect a shift in role construction as parents
learned the importance of an active role in education.

Although each model previously reviewed discussed the
importance of parent involvement in education, models
addressed parental roles and forms of involvement in
slightly different ways. To adequately address parent
involvement in secondary education and transition plan-
ning, it is necessary to consolidate roles from the literature
and expand traditional definitions of parent involvement to
reflect roles parents assume during school-age years and the
future. Expanding these roles will also provide a new lens
through which teachers can view parents. Geenan, Powers,
and Lopez-Vasquez (2001) found that professionals reported
relatively low involvement for CLD parents in both home-
based and school-based transition planning. CLD parents
also reported low levels of school-based involvement but
indicated relatively high levels of transition planning activi-
ties at home. Oftentimes, parents who do not participate in
traditional school-based activities are thought to be unin-
volved, which contributes to the assumption that the fami-
lies who are often “of color, poor, economically distressed,
limited English speakers, and/or immigrants” (Mapp &
Hong, 2010, p. 346) are uncaring and “hard-to-reach”
(Mapp & Hong, 2010). Expanding the role of parents and
forms of involvement may also help educators to become
aware of and appreciate many of the invisible strategies
CLD families use to support their children’s education (e.g.,
Delgado-Gaitan, 1994).

Parents as decision makers and collaborators. IDEA man-
dates parents of students with disabilities are part of the
IEP team and considered partners in educational decision
making. Having adequate information about their child’s
course of study and activities while in high school can
affect the ability to be fully informed decision makers and
advocates. For parents to be partners in decision making,
they must be aware of options and potential consequences
of decisions. The impact of educational decisions on a
youth with a disability significantly affects future options
and post-school outcomes. For example, Blackorby, Han-
cock, and Siegel (1993) found that students with disabili-
ties who participated in general education academic
courses were more likely to be engaged in post-school
education, employment, and independent living, findings
that have been replicated across other studies (e.g., Daviso,
Denney, Baer, & Flexer, 2011). Obtaining a high school
diploma also influences post-secondary enrollment (Har-
vey, 2002).

Inclusion in general education and diploma status are
not the only relevant school-based decisions that affect
student outcomes. Parents need to be knowledgeable

Hirano and Rowe 49

about nonacademic courses (e.g., Career Technical
Education), work experiences, and availability of struc-
tured school-to-work and transition programs (i.e., pre-
dictors post-school success; Rowe et al., 2014; Test et al.,
2009). It is important for parents to understand all educa-
tional options available for their child and be informed of
the impact that their child’s educational path and experi-
ences may have on options and outcomes in the future. It
is only with this crucial information that parents can make
informed decisions on how to best support and advocate
for their child.

Studies of parents of young adults with disabilities dur-
ing and after the transition from high school to adult ser-
vice delivery systems reveal that the role of parents is
complex and multifaceted. Timmons et al. (2004) described
parents as “linchpins” who acted not only as parents and
providers, but also as service coordinators, case managers,
and advocates. Bianco et al. (2009) found that for parents
of young adults with disabilities, establishing collaborative
partnerships with adult service agencies and direct service
providers was critical in filling service gaps to ensure that
the young adult’s needs were met. As with schools,
informed decision making can be elusive in the adult ser-
vice system if parents and youth are unaware of their
options. Although the school is not responsible for assist-
ing parents in navigating the adult service system after
their child leaves high school, providing information about
and connection to pertinent community resources to pursue
should they need support could help pave the way for a
smoother transition.

Without understanding the different factors that influ-
ence post-school outcomes and awareness of availability of
programs and resources in school, parents can hardly be
called partners in educational decision making. Making
decisions or supporting those made by schools without hav-
ing adequate knowledge inhibits parents’ ability to make
informed decisions.

Parents as instructors. Lightfoot (1978) states that in parent–
school partnerships, “there must be a profound recognition
that parents are their child’s first teacher and that education,
deeply rooted in the values, traditions, and norms of family
culture,” begins before formal schooling (p. 42). In fact,
parents continue to act as instructors through the transmis-
sion of socio-cultural values, a form of involvement often
overlooked by traditional models of parent involvement
(Geenan et al., 2001). Although this role of instructor may
change as children age, parents continue to influence their
child’s growth and development. By recognizing this
important and ongoing role of parents as instructors, teach-
ers can collaborate with parents to integrate teaching
moments into the daily lives of families to support students
in their in-school and post-school goals in academics, daily
living skills, and social skills.

Academics. Families can manifest their support for educa-
tion in the home and at school in multiple ways, including
assisting with homework. Despite benefits of parental
involvement with homework, parents report that helping
with homework can put tension on the parent–child rela-
tionship (Baumgartner, Bryan, Donahue, & Nelson, 1993).
Providing parents information (e.g., appropriate monitoring
for their child’s needs and phrases for providing feedback)
can increase parents’ effectiveness and influence student
motivation for completing homework.

Adapting work from Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2001),
Walker, Hoover-Dempsey, Whetsel, and Green (2004)
described two categories of activities in which schools can
invite parent involvement. The first category is focused on
activities most families can enact that contribute to student
motivation and performance, for example, making sure that
parents understand homework policies and expectations
through accessible written materials, and assisting parents
in establishing physical and psychological structures to sup-
port homework completion. Suggestions may be general
(e.g., convey value and expectations of homework comple-
tion) to specific (e.g., “if the child is easily distracted, make
sure the phone, music, and TV are turned off”) depending
on the child’s developmental needs. Last, schools can
encourage all parents to monitor homework and support
parents in providing specific positive feedback on home-
work performance.

Self-determination. Several studies highlight the importance
of parents and relationships in self-determination. For
example, Lindstrom, Doren, Metheny, Johnson, and Zane
(2007) found that students with highly involved families
who acted as advocates and provided opportunities for
exploration, decision making, and self-determination skill
development had better post-school independent living and
employment outcomes. Some parents report that passing
off more responsibility to their child, nurturing self-
determination, and self-advocacy happened later, after
high school (Bianco et al., 2009), indicating that this is an
evolving process. There are many opportunities for parents
to support their child in developing self-determination
skills in high school and beyond, including advocating for
services on their own or providing feedback to personal
care providers.

Several strategies for involving parents in supporting
student self-determination can be adapted from strategies
for practitioners outlined by Rowe et al. (2014). Teachers
can work with parents first to establish the importance of
students developing self-determination skills, making the
direct connection to how these skills will support the stu-
dent in achieving their post-school goals. Then, schools can
employ parents to assist in developing these skills at home
through a range of options requiring little time to more
intensive efforts. For example, “expect and support students

50 Journal of Disability Policy Studies 27(1)

to make many routine choices for themselves throughout
the course of a school day” (p. 9). Teachers can help parents
examine routines at home and identify opportunities to pro-
vide choice (e.g., the order in which to complete chores,
selecting dinners for the week, etc.).

Daily living. Daily living skills are activities one is expected
to do throughout the course of the day across settings like
home, school, work, and community. These include activi-
ties such as those involving how to maintain a home, per-
sonal hygiene routine, and navigating the community. The
extent to which a student with a disability is able to manage
daily living activities may affect post-school options. In
fact, those students who had high self-care skills were more
likely to be engaged in post-school education, employment,
and independent living (e.g., Blackorby et al., 1993). Rowe
et al. (2014) identified ways schools can support the devel-
opment of daily living skills including providing instruction
based on assessment. These same strategies can be used to
support the development of the skills at home. Parents may
be open to ideas or suggestions for assisting their child in
developing critical life skills (e.g., grocery shopping, house-
hold chores such as laundry, cleaning, or cooking).

Social skills. Caldarella and Merrell (1997) outlined five
dimensions of social skills, a predictor of post-school suc-
cess (Test et al., 2009), which included peer relation skills, self-
management skills, academic skills, compliance skills, and
self-management skills. Students with high social skills on
exit from high school were more likely to be engaged in
post-school employment (Benz, Yovanoff, & Doren, 1997)
or post-secondary education, and to have an improved qual-
ity of life as measured by independent living status (Roess-
ler, Brolin, & Johnson, 1990).

In addition to teachers, parents are also important mod-
els of social skills (Johns, Crowley, & Guetzloe, 2005).
Utilizing families as instructors to assist students in devel-
oping skills in these other areas is also important because
families have unique opportunities to provide instruction
and skill development that are unlike those at school. Rowe
et al. (2014) suggested schools provide parents “informa-
tion and training in supporting age-appropriate social skill
development, taking into consideration the family’s cultural
standards” (p. 10). Teachers can also assist parents in using
routine activities at home as teachable moments (e.g., pro-
viding support to students to use problem-solving skills
when difficult social situations arise).

Advocates. The roles of parents of youth with disabilities as
system change agents and advocates are not new. Histori-
cally, special education law includes efforts of both parents
and advocacy groups in American courtrooms and legisla-
tures working to ensure equal educational opportunities for
students (Yell, Rogers, & Rogers, 1998). However, it is

clear that not all parents are able to fulfill these roles in rela-
tion to secondary school and transition planning. Multiple
barriers exist to parent involvement, including lack of perti-
nent information (Landmark, Zhang, & Montoya, 2007)
and negative professional perceptions both of CLD parents
(Geenan, Powers, Lopez-Vasquez, & Bersani, 2003) and
parents who advocate for their children as being perceived
as difficult (Kim & Morningstar, 2005).

Despite these barriers, advocacy skills are critical for
parents while students are in school and remain important
once students leave the school system. When Timmons et
al. (2004) asked parents to identify the most helpful and
effective strategies they utilized in managing adult systems,
parents noted advocacy skills as being important in over-
coming barriers and accessing services for their child.
Bianco et al. (2009) found similar sentiments with parents
of young adults with disabilities who reported that estab-
lishing collaborative partnerships with adult service agen-
cies and direct service providers was critical in filling
service gaps to ensure the young adult’s needs were met.
Parents also noted the usefulness of connecting with other
parents of children with disabilities and sharing experi-
ences, advice, and support (Timmons et al., 2004). These
informal networks of support were noted as relieving some
pressures associated with ongoing self-advocacy.

Research has demonstrated the benefits to students when
parents are involved in their education. Knowing the impor-
tance of advocacy in fulfilling this role both while the stu-
dents are in high school and once they leave, schools have a
responsibility to provide parents opportunities for knowl-
edge and skill development. There is a range of ways
schools can connect families with each other and provide
parents support in developing these skills. These can include
informal events and more structured peer mentoring, such
as a monthly parent–teacher led support group, a reading
club to explore relevant topics in special education and tran-
sition, parent nights, and parent matching (Ripley, 2009).
Although not all parents may want to act as peer mentors for
other families, parents have noted the need for support from
peer mentors and models for assistance navigating their
roles (Bianco et al., 2009).

Implications for Research

This article presents a conceptual model for parent involve-
ment in secondary school and transition planning. Building
on existing models of parent involvement, this model
expands the role of parents and includes a focus not only on
the roles they play in high school but also on the continued
role they often play once their child leaves high school.
Several areas for future research emerge from this.
Acknowledging the expanded roles parents play beyond
attending IEP meetings, school activities, and assisting
with homework is an important first step in being able to

Hirano and Rowe 51

collaborate with parents to more effectively support stu-
dents in achieving successful post-school outcomes.
However, research is needed to support which types of par-
ent involvement are most effective for promoting in-school
and post-school outcomes. This will require examination of
which involvement activities work best for particular
groups of students and their parents.

In addition to research exploring which kinds of parent
involvement are most effective, research is also needed to
understand how to best engage parents in these roles. For
example, though there are a few intervention studies
designed to increase parent knowledge of the transition
planning process (Boone, 1992; Rowe & Test, 2010), there
is limited research on strategies to increase parent involve-
ment, role construction, or parent self-efficacy in transition
planning. Last, it is clear that parents continue to play a
critical role in the lives of their children after they leave
high school. Exploring ways schools, communities, and
agencies can support parents in preparing for the role
change while their children are still in high school may also
support youth in achieving and maintaining improved post-
school outcomes.

Implications for Practice

This article focused on the importance of parent involve-
ment in secondary education and transition planning and
offers several implications for practice. First, it is critical
for school leadership to set the school climate in regard to
parental involvement through values, attitudes, and action.
While being cognizant of the challenges that accompany
parent involvement, having leadership that understands the
importance of parent involvement not only in students’ in-
school success but also post-school success is crucial. These
values can influence school policy around increasing parent
involvement. School leadership can spearhead programs or
support teacher initiatives to promote involvement.
Ultimately, it is important that they create a school culture
that values parents and also allocates resources to put values
into action. It is also important for teachers to have opportu-
nities for professional development regarding providing
ongoing systems of support for engaging parents. The role
of teachers in engaging parents cannot be underestimated:
Parents respond with involvement to teachers who invite
them to be involved.

It is also important for practitioners to engage parents
and families in roles beyond supporting homework and
attending meetings. Parents enact many roles in the lives of
their child and partnering with them in these roles is one
way to increase parent involvement and a way to support
students with disabilities in achieving their in-school and
post-school goals. It is the responsibility of schools to pro-
vide services, support, and training so that parents can
effectively fulfill the roles of evaluators, collaborators,

instructors, and advocates. The model for parent involve-
ment in secondary education and transition planning is
grounded in the belief that for any parent involvement
efforts to work, educators must recognize the value of par-
ent involvement and actively work to incorporate parent
contributions into education and transition planning. This
requires a fundamental shift in the field where the field
acknowledges the interdependent nature of student lives
and recognizes family involvement as an integral part of
transition planning.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Feature Article

Jay is a 15-year-old African American male who has been
attending the same urban sixth to twelfth grade school since
the sixth grade. Jay is an only child who lives with his mom,
Carmen, in a single parent household. Jay was referred for
special education identification assessment in middle
school. His individualized education program (IEP) indi-
cates a generalized learning disorder. In middle school,
Jay’s special education support services included part-time
push in support by the special education teacher(s) in some
of his general education classes. His special education
teacher in eighth grade recommended additional support
for Jay for high school, and his services were switched to
Integrated Co-Teaching in ninth grade where Jay’s special
education teacher provided support in all of Jay’s academic
content classes. Upon his entrance into 9th grade, his
teachers noted a change in that Jay was focused on improv-
ing the quality of his writing and academic work, was
respectful in class, and was considered a leader by his
peers. At the time of his initial transition focused IEP meet-
ing, Jay was enrolled in the 10th grade. At this time, Jay’s
special education teacher wanted Jay to take an active role
in his IEP development and transition planning. Jay’s
teacher provided supports for Jay’s involvement in pre-IEP
meeting planning, leadership during the IEP meeting, and

post-IEP meeting contact. This process of teacher support
and facilitation of student involvement is aligned with the
intent of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA, 1997, 2004) provisions (see Note 1).

The IDEA reauthorizations in 1997 and 2004 placed stu-
dents at the center of educational planning. Specifically,
IDEA included the provision that the IEP and transition
plan should be based on the individual child’s needs,
strengths, preferences, and interests. Beginning not later
than the first IEP to be in effect when the child is 16, the
transition IEP must include measurable postsecondary goals
based on age-appropriate transition assessments related to
education, employment and, independent living skills
(IDEA 614(d)(1)(A)(i)(VIII)). With respect to student
involvement in decisions regarding transition services,
IDEA provides that a student with a disability should attend

659469 ISCXXX10.1177/1053451216659469Intervention in School and ClinicCavendish et al.
research-article2016

1University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA
2Hunter College, New York, NY, USA
3School of the Future, New York City Public Schools, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:
Wendy Cavendish, University of Miami, 5202 University Dr., Miami, FL
33146, USA.
Email: wcavendish@miami.edu

Engaging Students and Parents in Transition-Focused
Individualized Education Programs

Wendy Cavendish, PhD1, David J. Connor, EdD2, and Eva Rediker, MsEd3

Abstract
The reauthorizations of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act emphasize that students and parents are to be
considered equal partners in the individualized education program (IEP) process. This article addresses how to move
from compliance with the law to facilitating meaningful involvement of high school students and their parents in IEP and
transition planning. This article offers recommendations of an effective way to facilitate student-led IEP meetings. These
three phases of IEP can support teachers’ roles in facilitating student and parent involvement in student-led IEP meetings.
This article provides a model of how best practices in pre-IEP, IEP, and post-IEP meeting protocols can be implemented
and outlines practices for developing reciprocal relationships with students and parents to facilitate meaningful involvement
in educational planning.

Keywords
transition, involvement, parent(s), IEP process, self-determination

mailto:wcavendish@miami.edu

https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/journals-permissions

https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451216659469

http://isc.sagepub.com

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F1053451216659469&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2016-08-02

Cavendish et al. 229

his or her IEP meeting if the meeting will consider the
needed transition services for the student. Thus, students
with disabilities have been expected to have greater oppor-
tunities to make choices about their preferred transition out-
comes and be more directly involved in all phases of the
education decision-making process. In fact, each student is
to be part of the team that establishes goals and determines
what educational and related services will be provided to
assist in reaching the student’s specific goals.

Student Involvement in IEP
Development and Transition Planning

While many teachers, administrators, researchers, and pol-
icy makers agree on the importance of student and parent
involvement in IEP and transition planning, there have been
many reports on the lack of meaningful involvement in the
IEP process. For example, Martin, Marshall, and Sale
(2004) surveyed 1,638 IEP meeting participants and found
that students reported low levels of meaningful involve-
ment in the process. Researchers have also advocated for
providing students instruction in IEP participation.
Specifically, instruction should be collaborative and include
person-centered planning processes to ensure that students
are front and center in the IEP development process (Hagner
et al., 2012; Meadan, Shelden, Appel, & DeGrazia, 2010;
Myers & Eisenman, 2005; Thoma, Rogan, & Baker, 2001).
Furthermore, Martin et al. (2004) suggested that “asking
students to attend their IEP meetings without prior IEP
meeting instruction may actually cause educational harm”
(p. 287).

Student Involvement and Self-Determination

The relationship between opportunities for student involve-
ment in educational planning and self-determination and
self-advocacy is well established (Cavendish & Rodriguez,
2013; Wehmeyer, Field, Doren, Jones, & Mason, 2004).
Self-determination has been defined as a combination of
skills, knowledge, and beliefs that enable a person to engage
in goal-directed, self-regulated, autonomous behavior
(Wehmeyer, 2005). Scholars of self-determination theory
posit that self-determination is enhanced through environ-
mental factors (Deci & Ryan, 1985) such as involving stu-
dents in decision and choice making as part of the well as
educational process (Almqvist & Granlund, 2005).

The importance of school efforts to provide opportuni-
ties for student involvement has been echoed in research
findings recognizing that student choice is related to posi-
tive outcomes (Field & Hoffman, 2002). Research has
shown that dropping out of school is more likely to occur in
school settings that do not facilitate student participation in
educational planning (Alexander, Entwistle, & Kabbani,
2001; Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2011). Other researchers have

noted that self-determination and decision-making skills
cannot be properly developed without the opportunities to
utilize them in context (Test et al., 2004). Stang, Carter,
Lane, and Pierson (2009) noted the need for “frequent prac-
tice opportunities” (p. 95) in schools for youth with disabili-
ties to develop the skills that lead to enhanced
self-determination Identified factors that contribute to stu-
dents’ achievement and positive postschool outcomes
include the extent of students’ involvement in decisions
concerning course selection, diploma options, postschool
education, and employment (Shogren et al., 2007). In sum,
research on successful transition planning emphasizes the
imperative for students to be taught to be, and supported as,
active agents in determining their own needs. As such, they
are better prepared to authentically contribute within IEP
meetings.

Parent Involvement

The recent reauthorizations of IDEA also make it clear that
parents are to be considered equal partners in the IEP pro-
cess (Landmark & Zhang, 2013). However, parents have
historically reported barriers to participation in IEP meet-
ings that include a perceived lack of opportunity to provide
input, communication challenges with the school, and dis-
agreement with deficit-based perspectives of their children
by the school (Tucker & Schwartz, 2013; Zeitlin & Curcic,
2013). There have been strong critiques of IEP meetings by
parents who have often found them to be inauthentic,
blameful of mothers in particular, and ultimately alienating
(Valle, 2009). In some cases, parents have reported not rec-
ognizing their own children as represented by descriptions
offered by members of the IEP team, and parents have
expressed feeling coerced into signing legal IEP documents
(Valle & Aponte, 2002). In addition, dynamics within IEP
meetings can be further complicated by an imbalance of
power relations in terms of race, ethnicity, social class, and
gender (Harry & Klingner, 2006), potentially causing cul-
tural dissonance among parties ostensibly united for the
sake of the student. Despite these challenges, the transition-
based IEP creates a unique opportunity to mitigate some of
these barriers and build students’ self-determination skills.
In particular, it is a venue in which efforts among special
education teachers, general education teacher(s), students,
and parents can cohere to promote students’ engagement in
planning for their future.

This article offers a guide for teachers to facilitate student
and parent involvement in IEP and a process to facilitate
meaningful student-led IEP meetings. Examples presented
are based on data drawn from meeting observations, meeting
documents, and interviews from a larger mixed methods
study that examined the relationship between student and
parent involvement in educational planning, self-determina-
tion, and graduation trajectories for high school students

230 Intervention in School and Clinic 52(4)

with learning disabilities. Recommendations for how teach-
ers can facilitate meaningful involvement of high school stu-
dents and their parents in IEP and transition planning based
on the recommended practices are outlined. A teacher’s
guide for facilitating student and parent involvement in the
three phases of IEP development is provided with critical
steps for developing a meaningful IEP through a reciprocal
and collaborative process.

A Teacher’s Guide

The guide was created for teachers to facilitate student and
parent involvement in each of the three phases of IEP devel-
opment: before (pre), during, and after (post) planning. The
recommendations provided are aligned with the Taxonomy
for Transition Planning (Kohler, 1996) that identified five
categories of effective practices: (a) student-focused plan-
ning, (b) student development, (c) interagency collabora-
tion, (d) family involvement, and (e) program structure. In
2007, the National Secondary Transition Assistance Center
cross-referenced the corresponding National Alliance for
Secondary Education and Transition standards and quality
indicators with the categories in Kohler’s taxonomy, sup-
porting the evidence-based approach in Kohler’s taxonomy.
The discussion below focuses on the categories for recom-
mended practice to facilitate student and family involvement

in Kohler’s taxonomy as it was intended as a guide/frame-
work for school personnel (see http://www.nasetalliance.
org/about/standards.htm for the complete list of standards).
The two categories in Kohler’s taxonomy for transition pro-
gramming that are aligned with the recommended student
and family involvement practices presented are outlined in
Table 1.

For each stage of the IEP process, step-by-step recom-
mendations for teacher practice are noted.

Before: Developing Student and Family
Relationships

Get to know students and their families. Establishing a rela-
tionship with families prior to the first IEP meeting can
facilitate greater student and family engagement during the
meeting. For example, Staples and Diliberto (2010) reported
that “building parent rapport at the beginning of the school
year sets the stage for open communication and continued
involvement” (p. 60). Diliberto and Brewer (2012) recom-
mended that teachers initiate regular communication with
parents via telephone, text, or email and provide parents
with regular progress reports and examples of student work
to foster open communication that is necessary for success-
ful IEP development. Compliance with IEP related legal
requirements such as reviewing student academic artifacts

Table 1. Taxonomy for Transition Programming: Adapted Student-Focused Planning and Family Involvement Categories.

Taxonomy Category: Student-Focused Planning Taxonomy Category: Family Involvement

Subcategory: IEP development
• Postsecondary education, employment, and community goals specified in IEP
• Educational program corresponds to goals
• Goals are measurable
• Personal needs are addressed in planning
• Specific goals and objectives result from choices
• Goal progress is reviewed annually
• Responsibility of participants is specified
• Evaluation of fulfillment of participant responsibilities

Subcategory: Family involvement
• Involvement in student assessment
• Participation in evaluation of student’s program
• Families exercise decision making
• Family attendance at IEP meetings
• Family role in natural support network

Subcategory: Student participation
• Planning team includes student, family, and school
• Assessment information is used for planning
• Meeting time is adequate to conduct planning
• Preparation time is adequate to conduct planning
• Meeting time and place conducive to parent and student participation

Subcategory: Family empowerment
• Pre-IEP planning activities for families
• Families presented with choices
• Structured methods to identify family needs
• Information provided to families in appropriate language

Subcategory: Planning strategies
• Self-determination facilitated in planning process
• Planning decisions driven by student and family
• Planning process is student-centered
• Student involvement in decision making
• Documentation of student interests and preferences
• IEP involvement training for students
• Student self evaluation of process

Subcategory: Family training
• Training on promoting student self-determination
• Training on advocacy
• Training on transition-related planning process
• Training about agencies and services
• Training on legal issues

Note. The table includes selected recommended practices that apply to all families participating in the individualized education program (IEP) and
individualized transition plan (ITP) process. Adapted from Kohler (1996) and used by permission.

http://www.nasetalliance.org/about/standards.htm

http://www.nasetalliance.org/about/standards.htm

Cavendish et al. 231

and sharing student performance with parents provides an
opportunity for teachers to get to know students and their
families on a personal basis. This can be accomplished
through regular phone or email contact with parents.

Use technology. Research has demonstrated the potential of stu-
dent portfolios for facilitating student and parent involvement
in student-led meetings (Juniewicz, 2003). Specifically, survey
data from parents, teachers, and students who utilized portfo-
lios for student-led meetings in middle school revealed that the
use of portfolios was “effective in promoting real world skills
of responsibility, reflection, self-assessment, and goal setting”
and contributed to a “common meaningful purpose” in educa-
tional decision making (Juniewicz, 2003, pp. 75–76). Recom-
mendations for portfolio components include (a) the former
IEP, (b) standardized and classroom based assessments, and (c)
academic artifacts such as recent writing samples and student
projects. Over the course of the year, the special education
teacher can compile a representation of what the student has
accomplished throughout the year. The role of the special edu-
cation teacher working in inclusive settings is to collaborate
with the general education teachers to create a comprehensive
overview of the student’s progress. As all teachers gather the
materials, they will be able to see how the student has pro-
gressed. Google documents can facilitate the collection of
timely, useful information from teachers and enhance collabo-
ration. The components of the Google document for this pur-
pose include (a) student academic strengths and needs, (b)
social development, (c) goals for each content area, and (d)
recommendations for changes in services. An example of the
Google document is provided in Figure 1. Be sure to consider
privacy issues when using any digital data source that will con-
tain student information that may be subject to regulations of
the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Student progress can then also be shared with the family
during regular phone or email contacts and in the pre-IEP
meeting with the student. The promise of technology to
transform the IEP process from one that is designed to meet
legal requirements to a “working, functional, and timely
tool that can be accessed by all interested parties” has been
recently noted (Englund, 2009, p. 50).

Conduct a student–teacher pre-IEP meeting. The most recent
IDEA reauthorizations related to transition planning empha-
size the critical need for students to actively participate in IEP
meetings as equal partners in the IEP planning process (Mar-
tin et al., 2004). Instruction and support provided to students
to facilitate their understanding of their IEP and increase their
participation in their IEP meetings have been shown to
increase their knowledge of self and improve communication
skills and self advocacy (Zhang, 2001). Furthermore, research-
ers have demonstrated the relationship between increased par-
ticipation in student-led IEPs and self-determination skills
(Wehmeyer et al., 2004). Thus, before the IEP meeting, it is

crucial to meet with the student and discuss his or her prog-
ress, ideas, and thoughts for the future IEP. Utilizing a set of
protocols, the teacher can work through the guided questions
provided (see Figure 2 for pre-IEP meeting template).

The protocol focuses on former goals for students to iden-
tify and see their own progress as they evaluate their present
levels of performance. In addition, the protocol contains a
strategic component of making revised/future goals more
complex and attainable, including those in the social/emo-
tional domain, and transitional goals for students to discuss
their plans for college or other options. An integral part of the
pre-IEP meeting is to have the student read segments of his or
her past IEP and discuss his or her progress on attaining the
IEP goals and to determine the needs to prioritize for the
revised IEP. The teacher and student then work together to
revise each section for the upcoming IEP meeting.

During the IEP Meeting

Provide opportunities for students to develop autonomy. One of
the main foci of an IEP meeting is allowing a student to
present his or her own growth and needs to their parents.
The pre-IEP meeting provides a forum for the teacher to
guide practice and discussion, and provides students with
opportunities to practice self-advocacy skills; thus, students
are prepared to participate meaningfully in their IEP meet-
ing. Specific steps for a student-led IEP meeting include (a)
allow the students to review the notes made on the pre-IEP
meeting protocols and (b) review their progress in goal
attainment using academic artifacts and their portfolio, and
(c) present their current goals to their parent(s) or guardian.
Students often need gentle prompting by the special educa-
tor to lead the meeting and adhere to the procedure.

Include parent input on the IEP and write the goals and objectives
collaboratively. The IEP meeting provides the “ideal opportu-
nity to facilitate quality collaboration between educators, par-
ents, [and students]” (Fish, 2008, p. 8). As the student presents,
the parent is able to reference his or her own copy of the cur-
rent IEP draft that the student created in the pre-IEP meeting.
After the student presents his or her past goals, utilizes his or
her own portfolio to show evidence of meeting these goals,
and expresses his or her goals for the future, the parent has a
chance to revise, edit, and provide feedback on the IEP draft.
The IEP meeting provides the venue for the student, teacher,
and parent to write the goals together. Once the student states
his or her goals, the teacher and parent can provide curricular
(e.g., course options, summer courses) and extracurricular
options that can help move the student toward the goal.

After the Meeting

Meet with the student. It is important to debrief with the stu-
dent after the IEP has been written. Generally speaking,

232 Intervention in School and Clinic 52(4)

students appreciate when their thoughts are discussed and
credited to them. This step will also allow the student to
reflect on their leadership of the meeting.

Provide follow-up to parents after the meeting. Before the IEP
is finalized, it is important to send a draft of the goals. After
parents have had an opportunity to reflect on the meeting,
teachers can follow up with a summary. A brief email, phone
call, or even postcard that (a) thanks them for participation,
(b) summarizes teachers’ next steps (e.g., “I look forward to
working with Jay on improving . . .”), and (c) opens the door
for questions (e.g., “If you have questions about goals, pro-
gramming, or other issues discussed, feel free to contact
me”) can establish a framework of sustained engagement.

Communicate with the student’s future teachers. Write a brief
anecdotal log (with practical instructional information) and
provide it to the student’s future teachers. Although there is a
section in the protocol where the student notes what he or she
would like future teachers to know, the combination of rec-
ommendations from past teachers as well as the student’s
thoughts makes for a thorough understanding of the student.

Discussion

The observations of all three phases of IEP planning and the
triangulation of perspectives of this process from teacher,
parent, and student support previous research (e.g., Stang
et al., 2009) and Kohler’s (1996) recommendations for

Describe Student’s Academic Strengths and Weaknesses: Please write one strength and one weakness for this student that pertains directly to your
classroom based on CONTENT (not behavior).

MATH: STRENGTH: Jay embodies great attention to precision in his work,
excellent note taking skills, and has strong basic pre-Algebra and Algebra I
skills which make understanding current topics easier for him. [Example]

ENGLISH: STRENGTH:

HISTORY: STRENGTH:

SCIENCE: STRENGTH:

MATH: WEAKNESS: Jay can decode what a word problem is asking;
however, sometimes it is difficult for him to derive the initial steps for
solving one without having prompts or steps provided for him. [Example]

ENGLISH: WEAKNESS:

HISTORY: WEAKNESS:

SCIENCE: WEAKNESS:

Estimated Reading Level: In class Jay read Common Core Aligned Texts.
Estimate of Current Math Level: On grade level (10th)

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT (BEHAVIOR) Are you satisfied with the students overall behavior? If this student has difficulty with attention and
focusing how severe is the problem? Please write any comments on the student’s social development (that pertains to behavior in your individual
classroom). For example: Eva has trouble focusing on the task at hand and needs to be redirected on a regular basis.

MATH: Jay works well with his peers, loves to participate in class, and contribute to class discussions. He is an overall pleasure to have in class.
[Example]

ENGLISH:

HISTORY:

SCIENCE:

GOALS: Please create a goal for this student pertaining to your class curriculum or writing ability.

MATH: Jay should be able to complete a math word problem without as many steps or scaffolds provided to him. He should be able to develop his own
steps for solving word problems. [Example]

ENGLISH:
HISTORY:
SCIENCE:

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEW SERVICES:
Do you recommend this student for SETSS [reduced support by special education teacher]? Why or why not?
I think Jay would benefit from a SETSS environment. He advocates for himself well and is aware of what his strengths and weaknesses are in a math
class. He would benefit from an added challenge and less scaffolds in a SETTS environment. [Example]

Figure 1. Template for General Education Teacher Input on Student Strengths and Needs.

Cavendish et al. 233

teachers in the Taxonomy for Transition Planning for facili-
tating student and parent involvement for meaningful par-
ticipation in student-led IEP meetings. Specifically, the
pre-IEP meetings with Jay were critical to his successful
participation in the IEP meeting. Previous research has
noted the importance of providing students instruction in
IEP participation (Meadan et al., 2010). The development
and use of guiding documents (see Figures 1 and 2) for Jay
to review his previous IEP goals, discuss the progress that
had been made, and develop his own goals for the next
school year linked to his transition and postschool plans
provided the much needed opportunity to utilize self-advo-
cacy and decision-making skills that are critical to the
development of self-determination (e.g., Shogren et al.,
2007). These pre-IEP meetings demonstrate a method to
provide the frequent practice opportunities called for by
Stang et al. (2009).

In addition, Jay’s teacher’s ongoing practice of calling
parents to share good things as well as bad things helped to
remove the communication challenges noted by Zeitlin and
Curcic (2013). Providing ongoing pre-IEP meeting contact
with parents helped to open the authentic reciprocal dia-
logue we witnessed during the IEP meeting. Opening the
IEP meeting with the stated purpose of combining ideas
along with the provision of the IEP goals to the parent for
input before they were finalized also helped to set an atmo-
sphere that facilitated important parent and student input
(Tucker & Schwartz, 2013). Thus, this exemplar provides a

model of how best practices in pre-IEP, IEP, and post-IEP
meeting protocols can be implemented.

Implications for Teacher Practice

In accountability-driven schools, the IEP process can be per-
ceived by school professionals, students, and parents as
another form of compliance (Brantlinger, 2004). Instead, the
process can be the connector among all three parties if it is
genuine and carefully orchestrated by the teacher. In many
ways, it can be argued that the IEP meeting can be used to
humanize the bureaucratic nature of school processes, as it
places the student in the center of the discussion to actively
plan his or her future. Previous research verified by this
study (Myers & Eisenman, 2005) includes the influence of
the teacher who plays a crucial role in envisioning, enacting,
supporting, and documenting the entire student-centered IEP
process. As teacher efforts in educational planning posi-
tively influence the growth of self-determination and self-
advocacy in students, it is imperative that the importance of
the meeting is clear, becoming an event for which the stu-
dent must prepare and practice. The teacher must be focused
but flexible throughout this process, switching “hats” as
needed to be host, prompter, communicator, clarifier, and
listener. Ultimately, it is the teacher who sets expectations
and facilitates the process, balancing input from all three
parties. For the meeting to be authentic, a plan should be co-
constructed with the student, yet everything agreed on is

Present Level of Performance IEP Goals

1. Read the Present Levels of Performance with the Student 1. Read the IEP goal with the student.

2. Ask the student what are
three things you like about this
section?

3. Ask the student: what are
three things you would change
about this section?

2. Have the student, in their own
words, reflect on the importance of
this goal. Questions to consider: Do
you think this goal is a priority?

3. Ask the student the following: Was
this goal too easy? Too difficult? Do
you feel that you have met this goal?

4. Reflect with the student. What positive progress you have you
made this semester (that you want included for your next teacher
to know)?

4. Reflect with the student, providing
feedback as needed. What evidence
do you have to support that you have
met/ not met this goal?

5. Combination work. How can we
modify this goal for next year as
needed? (Specific, measurable,
assigned, realistic, time).

Transition Goals

5. Reflect with the student. What are some things about your
behavior and how you learn best that you want future teachers to
know? *Remind them, how are teachers to know what works for
them and doesn’t if we do not tell them? Try to steer the students
away from complaining about any teacher in specific. Have them
create solution oriented notes.

1. What are your potential plans for
after high school? College, vocational
school, employment?

2. What skills do you need to achieve
your goals?

6. Reflect on the notes we have taken, is there anything you want
to add to reflect you as a learner?

3. What is your first step in reaching
that goal? Researching schools
(grades needed, SAT prep etc),
looking at employment in areas you
are interested in, etc.

4. Let’s craft that goal together: In
one year, what will have you
accomplished to get closer to meeting
your post high school goal?

Figure 2. Pre-IEP Meeting Guiding Notes.

234 Intervention in School and Clinic 52(4)

recognized as tentative until the parent has been engaged
with and had the opportunity to ask questions. This is the
opposite of a fait accompli, when IEP teams have made deci-
sions before the parent arrives (Valle & Aponte, 2002). In
sum, both students and parents speak for themselves, being
welcomed and integrated into school procedures rather than
being subjected to them. In addition, using a strengths-based
approach as a foundation for the IEP process helps build
relationships on success in school and the recognition of stu-
dent abilities. In turn, this makes students and parents more
receptive to take ownership and coplan.

Finally, in viewing the IEP meeting as an opportunity for
engagement with students and families, it is recognized that
this must be a welcome priority of the special education
teacher. It requires a disposition that seeks going beyond
simple compliance; it requires a willingness to “make it real.”
At each step of the way (i.e., before, during, and after), the
teacher must manage many elements of the process to make
it successful, including calibrating calendars with student and
parent, using technology to obtain for input from all teachers,
allocating time, determining space, and ensuring there are no
interruptions (e.g., Kohler, 1996). That effort can facilitate a
genuinely engaging IEP meeting—with balanced input from
a student, parent, and teacher—that allows for the develop-
ment of a meaningful IEP, strengthened relationships with
the family and support of the school’s efforts by the parent,
and the critical opportunity to facilitate the development of
self-determination and self-advocacy skills of the student.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Note

1. The vignette reflects an authentic situation with names
changed to pseudonyms.

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Exceptional Children
2015, Vol. 82(1) 25 –43
© 2015 The Author(s)
DOI: 10.1177/0014402915598782
ec.sagepub.com

Special Features Article

As part of Exceptional Children’s series of
Special Feature articles, we were asked to con-
sider the future of personnel preparation and
special education. This is a tall order given that
personnel preparation encompasses a wide
breadth and depth of topics. Thus, we focused
our work around one overarching question we
believe is essential to consider as we look to the
future of special education personnel prepara-
tion: What frameworks might teacher educa-
tors draw from to promote special education
teacher effective performance? In answering
this question, we first summarize current trends
in the context of schooling and special educa-
tion (i.e., the Common Core State Standards
[CCSS], multitiered systems of support
[MTSS]) and what these contexts demand of
special education teachers (SETs). As part of
this discussion we present a case for why the
time is right to shift attention to issues of qual-
ity in special education personnel preparation.
Next, we present a model for fostering effec-
tive SET performance grounded in literature on
the science of learning and present approaches

and strategies in teacher education that support
what we have learned from this literature. We
conclude with implications for how special
education personnel preparation might be refo-
cused, particularly given current constraints on
schools and colleges of education, to better
promote this model for fostering effective per-
formance.

What the Current Context
Demands of SETs

Today, more than any time in history, SETs
are expected to play a role in developing and
supporting rigorous content instruction for

598782ECXXXX10.1177/0014402915598782Exceptional ChildrenLeko et al.
research-article2015

1The University of Kansas
2The University of Florida
3Queens College, City University of New York

Corresponding Author:
Melinda M. Leko, Department of Special Education,
University of Kansas, 1122 West Campus Rd. Lawrence,
KS 66045.
E-mail: leko@ku.edu

Envisioning the Future of Special
Education Personnel Preparation
in a Standards-Based Era

Melinda M. Leko1, Mary T. Brownell2,
Paul T. Sindelar2, and Mary Theresa Kiely3

Abstract
The authors consider the future of special education personnel preparation by responding to
an overarching question: What frameworks might teacher educators use as a basis to promote
special education teacher effective performance now and in the future? In answering this question,
they summarize current trends in the context of schooling and special education (i.e., Common
Core State Standards [CCSS], multi-tiered systems of support [MTSS]) and what these contexts
demand of special education teachers. The authors propose a practice-based model for
fostering effective special education teacher performance. Grounded in the science of learning,
the model includes approaches in teacher education that align with this literature. Implications
for implementing the model are provided, which recognize current constraints on schools and
colleges of education, to better promote this model for fostering effective performance.

mailto:leko@ku.edu

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F0014402915598782&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2015-09-17

26 Exceptional Children 82(1)

students with disabilities that is technology-
rich. Pressure for students with disabilities
and their teachers to meet high standards is
evident in a national movement that all stu-
dents graduate “college and career ready” by,
among other things, successfully meeting a
rigorous core of content standards for various
subject areas (Haager & Vaughn, 2013a).
Many states have adopted the CCSS (National
Governors Association Center for Best Prac-
tices, Council of Chief State School Officers,
2010). The CCSS support clear outcomes
teachers are expected to teach to ensure stu-
dents, including those with disabilities, can
compete successfully in a global economy
(Common Core State Standards Initiative,
n.d.). The CCSS provide little guidance to
ensure students with disabilities are success-
ful in meeting the demands of a more chal-
lenging curriculum, leaving general education
teachers and SETs with the task of determin-
ing how to provide students with disabilities
appropriate instruction that achieves these
high goals (Haager & Vaughn, 2013a), includ-
ing instruction in areas in which teachers may
need considerable professional development
(PD), such as writing (Graham & Harris,
2013).

At the same time states are adopting more
rigorous content standards, they are simulta-
neously implementing MTSS for preventing
academic and behavioral difficulties through
high quality, research-based core instruction
provided to all students and increasingly
intensive, personalized tiers of intervention
that incorporate evidence-based interventions
when students are unable to respond success-
fully (Chard & Linan-Thompson, 2008).
Although models of MTSS vary, most make
use of a minimum of three tiers of instruction
and support, with general education teachers
holding the majority of responsibility for core
instruction at Tier 1 and SETs delivering
intensive, personalized instruction at Tier 3
(Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2012).

To succeed in school contexts driven by
MTSS and the CCSS, SETs need to have
extensive knowledge of how to support stu-
dents with disabilities in achieving rigorous
content standards. Although it could be argued

this requisite knowledge has characterized the
work of special educators for quite some time,
today’s context ups the ante, requiring SETs
to be extremely proficient in the content,
interventions, assessments, and technology to
support students’ learning needs (Lignugaris-
Kraft, Sindelar, McCray, & Kimerling, 2014).
Rhetoric from Our Responsibility, Our Prom-
ise (Council of Chief State School Officers,
2012) underscores the greater demands placed
on teachers: “higher expectations for students
have led to higher expectations for teaching
and leading” (p. 27).

Special education teachers will need well-
developed collaboration skills to communi-
cate and work with various service providers
in the ways required to design cohesive and
precise instruction. This collaboration will
need a much tighter focus compared to past
models wherein SETs provided consultative
services to general educators or recommended
accommodations that would allow students
with disabilities to access the general educa-
tion curriculum (Brownell, Sindelar, Kiely, &
Danielson, 2010). In current contexts, collab-
oration will center on (a) collecting and inter-
preting initial and ongoing assessment data,
(b) planning precise classroom and interven-
tion instruction that is carefully coordinated
and targets the key CCSS content and skills
students with disabilities need to master
(c) measuring students’ response to classroom
or intervention instruction, and (d) making
changes to instructional plans based on the
assessment data. All of this will have to be
coordinated across multiple tiers, further
necessitating SETs be skilled collaborators
and data-literate (Council of Chief State
School Officers, 2012).

SETs will also need more extensive cur-
ricular knowledge, particularly (a) the general
education curriculum and the literacy and
numeracy demands the curriculum places on
students and (b) literacy and mathematics
strategies for intervening in student learning
(Graham & Harris, 2013; Haager & Vaughn,
2013b; Powell, Fuchs, & Fuchs, 2013).
Closely tied to this curricular knowledge is the
need for more extensive knowledge of technolo-
gies that can make curriculum accessible to

Leko et al. 27

students with disabilities and support their
learning, as well as knowledge of how learn-
ing plays out in increasingly technology-rich
modern learning environments (Smith &
Kennedy, 2014). The bottom line is SETs will
have to be more knowledgeable, skilled, and
responsive given the more challenging cur-
riculum demands placed on students and the
high stakes accountability systems in place to
assess students’ achievement.

Quality Special Education Personnel
Preparation

The current schooling contexts we have
described, as well as more than 2 decades of
criticism being waged against teacher prepara-
tion housed in higher education (e.g., Hess,
2001; Walsh, 2001), has placed increased pres-
sure on colleges of education to demonstrate
they are capable of producing teachers who are
able to provide more rigorous, effective content
instruction. Political pundits assert traditional
teacher preparation has been ineffective in pre-
paring preservice teachers to be able to secure
adequate student achievement gains. Such
vocal opposition to formal teacher preparation
has spurred a heated debate between deregula-
tionists and formalists regarding how to reform
teacher preparation (McLeskey & Ross, 2004).
As we look to the future of special education
personnel preparation, we envision this debate
lasting for quite some time and without a pre-
dictable outcome. As formalists who champion
the stance that improved SET quality will result
from improved personnel preparation, we
believe it is critical that the field makes strides
in garnering public support for this position.
Two ways to do this are (a) to redesign person-
nel programs so they are better aligned with
what is known from research on the science of
learning and (b) bolster the research base
undergirding SETs’ work.

To develop the knowledge and skills nec-
essary to meet the heightened rigor and
accountability of current schooling contexts,
both preparation and policy reform will be
required. Historic supply and demand issues
in special education have resulted in broad
certification and licensure patterns and

multiple pathways into the classroom
(Brownell et al., 2010; Geiger et al., 2014).
In most states, SETs are licensed to teach in
PK–12 settings and respond to a variety of
student needs (Geiger et al., 2014). These
broad licensing patterns have resulted in
preparation programs that are designed to
prepare SETs to provide instruction to stu-
dents across multiple content areas and
grade levels, co-teach with general educa-
tion teachers, and collaborate with parents.
In addition, shortages have encouraged a
variety of approaches to preparation, includ-
ing brief coursework preservice teachers
complete after they secure a bachelor’s
degree, 2 to 4 years of preparation in more
traditional undergraduate programs, and res-
idency programs in which special educators
take positions in public schools while they
are completing teacher preparation course-
work (Boe, 2014; Rosenberg, Boyer,
Sindelar, & Misra, 2007). Such heterogene-
ity across programs and lack of focus within
programs are not likely to provide beginning
SETs with the practice-based opportunities
they need to learn to teach more effectively.
The time to address this challenge is now.

For the first time in the field’s history,
pressure to keep pace with unabated SET
demand has decreased. The number of SETs
employed in U.S. public schools recently
has declined (Boe, 2014). Between 2005 and
2009, the number of SETs employed in U.S.
public schools fell to 389,904 (IDEA Data
Center, n.d.), a drop of 8.8%. SET demand
decreased in 30 states, and in 12 states, the
decline exceeded 10%. The decrease in total
demand for SETs was associated with a con-
current 3.9% decline in the number of stu-
dents with disabilities, most of whom have
learning disabilities. For once, it may be
possible to focus attention on issues of qual-
ity over quantity in special education per-
sonnel preparation. Yet what would a teacher
education program that focused more atten-
tion on issues of quality look like? What
research on effective learning and teacher
education might support the design of pro-
grams that help special educators acquire the
knowledge and skills to work within MTSS

28 Exceptional Children 82(1)

and help students with disabilities achieve
CCSS goals?

A Practice-Based Framework for
Fostering Effective Teaching

If MTSS is to be implemented as a mecha-
nism for helping students with disabilities
achieve CCSS, then special education person-
nel preparation must be able to produce teach-
ers who can work successfully in such a
context. It will be difficult to do this if three
fundamental aspects of teacher preparation
remain the same. First, teacher preparation
programs cannot continue to prepare SETs
broadly and hope they will develop the depth
of knowledge and skill fluency needed to
teach rigorous content within an MTSS frame-
work. Second, to develop competence, teacher
education programs must incorporate ways of
preparing SETs that help them to practice
using these essential knowledge and skills;
practice opportunities should be grounded in
research and include collaboration practice
with general education teachers. Third, gen-
eral education teacher preparation will need to
change in rather substantial ways to ensure
preservice teachers have the skills and abili-
ties to work within an MTSS framework, an
important point that requires discussion
beyond the scope of this article.

In accordance with Grossman and McDonald
(2008), we propose special education teacher
preparation return to a competency-based
approach, popular in the 1970s and 1980s, with a
few new twists. Special education (and general
education) preparation should consider moving
away from teaching about practice to construct-
ing more opportunities for candidates to practice
teaching in structured, carefully sequenced, and
closely monitored practical experiences, ones in
which special education teacher candidates prac-
tice the knowledge and skills they will need to
collaborate around and implement tiered instruc-
tion. Although this idea may not seem novel, it is
not the status quo for teacher education (both in
general and special education) for a number of
reasons within and outside teacher educators’
control (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald,
2009; Grossman & McDonald, 2008).

For once, it may be possible to
focus our attention on issues of

quality over quantity in special education
personnel preparation. Yet what

would a teacher education program
that focused more attention on issues

of quality look like?

In a study of preparation experiences
across various helping professions, Grossman
et al. (2005) found teacher education provides
fewer opportunities for novices to practice
elements of teaching and receive immediate
feedback compared to other professions
(Grossman et al., 2005). According to Gross-
man and McDonald (2008),

while the field of teacher education has developed
a number of pedagogical approaches that enable
novices to study the complexity of teaching
practice in some detail . . . university-based
teacher educators leave the development of
pedagogical skill in the interactive aspects of
teaching almost entirely to field experiences, the
component of professional education over which
we have the least control. (p. 189)

Further, Grossman and McDonald argued it
will be important for programs to reconsider
how they can begin to structure such practice
without depending entirely on PK–12 cooper-
ating teachers who supervise preservice teach-
ers during field experiences.

Although there are examples of SET prepa-
ration programs that have made concerted
efforts to structure experiences with an eye
toward providing candidates with appropri-
ately sequenced, scaffolded, and structured
practice-based opportunities (e.g., Ross &
Lignugaris-Kraft, in press), it would be diffi-
cult to argue convincingly that this is common
practice. As such, we present a framework,
based on what is known about expertise and
what promotes its development, that could
guide the design of special education personnel
preparation to be more practice-based. Funda-
mental to a practice-based approach, however,
is clarity about what special education preser-
vice teachers will.

Leko et al. 29

Focus on High-Leverage Practice
and High-Leverage Content

In experts, conceptual knowledge and skills
along with situational knowledge (or under-
standing of when to apply particular knowl-
edge and skills) are well integrated, organized,
and easily accessible (Bransford, Brown, &
Cocking, 1999). Experts have “the knowledge
and skills readily available from memory that
are needed to make sense of future problems
and opportunities” (Brown, Roediger, &
McDaniel, 2014, p. 2), and such well-
integrated knowledge is acquired through
practicing in increasingly complex settings
over time. Limited research on highly effec-
tive teachers in general and special education
suggests these findings about experts can be
applied to teachers (see Brownell et al., 2014,
for a review).

Two years of preparation, however, is
insufficient to prepare SETs or any profes-
sional to be an expert (Ericsson, 2014).
Teacher preparation programs need some way
of focusing on the essential content and
instructional practice of effective special edu-
cation teaching. Researchers in general educa-
tion have argued there are foundational skills
of teaching that cut across subjects, contexts,
and grade levels (e.g., leading a discussion,
assessing student work, and planning instruc-
tion), as well as essential skills and knowl-
edge that are particular to specific subjects or
contexts (Ball & Forzani, 2009; Grossman &
McDonald, 2008). Such practices have been
referred to as high-leverage practices and
high-leverage content.

The concept of high-leverage practices is
likely familiar to special education teacher
educators, as a competency-based approach to
personnel preparation was common in the
1970s and 1980s (Brownell et al., 2010; Chris-
toplos & Valletutti, 1972). Thus, it is easy to
argue from research that explicit instruction,
engaging guided practice, corrective feedback,
and collecting and interpreting progress-moni-
toring data might be considered core compe-
tencies or high-leverage practices in special
education (Heward, 2003; Swanson & Sachse-
Lee, 2000).

Once high-leverage practices are identified
they can be modeled and practiced across dif-
ferent content areas using content-specific
strategies (e.g., using explicit instruction in
reading to teach a summarization strategy) so
teacher educators can demonstrate how the
practice changes depending on the structure
of the content being taught, which brings us to
an important point. The integration of what
SETs know about the content and how to use
high-leverage practices and content-specific
pedagogies to enact it is essential to develop-
ing well-integrated knowledge and practice.
Special education preservice teachers, how-
ever, often only have a year or two to develop
essential content knowledge. Thus, it will be
equally important for teacher educators to
decide on the critical content (e.g., whole
number operations, knowledge of fractions)
and content-specific strategies (e.g., schema
activation strategies) they want to target—the
high leverage content. This high leverage con-
tent could be the key knowledge beginning
SETs will need to deploy when providing
reading and math intervention instruction in
MTSS.

As preservice SETs learn how to teach,
they will also need to learn how to coordinate
their efforts with general education to provide
effective MTSS that help students with dis-
abilities achieve the CCSS. Although there is
less research supporting collaborative teach-
ing practice, key collaborative skills, such as
collective planning, active listening, and
negotiation, must be taught because there is a
legal foundation in special education for col-
laboration with professionals and parents
(Turnbull, Erwin, Soodak, & Shogren, 2011)
and because effective collaboration makes
enactment of coherent evidence-based tiered
instruction possible (Brownell et al., 2010).

We realize the idea of high-leverage prac-
tices in special education personnel prepara-
tion may feel like a “back to the future”
approach and something faculty are already
teaching to their SET candidates; however,
identification of high leverage content, and
the use of carefully crafted, sequenced
evidence-based opportunities to practice learn-
ing how to teach high-leverage practices and

30 Exceptional Children 82(1)

high leverage content rather than about them
is likely less common. Yet such an approach
will be one important way of readying a com-
petency-based approach to learning to teach
special education.

Using the Science on Learning to
Support a Practice-Based Approach

Ideally, movement toward a more practice-
based approach to SET preparation would be
grounded in research on effective teachers and
effective teacher education. However, there is
insufficient research in general and special
education preparation to constitute such a
foundation (Lignugaris-Kraft et al., 2014).
Thus, we draw on what is known about the
science of learning and how effective perfor-
mance develops and combine those research
findings with what is known about effective
teacher education pedagogy to support a prac-
tice-based approach to special education
teacher preparation.

Several decades of research in psychol-
ogy, sports, neuroscience, and medicine have
revealed some guiding principles and strate-
gies for improving learning that can be
applied to teacher education (and in some
cases have already been applied) and which
can go a long ways toward improving teach-
ers’ learning (Ericsson, 2014). Carefully
sequenced and calibrated practice, also
referred to as deliberate practice, that builds
on one’s current level of knowledge and skill
in conjunction with expert feedback on per-
formance seems to be foundational to the
development of effective performance over
time. Drawing on Ericsson (2014), we refer
to this as deliberate practice with perfor-
mance feedback. Deliberate practice with
feedback has been documented in other per-
formance-based professions, such as surgery,
as critical to developing expert performance.
It is common knowledge that if you require
delicate surgery, you should seek the surgeon
who has performed the procedure most often,
and there are important reasons for why this
is the case. Deliberate practice with feedback
in authentic settings allows surgeons to
develop routines they can implement fluently

and a schema for interpreting and evaluating
the surgical process as it unfolds.

For deliberate practice to be effective with
teachers, it must be carefully designed to
increase in complexity over time while decreas-
ing in level of support (Berliner, 2001). The pro-
cess of gradually increasing independence of
performance has been referred to as scaffolding
(Gibbons, 2002; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976).
Scaffolding allows skilled instructors or coaches
to prevent cognitive overload. Gradually
increasing the level of complexity of knowledge
and tasks over time while demanding increas-
ingly independent performance provides oppor-
tunities for teachers to achieve deep levels of
knowledge integration without being over-
whelmed by the complexity of real teaching
environments (Grossman et al., 2009).

Many of the principles and strategies we
introduce will be recognizable, as decades of
empirical support across disciplines support
them. Our argument, however, is not that
these principles are sound or new, but rather
they should be anchors for special education
teacher preparation in ways that are systemic
and far-reaching. Moreover, it is important to
recognize these principles and strategies help
teacher educators make decisions about how
to structure and sequence practice-based
approaches when they do not have a substan-
tive research base in teacher education to
draw on for making such decisions.

Interleaved and distributed practice. Inter-
leaved practice requires learners to discern
among different concepts within the same
practice session (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh,
Nathan, & Willingham, 2013; Taylor &
Rohrer, 2010). For example, when teach-
ing students how to solve mathematics word
problems, it is more beneficial to have them
practice several types of word problems at one
time (e.g., subtraction that results from com-
paring, part-part-whole, or change problems)
as opposed to practicing only one type of
problem at a time (e.g., just change problems).
Interleaved practice requires learners to
develop the conceptual knowledge to discern
differences between problems and then decide
what knowledge and skills are necessary to

Leko et al. 31

solve them accurately (Roediger, 2014). When
learners are able to better discern the underly-
ing structure of problems, they are more able
to easily recognize those problems when they
occur again and use their knowledge to solve
them (Brown et al., 2014).

Distributed practice (Willingham, 2014)
means spreading learning out over time. If
given 8 hours to study for a test, the principle
of distributed practice suggests learning will
last longer if study sessions are broken into
two 4-hour blocks of study instead of one
block of 8 hours. Distributed practice requires
learners to tap into their memories to retrieve
knowledge about different problems and such
opportunities to rehearse existing knowledge
leads to deeper, long-term learning (Rohrer,
2009; Willingham, 2014).

Situated in content and authentic contexts.
Research comparing experts to novices in
most professional domains, including teaching,
shows experts’ knowledge is highly contextu-
alized (Farrington-Darby & Wilson, 2006) and
dependent on experiences they have acquired
over time (Fadde, 2007). Experts’ conceptual
knowledge in a particular domain is well inte-
grated with their experiences. For instance,
medical doctors’ knowledge of symptoms
associated with disease is combined with their
experiences treating patients manifesting dif-
ferent combinations of those symptoms. Well-
integrated knowledge bases enable experts to
rapidly recall information and recognize pat-
terns or fundamental principles (Berliner, 2001;
Ropo, 2004) more quickly and efficiently and
thereby devote more mental effort to finding
solutions (Fadde, 2007). The more opportu-
nities learners have to learn and apply newly
acquired knowledge in authentic situations, the
better the learning outcome. This is why some
research in teacher education has demonstrated
the importance of providing preservice teach-
ers with practical teaching experiences that
enable them to learn how to use the knowledge
they are acquiring in their coursework, both
the subject knowledge and the effective peda-
gogies for enacting that knowledge (Darling-
Hammond, Hammerness, Grossman, Rust, &
Shulman, 2005).

Promote self-assessment of performance.
Performance feedback is essential to help-
ing learners recognize what effective prac-
tice looks like (Ericsson, 2014). Research has
shown external, expert feedback is not the
only kind of feedback that leads to success-
ful learning. Self-assessment or reflection on
one’s own learning is an equally important
factor. Reflecting on one’s performance in
terms of what did and did not work has been
shown to help learners transfer knowledge and
skills to new contexts (Scardamalia, Bereiter,
& Steinbach, 1984). The beneficial effects
of reflection are thought to occur because it
requires learners to retrieve knowledge and
prior experience from memory, connect these
ideas to new experiences, and then men-
tally rehearse what could be done differently
(Brown et al., 2014, p. 27). It should be noted
that the type of reflection that promotes suc-
cessful learning is focused, critical, and goal-
oriented (Boud, Keogh, & Walker, 2013), and
the ability to analyze performance accurately
is important for developing effective self-
reflection ( Zimmerman & Campillo, 2003).
Thus, to become self-reflective, learners will
need feedback on and practice analyzing per-
formance so they in turn can more effectively
evaluate the quality of their own performance.

Practices in Personnel Preparation
That Align With the Science on
Learning

Although there is no substantive research base
on teacher education, several reviews of
research have identified pedagogies that align
with the science on learning, and these peda-
gogies can be incorporated in a sequential way
into coursework and field experiences to pro-
mote special education preservice teachers’
competent practice (Dieker et al., 2014; Leko,
Brownell, Sindelar, & Murphy, 2012;
Kamman, McCray, Brownell, Wang, &
Ribuffo, 2014). For most pedagogies, evidence
supporting their effectiveness is at an emer-
gent level but can be considered promising
because they make use of several principles
known to promote successful learning and
effective performance. We concur with

32 Exceptional Children 82(1)

Lignugaris-Kraft et al. (2014) in acknowledg-
ing these pedagogies would benefit from addi-
tional, more rigorous investigation.

Several reviews of research
have identified pedagogies that align

with the science on learning, and these
pedagogies can be incorporated in a

sequential way into coursework and field
experiences to promote special education
preservice teachers’ competent practice.

Deliberate, scaffolded practice opportunities.
A thorough review of the special education
preservice education literature revealed sev-
eral studies that incorporated deliberate prac-
tice with feedback linked to practical teaching
experiences (Leko et al., 2012). Findings from
studies reviewed showed teachers made prog-
ress acquiring knowledge and skills when
there was deliberate practice with feedback
built on knowledge and skills preservice teach-
ers were acquiring in coursework (Alexander,
Lignugaris-Kraft, & Forbush, 2007; Al Otaiba,
Lake, Greulich, Folsom, & Guidry, 2012; Al
Otaiba, Schatschneider, & Silverman, 2005;
Maheady, Jabot, Rey, & Michielli-Pendl, 2007;
Spear-Swerling, 2009). In the studies that fol-
low, preservice teachers had opportunities to
develop greater domain expertise by integrat-
ing their knowledge in key content areas with
practice and these opportunities were structured,
calibrated, and sequenced. They also received
feedback from more experienced educators or
were taught to analyze their own or a peer’s
instruction (Benedict, 2014; Mallette, Maheady,
& Harper, 1999), thus aligning with several
principles from the science on learning.

Structured tutoring. One deliberate prac-
tice opportunity is coursework coupled with
structured tutoring experiences. Within
special education, several research teams
have investigated the effects of this learning
arrangement and found it can (a) increase stu-
dent performance in reading (Al Otaiba, 2005;
Al Otaiba et al., 2012; Maheady, Mallette, &
Harper, 1996; Saddler & Staulters, 2008),

(b) improve preservice teachers’ ability to col-
lect data (Maheady et al., 1996), (c) improve
preservice teachers’ instructional practices
(Al Otaiba, 2005; Saddler & Staulters, 2008;
Spear-Swerling, 2009; Spear-Swerling &
Brucker, 2004), and (d) increase preservice
teachers’ knowledge (Al Otaiba, 2005; Al
Otaiba et al., 2012; Spear-Swerling, 2009;
Spear-Swerling & Brucker, 2004). As an
example, Al Otaiba (2005) investigated the
effects of a tutoring experience on eight pre-
service teachers’ knowledge of phonics and
English word structure. As part of a service-
learning project linked to a university-based
course, preservice teachers tutored English
language learners who were struggling in
reading. Preservice teachers implemented
a code-based tutorial program for 15 ses-
sions across 10 weeks. Al Otaiba reported
multiple benefits of the tutoring experience
including students who “gained an aver-
age of .18 standard score points per hour of
tutoring on word attack, .38 on word identi-
fication, and .30 on passage comprehension”
(p. 245). The preservice teachers’ knowledge
of language structure also improved from
57.5% to 99.4% questions answered cor-
rectly on the Structure of Language assess-
ment developed by Mather, Bos, and Babur
(2001). Analysis of preservice teacher reflec-
tive journals indicated the participants devel-
oped deeper and more practically informed
understandings of individualized instruction,
scaffolding, and behavior management.

Such positive outcomes were replicated
7 years later when Al Otaiba et al. (2012) con-
ducted a randomized-control trial that investi-
gated the differential effects of implementing
two early literacy tutoring programs on preser-
vice teacher knowledge, application, percep-
tions of preparedness, and student achievement.
One program was highly structured and
scripted, drew on evidence-based direct instruc-
tion practices, and included explicit code-
focused (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics,
and fluency) and meaning-focused (i.e., vocab-
ulary and comprehension) instruction. The
other program only provided structured mean-
ing-focused instruction. Although both tutoring
programs led to gains in preservice teacher

Leko et al. 33

knowledge and student achievement, effect
sizes were larger for preservice teachers and
students in the more structured tutoring pro-
gram that included code and meaning-focused
instruction. Preservice teachers in this condi-
tion also reported feeling more prepared to
teach reading and demonstrated greater ability
to apply coursework knowledge.

Coursework coupled with field experiences. A
second learning arrangement that introduces
increased complexity in preservice teachers’
learning experience is coursework aligned
with supervised field experiences. Experts
assert this learning experience is critical to
preparing more effective teachers, because it
provides multiple opportunities for preservice
teachers to situate their learning in practical
experiences (Boyd, Grossman, Lankford,
Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2009), and without such
opportunities SETs were found to have dif-
ficulty applying their knowledge (Leko &
Brownell, 2011). Most teacher preparation
programs provide practical teaching oppor-
tunities, but these experiences vary widely
in duration and quality (Darling-Hammond,
Chung, & Frelow, 2002), and there is no
definitive model for crafting the ideal practi-
cally based learning experience. In fact, the
2010 Report of the Blue Ribbon Panel on
Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for
Improved Student Learning (National Council
for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 2010)
called for more focused research to identify
features of effective clinical preparation.

The extant literature does, however, pro-
vide some guiding principles that seem to
advance special education preservice teacher
knowledge and practice. Across several stud-
ies the coupling of content-area coursework
and carefully crafted field experiences that
provided abundant practice opportunities with
feedback increased preservice teacher knowl-
edge and skill and in some instances student
performance (Alexander et al., 2007; Maheady
et al., 2007; Utley, 2009; Van Laarhoven,
Munk, Lynch, Bosma, & Rouse, 2007). For
example, Alexander et al. (2007) carefully
designed a mathematics methods course cou-
pled with a field experience to help preservice

teachers learn to use direct instruction and
assessment strategies. First, preservice teach-
ers acquired basic mathematics content and
pedagogical content knowledge within a meth-
ods course. Preservice teachers were then pre-
sented with two case studies in which course
instructors helped them apply their knowledge
of mathematics direct instruction and assess-
ment. Then, preservice teachers analyzed a
third case independently and were provided
with corrective feedback. Once the course con-
cluded, preservice teachers applied their newly
acquired knowledge and skill in a practicum.
Field supervisors trained in an observation pro-
tocol visited classrooms three to five times and
provided preservice teachers with feedback.
Preservice teachers demonstrated gains in
knowledge and an ability to apply direct
instruction practices to classrooms. In addition,
preservice teachers’ students improved on con-
cepts and skills taught as demonstrated in the
curriculum-based assessments (CBAs) col-
lected. This study is an example of how teacher
educators can craft preparation experiences
that scaffold teachers’ learning in specific con-
tent over time, ultimately ending in applied
practice in real classroom settings.

Performance feedback and reflection. Critical
to the development of effective performance
is corrective feedback that highlights well-
executed aspects of performance and those
that need to change. A comprehensive review
of performance feedback in special education
teacher education demonstrated performance
feedback is an effective pedagogy for pro-
moting preservice teacher implementation
fidelity of evidence-based practices includ-
ing direct instruction, differential reinforce-
ment of alternative behaviors, three-term
contingency trials, and peer-assisted learning
strategies (Cornelius & Nagro, 2014). Per-
formance feedback also increased teacher-
specific behaviors identified as opportunities
to respond, verbal expansions, and providing
student corrections, among others, but the
evidence was not as consistent across all
reviewed studies (Cornelius & Nagro, 2014).

In special and general education personnel
preparation, multiple individuals are positioned

34 Exceptional Children 82(1)

to provide preservice teachers with feedback
including course instructors, university super-
visors, and cooperating teachers. However, the
degree to which they provide effective feed-
back is unknown. There are, however, some
vehicles for providing feedback that have been
shown to promote teacher performance.

Peer coaching. Peer coaching is the pair-
ing of preservice teachers so they can pro-
vide feedback to one another to improve
their instruction and reflective capabilities.
Lu (2010) reviewed studies of peer coaching
since 1997 and found it can improve preser-
vice teachers’ (a) reflective capabilities, (b)
instructional skills, and (c) professionalism,
while also serving as a mechanism to pro-
vide affective support. Lu, however, noted
several challenges associated with imple-
menting peer coaching like scheduling con-
flicts, the need for advanced planning and
extensive programmatic support, and resolv-
ing issues that arise from preservice teachers
who have inadequate knowledge and skills
to serve as strong partners. In special edu-
cation teacher education, peer coaching has
preliminary evidence supporting its effec-
tiveness for advancing preservice teacher
knowledge and practices (Hasbrouck, 1997;
Morgan, Menlove, Salzberg, & Hudson,
1994) and, in one case, also supporting
students’ comprehension (Mallette et al.,
1999). In this study, the researchers used a
multiple-baseline design to study the effects
of teams of preservice teacher peer coaches
who participated in an afterschool literacy
tutoring program. The preservice teacher
teams tutored elementary students with dis-
abilities twice a week over an 8-week period.
In addition to being trained to deliver lit-
eracy instruction, the teams were trained to
provide feedback as peer coaches following
each tutoring session. Results indicated the
peer coaching increased preservice teachers’
implementation of effective literacy instruc-
tional practices and was highly correlated
with improved student comprehension as
measured by oral fluency rates and compre-
hension scores.

Bug-in-ear and eCoaching. When special
education preservice teachers receive imme-
diate, positive, and corrective feedback on
their performance via technology, it posi-
tively influences their attitudes and classroom
performance (Rock et al., 2009; Scheeler,
McAfee, Ruhl, & Lee, 2006). Technology-
enhanced feedback and supervision, referred
to as eCoaching (Dieker et al., 2014), is a
promising way to deliver one-to-one feed-
back to preservice teachers without requir-
ing supervisors to be physically present in
the classroom. When paired with bug-in-ear,
eCoaching can go one step further by provid-
ing real-time feedback.

In a recent example, Rock et al. (2014)
conducted a 3-year, mixed-methods study of
the effects of eCoaching with bug-in-ear on
14 presevice teachers’ instructional behaviors,
classroom climate, student engagement, and
perceptions of the intervention. Findings
based on univariate ANOVA repeated-measures
analyses conducted for five dependent vari-
ables (low and high access instructional strat-
egies, use of redirection, use of praise, and
student engagement) indicated long-term sta-
tistically significant improvements from Year
1 to Year 3 for all variables except use of redi-
rection. The effect sizes for the four signifi-
cant variables were around .76. Qualitative
analyses indicated the preservice teachers val-
ued the feedback they received and felt it sup-
ported their learning and implementation of
evidence-based practices.

Fostering collaboration and coordinated instruc-
tion. Teacher education researchers have used
collaborative teaching field placements involv-
ing special and general education preservice
teachers with the intent of fostering more col-
laborative instruction, however the degree to
which these arrangements deliberately teach
special and general education preservice teach-
ers how to design coordinated instruction
is less obvious (Brownell, Griffin, Leko, &
Stephens, 2011). Lesson study, however, is one
strategy that has potential for helping preser-
vice SETs learn to coordinate tiered instruction
with general education teachers. Lesson study

Leko et al. 35

is a collaborative, team-based approach to les-
son planning, implementation, and analysis
that includes peer support (Lewis, 2002). Tra-
ditionally, lesson study occurs through itera-
tive cycles in which groups of teachers plan
lessons, execute instruction, and then analyze
the instruction (Takahasi & Yoshida, 2004). In
most cases after the lesson planning is com-
plete, one group member implements the les-
son while the other group members observe.
Following the lesson, the group reconvenes to
debrief and reflect on the lesson’s usefulness
at promoting student learning (Lewis, 2002).
Lesson study is a pedagogy that has potential
to address multiple principles from the science
on learning, especially when an expert facili-
tates the lesson study (e.g., teacher educator,
inservice cooperative teacher, researcher).
Lesson study provides a structure for teach-
ers to engage in repeated practice of specific
skills, receive feedback from an expert as well
as peers, and self-analyze their instruction.
Findings synthesized across several studies of
general education preservice teachers support
lesson study as a way to promote preservice
teacher self-efficacy (Cohan & Honigsfeld,
2007) and reflection (Cohan & Honigsfeld,
2007; Ganesh & Matteson, 2010; Sims &
Walsh, 2009), and its flexible and iterative
nature make it particularly promising for craft-
ing carefully scaffolded practice within preser-
vice and inservice settings.

Research on lesson study within special
education teacher education is limited but cor-
roborates several of the positive outcomes
established in general education. It is particu-
larly compelling because it is the one structure
we have discussed thus far that enables gen-
eral and SETs to co-plan, problem-solve, and
coordinate instruction across tiered systems.
In one study, Benedict (2014) investigated
lesson study as way to provide ongoing, col-
laborative PD in multisyllabic word study
to teams of fourth- and fifth-grade practicing
general and special educators. The teams of
teachers received PD in word study through
content modules and then participated in three
lesson study cycles. Using constructivist
grounded theory methods, Benedict learned

that by the end of the third lesson study cycle,
teachers’ understandings of content, student
needs, and pedagogy became more aligned
and integrated with the PD modules. Teachers
also became more skilled at collaboratively
identifying and appropriately planning for
individual students’ needs and more adept at
analyzing the effect of their instruction on stu-
dents’ performance. The collaborative struc-
ture that lies at the heart of lesson study makes
it an ideal way for general and special educa-
tors to develop similar mindsets about instruc-
tion and students’ needs (Benedict, Park,
Brownell, Lauterbach, & Kiely, 2013).

Moving Towards a More Systemic,
Practice-Based Approach

The teacher education pedagogies we have pre-
sented adhere to principles derived from the sci-
ence of learning. Structured tutoring, coursework
coupled with field experiences, lesson study,
peer coaching, and bug-in-ear provide opportu-
nities for teacher candidates to engage in inter-
leaving skills and to receive performance
feedback, which should assist them in develop-
ing the ability to assess their own instruction. In
addition, it seems likely these practice opportu-
nities could be sequenced to scaffold teacher
learning over time; however, less is known about
the most effective ways to sequence and time
practice-based opportunities.

Ross and Lignugaris-Kraft (in press) pro-
vided the only study we could identify where
an entire program was restructured to ensure a
cohesive, well-sequenced, practice-based
approach to preparing special and general
education teachers for MTSS instruction. In
this program, teacher candidates were hired
by the schools in Year 1 of their program to
provide Tier 2 instruction in reading and
mathematics while they completed course-
work that was aligned with these experiences.
In addition, they received weekly feedback
on their performance from a supervisor. In
Year 2, they were hired full-time to work in
general education classrooms and provide
Tier 2 instruction while receiving biweekly
feedback from a supervisor, completing a

36 Exceptional Children 82(1)

student portfolio, and receiving support from
a mentor teacher that helped them analyze stu-
dent data and discuss ongoing challenges.
Direct observations of these teachers demon-
strated teacher candidates outperformed nov-
ice and veteran teachers on opportunities to
respond, interactions with students, and stu-
dent on-task behavior. Both principals and
teacher candidates, in surveys and interviews,
saw the program as preparing them to be
effective beginning teachers. Although these
results are promising, more research is needed
on how well-structured practice opportunities
such as those described here can be sequenced
to promote competent beginning special edu-
cation teacher performance.

Building Capacity for a
Focused, Practice-Based
Approach to Preparation

Moving toward a practice-based approach to
special education preparation is ambitious and
may leave teacher educators wondering how
to implement it, particularly in unsupportive
contexts (i.e., dwindling college of education
budgets, lack of support for teacher education,
declining enrollments, insufficient numbers
of high-quality field placements). We suggest
changes that could support the practice-based
approach to special education personnel prep-
aration we are proposing. We offer these sug-
gestions with the caveat “Rome was not built
in a day”; large-scale, sustainable changes
will require long-range vision, considerable
effort on the part of teacher educators, and
more research to justify the actions taken.
Without taking initial steps towards transfor-
mation, however, the field will be unable to
prepare teachers capable of supporting stu-
dents with disabilities in achieving the CCSS.

Maximize the Potential of
Technology

As we have argued, a practice-based approach
to special education personnel preparation is
something needed but currently not in place at
a systemic level, and that is to some degree

difficult to accomplish given challenges asso-
ciated with field experiences (Grossman &
McDonald, 2008; Leko & Brownell, 2011).
Maximizing the use of technology to create
carefully structured effective practice oppor-
tunities will be critical to moving to more
practice-based approaches that are sustain-
able. Bug-in-ear and eCoaching represent the
promising, cost-efficient technologies that
can provide teacher candidates with perfor-
mance feedback.

Maximizing the use of technology to
create carefully structured effective

practice opportunities will be critical to
moving to more practice-based

approaches that are sustainable.

Further, current technological innovations
such as simulations and virtual learning can
take scaffolded, deliberate practice opportuni-
ties in teacher education to a new level of
sophistication in the future. The use of simula-
tors and virtual learning has been widely
adopted in professions such as the military,
astronautics, and medicine (Gallagher et al.,
2005). Virtual learning can streamline and
standardize training procedures as well as pro-
vide a minimal-risk learning environment. For
example, researchers in the field of radiology
have developed and validated a virtual reality
simulator to provide training in interventional
radiology (Johnson, Guediri, Kilkenny, &
Clough, 2011) without risk to real patients. At
the University of Central Florida, researchers
working with scientists from other disciplines
developed the TeachLivETM virtual lab that
provides simulated learning experiences with
student avatars for preservice and inservice
teachers (Dieker, Rodriguez, Lignugaris,
Hynes, & Hughes, 2013). Such experiences
closely mimic real-life classrooms but can be
tightly controlled so teacher education stu-
dents have opportunities to practice discrete
skills, develop routines, receive feedback, and
repeat practice with situations that present
increasing complexity all without risk of harm
to students (Dieker, Hynes, Hughes, & Smith,
2008).

Leko et al. 37

Align Policy Systems to Promote
Clear Expectations for Preparation

Current licensure and certification patterns do
not promote a shared, focused vision of effec-
tive teaching in special education (Brownell
et al., 2010). They differ from state to state,
and no two states are quite alike. In addition to
being arbitrary, certification patterns are
broad, certifying teachers to provide instruc-
tion to a wide range of students across multi-
ple grade levels in multiple types of settings
(e.g., resource, co-teaching). Broad certifica-
tion patterns are designed to minimize short-
ages and provide flexibility to school
administrators, as more focused certification
requirements might reduce the number of
available SETs in certain areas. Consequently,
SETs are prepared broadly to be “a Jack of all
trades, a master of none.” Although we appre-
ciate the challenge schools face in finding and
retaining highly qualified SETs, we believe
the undifferentiated certification structures
that help solve that problem create another:
Diluting the preparation of SETs (Brownell
et al., 2010). Shortages, however, have abated
over the past decade (Boe, 2014); thus, renew-
ing a conversation about how best to structure
special education certification to support more
focused preparation seems appropriate. Ensur-
ing certification systems are designed to sup-
port SETs in acquiring the knowledge and
skills needed to be interventionists in MTSS is
one way of focusing the licensure process
and, consequently, teacher preparation
(Brownell et al., 2010).

Sindelar, Steinbrecher, and Rosenberg
(2014) recently proposed such a differentiated
structure in which they considered (a) age or
grade differentiation, (b) student ability, (c)
content-area requirements, and (d) career struc-
tures. They argued that, because secondary
special educators must demonstrate compe-
tence in the subjects they teach, certification
structures could be improved by differentiating
elementary from secondary preparation. They
also advocated differentiating certification for
teaching students who take standard and alter-
native assessments, as the needs of students
taking these different assessments differ so

much. Finally, they recommended teachers
seeking elementary or standard assessment cer-
tification be required first to obtain certification
in elementary education. Doing so would pro-
vide a firm understanding of the classroom
teacher’s role in MTSS service delivery and
foster the kind of in-depth understanding of
curriculum collaboration that that level
requires. Finally, they advocated a two-tier sys-
tem in which full professional certification was
differentiated from initial certification and
made contingent on the completion of rigorous
PD or an induction and mentoring program.

Simply changing licensure standards, how-
ever it is done, will be insufficient. Program
approval standards, mechanisms for evaluat-
ing special education preparation routes and
SETs, and standards for beginning teacher
induction and PD must reinforce the knowl-
edge and skills special education preservice
teachers need to be successful interventionists
in a MTSS framework.

Fortunately, federal policy makers under-
stand the importance of aligning policy and
practice to improve special education person-
nel preparation. The Office of Special Educa-
tion Programs-funded Collaboration for
Effective Educator, Development, Account-
ability, and Reform (CEEDAR) Center is an
example of how federal support can be dedi-
cated to bringing together key stakeholders for
the purpose of coordinated, targeted, and
aligned personnel preparation systems for stu-
dents with disabilities. The CEEDAR Center
works with state teams composed of policy
makers and preparation providers to help states
ensure their policies and practices support the
preparation of special education (and general
education) teachers to provide evidence-based
instruction to students with disabilities.

Coordinate Within and Across Levels
of Preparation

Preservice preparation is just the first step in
a teacher’s journey towards effective
performance. For SETs to amass the expertise
they need to provide highly effective Tier 3
instruction, plan with their general education
colleagues to provide cohesive core and

38 Exceptional Children 82(1)

tiered instruction, and improve their perfor-
mance over time, preparation must be
extended beyond preservice years. Induction
and inservice PD must be the next step in a
coordinated system of personnel preparation.
Identifying high-leverage practices and con-
tent for preservice programs can foster a
common vision of effective instruction that
can be supported and built on in induction
and PD. Some of this work has already begun
through coordinated efforts among the Coun-
cil for Exceptional Children, its Teacher Edu-
cation Division, and the CEEDAR Center.
These organizations are working together to
identify and vet a set of high-leverage prac-
tices for SETs that can be aligned with the
work of Deborah Ball and her colleagues.

Such alignment with general education is a
trend we envision becoming increasingly
important in the future. We have identified
increasing intersections between the work of
general and special educators in terms of
coordinating effective core instruction
through the identification of high-leverage
practices and content and by arguing a more
carefully sequenced practice-based approach
to teacher education (Ball & Forzani, 2009;
Grossman & McDonald, 2008). In the future,
general and special education teacher educa-
tors are going to need to find better and more
effective ways of coordinating preparation at
the preservice level.

Promoting a more seamless transition from
preservice to inservice preparation will also
require collaboration among state education
agencies, preparation providers, and local
education agencies. Coherent practice-based
learning opportunities across settings will be
essential to supporting and extending what
SET graduates have learned about high-leverage
practices and high leverage content in induc-
tion and PD (Brownell et al., 2014). To
develop such a seamless system of teacher
learning opportunities, induction and mentor-
ing programs will need to be focused on
improving instruction within MTSS frame-
works, with equal or less attention on
providing emotional support. Further, school
districts will need to determine ways to pro-
vide teachers with ongoing learning supports

in environments that are resource poor. Using
technology to provide access to high-quality
PD as well as opportunities for self-assess-
ment of and reflection on classroom practice
(e.g., virtual coaching, video self-reflection;
Rock et al., 2009; Scheeler et al., 2006) are
different ways districts can support teachers
beyond their initial preparation.

Use Research Evidence and
Accountability as Leverage for
Change

We have presented useful pedagogies, sup-
ported by the science on learning, for rede-
signing special education teacher education to
become a more practice-based endeavor.
What the field lacks, however, is a substantial
research base to support the effectiveness of
many of these ideas and bring them to scale in
schools and colleges of education across the
country (Brownell et al., 2010). To ensure
more substantive special education personnel
preparation has a future, it is critical that time
and attention be devoted to improving and
expanding the literature substantiating the
work of SET educators, especially in ways
that provide evidence this work leads to effec-
tive practice in schools. Large-scale studies in
SET education, though potentially influential,
are not always feasible. Such studies are often
too expensive and resource-intensive for SET
education scholars to conduct without consid-
erable extramural support. Funding opportu-
nities available through federal agencies like
the Institute of Education Sciences do not
seem to be a viable solution now or in the
future. For one, funding has dwindled (Sparks,
2014), thereby ramping up an already highly
competitive process. In addition, research
designs most likely to be awarded funding
(e.g., randomized-control trials) are very dif-
ficult to conduct in teacher preparation
( Lignugaris-Kraft et al., 2014). An alternative
to expensive, large-scale research is the accu-
mulation of small-scale, yet rigorous,
qualitative, quantitative, and single-case stud-
ies that, when taken together, create a “critical
mass” of empirical support. This approach

Leko et al. 39

will be more feasible and sustainable for SET
education researchers across institution types.
As argued by Lignugaris-Kraft et al. (2014),
in this approach, a large number of teacher
education faculty can collaborate to develop
the research base necessary to support effec-
tive teacher preparation and PD. Teacher edu-
cation faculty might reassert their importance
in preparing teachers if they led efforts to
(a) develop practice-focused innovations for
promoting effective teacher performance and
(b) provide evidence these innovations were
effective in developing preservice teachers’
knowledge, changing their practices both in
structured settings and more complex settings,
and fostering student learning in PK-12 set-
tings. Such an ability to demonstrate effec-
tiveness in preparing teachers would go a long
way in a context where state and federal poli-
cymakers are insisting preparation providers
be held accountable.

Conclusion

If educators believe the implementation of
MTSS and more effective, rigorous core
instruction is essential to the progress of stu-
dents with disabilities, then one thing is clear:
Special and general education teachers must
enter the classroom better prepared to operate
in such a system, and the supports in the
PK–12 system for building expertise must be
amped up. To develop such a system, the field
needs to rethink substantially the intellectual
and financial resources devoted to SET educa-
tion, both its practice and the research behind
it, and to building systems that can support the
ongoing development of teachers. Such a sys-
tem will require policy, practice, and research
to work in symbiotic ways. Reforming special
education initial preparation (or any individ-
ual entity) in isolation is unlikely to result in
any meaningful progress. Productive reform
efforts will hinge on special education leaders
being present at the policy table and in posi-
tions of leadership and influence. Although
the future of special education personnel
preparation is unknown, groups like the Office
of Special Education Programs, the CEEDAR
Center, the Council for Exceptional Children

and its Teacher Education Division, and the
Council for Chief State School Officers are
putting increased emphasis on improving
evidence-based practice in this area. We are
cautiously optimistic and believe the foot-
holds provided by the accumulated research dis-
cussed will support a step towards enhanced
proficiency for beginning SETs, especially if
stakeholders at the policy, school, and univer-
sity levels reach for it together.

Special and general education
teachers must enter the classroom

better prepared to operate in such a
system, and the supports in the

PK-12 system for building expertise
must be amped up.

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The SAGE Handbook
of Special Education

Reimagining Special Education

Contributors: Lani Florian
Editors: Lani Florian
Book Title: The SAGE Handbook of Special Education
Chapter Title: “Reimagining Special Education”
Pub. Date: 2007
Access Date: September 26, 2015
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: London
Print ISBN: 9781412907293
Online ISBN: 9781848607989
DOI:

http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848607989.n2

Print pages: 8-22

http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848607989.n2

©2007 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This PDF has been generated from SAGE knowledge. Please note that the pagination
of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

University of Toronto

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Reimagining Special Education

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Chapter 2: Reimagining Special Education

Introduction

Positioned as it is, as both the problem of and the solution to injustice in education, the
field of special education occupies contested terrain. Throughout its history, advocates
and critics have simultaneously hailed and condemned it as both a means of achieving
equal educational opportunity and a perpetrator of injustice in education. The historian
of education, Martin Lazerson (1983), articulated the issue well:

From its inception, some have condemned special education for not
being available to enough children, and some, especially parents
of handicapped children, have demanded more as well as better
programs. Yet others have condemned special education for too readily
identifying children as handicapped, and too readily placing them
in segregated classes. All, from within and outside the educational
system, have acknowledged that special education has been the least
accepted of our public school programs. To paraphrase John Dewey,
if a society ought to provide for its children that which the best parent
would provide, special education stands out as a measure of the failure
of public responsibility. (p. 16)

Though Lazerson was writing before the full implementation of the human and civil
rights laws and policies that were adopted in many countries since the 1970s, the
dilemmas of access and equity that he articulated have continued, despite the hope and
the promise of national rights-based policies intended to resolve them, such as P.L. 94–
142 (now part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act – IDEA) in the United
States, National Law 118/71 in Italy, or PL. 10/2002, Ley Orgánica de Calidad de la
Educación (LOCE) in Spain.

This chapter considers dilemmas of access and equity by examining the role of
special education in the context of the larger education system. It explores the right

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Reimagining Special Education

to education, the power of the human need to mark some people as deviant, the
corresponding concept of normal, and the conundrum this creates for special education.
It argues that future progress in addressing the dilemmas of access and equity will
require a reimagining of what special education is and can become. The chapter calls
for changes in thinking about provision and practice, and suggests what some of these
changes might entail.

[p. 8 ↓ ]

The Promise of Education

Education is defined as a universal right by Article 26 of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948). As such, it is commonly invoked for the purposes
of establishing standards for the right to education (access) and for human rights in
education (equity). Thus education is both a human right and a means of achieving
human rights. As the concept of human rights has evolved, education has also come
to be seen as a development right (Gearon, 2003), and as an economic, social and
cultural right (Tomasevski, 2001). Though there is great philosophical promise in a
rights concept of education, support for it is often based on a belief in its power to
transform society (Grubb & Lazerson, 2004). Over the past century, education has been
seen as a remedy to many forms of social injustice. Where compulsory schooling exists,
it has helped to eliminate child labour (Tomasevski, 2003), and more schooling for more
people is considered the solution to social and economic problems in many countries
(Grubb & Lazerson, 2004). As a result, support for education is justified throughout
the world, not simply as a human right but as an investment in the ‘development’
of individuals and societies to meet the demands of a market economy and as a
requirement of a democratic society. World Bank policy makes this position clear:

Education is central to development. It empowers people, strengthens
nations, and is key to the attainment of the Millennium Development
Goals. Already the world’s largest external financier of education, the
World Bank is today more committed than ever to helping countries
develop holistic education systems aimed both at achieving Education
For All (EFA) and building dynamic knowledge societies that are key

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Reimagining Special Education

to competing in global markets through Education for the Knowledge
Economy (EKE). (World Bank, n.d.)

Here support for education is seen not as a remedy for injustice or a human right
but as a way to strengthen economic competitiveness. The co-mingling of rhetoric
about human rights, nation building and compettive markets is difficult to unravel.
Linking the human right to education with education for the purpose of economic
independence for individuals and prosperity for nations makes it difficult to see them
as two distinct policies. Yet this is what we must do if we are to understand the role of
special education in contemporary society.

The Role of Special Education

When access to education is widened it puts pressure on education systems and
schools to accommodate increasingly diverse student populations. Indeed, as many
have documented, special education is one of the mechanisms by which such diversity
has been accommodated. For many years special education was seen as a fulfilment
of the right to education for children with disabilities and there were expectations that
the implementation of rights-based special education laws would promote social and
economic acceptance and enable disabled children to participate in community life as
adults. As one of the congressional reports that accompanied P.L. 94–142 in the United
States noted: ‘With proper educational services many of these handicapped children
would be able to become productive citizens contributing to society instead of being left
to remain burdens on society’ (United States Congress, 1976, p. 11).

Yet these outcomes did not follow. A series of national surveys in the United States
found that disabled people were less well educated, less likely to be employed and less
likely to participate in social activities than non-disabled groups (Harris and Associates,
1986, 1987, 1989). Special education, it seemed, was not preparing children identified
as having disabilities for life after school. Moreover, there were difficulties with the
identification and classification of disabilities for educational purposes (Dunn, 1968;
Mercer, 1973), and these created additional problems of access and equity, generating
controversies that persist to this day (see, for example, Keogh & MacMillan, 1996;

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MacMillan & [p. 9 ↓ ] Reschly, 1998;Ysseldyke, 2001; Florian et al., 2006). Experience
in many other countries followed a similar pattern (CERI, 1994).

Sociologists of education (for example, Tomlinson, 1982) and others (for example,
Skrtic, 1986, 1991) presented a critique of special education, not as a fulfilment of the
right to education, but as a denial of that right by virtue of its exclusionary practices.
Such analyses locate the problem of special education in the structures of mainstream
education systems. Here the co-mingling of the right to education as a human right and
the right to education as a mechanism of economic prosperity become conflated and
confused. Legislation guaranteeing the right to education does not exist in a vacuum
and rights-based legislation in and of itself has not proved sufficient for achieving
access to education or preventing discrimination. Many children and young people
continue to be marginalized within, or excluded from, education systems around
the world, including those who live in countries with policy frameworks that appear
supportive.

It has been argued that too much faith was placed in the law to overcome the deeply
entrenched biases against and prejudices towards disabled people as judicial systems
themselves are also influenced by problems of bias and prejudice (Hahn, 2001). In
a provocative analysis, the philosopher Martha Nussbaum (2004) suggests how this
dynamic operates. She asks why stigmatization is ubiquitous, why all societies view
some people as normal and consider those who deviate shameful. In a detailed review
of theoretical and empirical psychoanalytic work on shame and stigma she arrives at the
following:

Human beings are deeply troubled about being human – about being
highly intelligent and resourceful, on the one hand, but weak and
vulnerable, helpless against death, on the other. We are ashamed of
this awkward condition and, in manifold ways, we try to hide from it.
In the process we develop and teach both shame at human frailty and
disgust at the signs of our animality and mortality … In the case of
disgust, properties pertinent to the subject’s own fear of animality and
mortality are projected onto a less powerful group, and that group then
becomes a vehicle for the dominant group’s anxiety about itself … In
the case of shame, a more general anxiety about helplessness and

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lack of control inspires the pursuit of invulnerability … An appearance
of control is then frequently purchased by the creation of stigmatized
groups. (pp. 336–7)

If such an insight is correct then it is little wonder that those who believed that the law
could provide a complete remedy to the problem of discrimination were disappointed.
What Nussbaum is arguing is that an understanding of the dynamics of shame, disgust
and stigma and the ways they function in human social life helps us to understand
why people with disabilities are marked as deviant or different in all societies. After all,
what is ‘normal’ is generally decided by groups and it changes from place to place and
over time. Nussbaum points out that the idea of normal is linked to two very different
ideas: statistical frequency (usual and unusual) and a normative conception of the
good (proper and improper, or appropriate and inappropriate). She questions why this
connection should be drawn:

For, obviously enough, what is typical may or may not be very good.
Bad backs, bad eyes and bad judgement are all very typical … [while]
much progress in human affairs comes from people who are unusual …
So why, in more or less all societies, has the notion of the normal as the
usual also served as a normative function, setting up the different for
stigmatizing treatment? (p. 218)

Her answer is that normal is a construction that permits us to protect ourselves from
disruption, to hide from the imperfections about which we feel the deepest shame in
ourselves. Little wonder then that special education is marked out as a measure of the
failure of public responsibility. For no matter what educational rights it protects or what
it achieves for individuals, it still permits others to hide from the shame of imperfection
because it reinforces the notion of normal as usual and good. In this analysis, special
education can never really be a good thing. So long as it remains focused on difference
or what is unusual, normal can be defended as an appropriate standard.

[p. 10 ↓ ] Interestingly, Nussbaum argues that it is essential that an individual rights
approach serves as a first response to the problem of stigma. She is in favour of laws
that protect individual rights such as the IDEA because she sees their focus on human
rights as a strategy for challenging stigma. However such an approach is not without

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its own difficulties for, as Minow (1990) observes, the laws and policies that are created
to protect vulnerable groups also serve to marginalize them. Thus we are caught in a
vicious cycle where efforts to grant or protect rights to equal opportunity and treatment
also mark and stigmatize.

Indeed, the history of special education can be seen as the effort to meet the dual
purpose of providing for all children while protecting ‘normals’ from ‘deviants’ (Lazerson,
1983). Special education thus embodies what Minow calls the ‘dilemma of difference’
as it occupies the space between the inclusionary and exclusionary forces which
operate simultaneously at all times in service of society’s dual purpose of providing
and controlling civic life. Consider the work of teachers of children who are designated
as having ‘special needs’. They aim to include children who have been excluded from
what Booth and Ainscow (2002) call the culture, curriculum and community of school,
but in so doing collude with an educational system that is underpinned by complex and
subtle deterministic assumptions about difference, deviance and ability that produced
the exclusion in the first instance.

Nearly half a century ago, Burton Blatt exposed the hazards involved in doing this work.
Christmas in Purgatory (Blatt & Kaplan, 1966), Exodus from Pandemonium (Blatt, 1970)
and Souls in Extremis (Blatt, 1973), highlighted the legally sanctioned forms of abuse
that were part of ‘caring’ for disabled people in institutions. He showed how those who
do the ‘care-giving’ as well as who are ‘cared for’ can also be victims of unjust social
structures.

Teaching, it can be argued, is different from social care but the practices of special
education have been subject to the same kind of critical analysis (Tomlinson, 1982;
Skrtic, 1986, 1988, 1991; Brantlinger, 1997) provoking a heated debate about whether
the effects of special education are beneficial or detrimental. There is concern about
the nature and purpose of special education as well as what might be considered an
appropriate response to disability and other difficulties. The idea of special education
as a parallel or separate system of education to that which is provided to the majority
of children has been challenged by notions of inclusion in which all children are part
of one education system. The problem, of course, is that inclusive education is not a
denial of individual difference, but an accommodation of it, within the structures and
processes that are available to all learners. The process of accommodating difference

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as a mechanism of equal opportunity, and as a fulfilment of the right to education for all,
is not generally disputed by educationalists. But the means to this end, whether through
‘special’ or ‘inclusive’ education, continues to be forcefully debated.

‘Special’ or ‘Inclusive’ Education?

Fuchs and Fuchs (1992) have labelled those who undertake a critical analysis of special
education as ‘abolitionists’ and those who do not as ‘conservationists’. They noted:

By the early 1980s [abolitionists] had developed a trenchant critique
of the field, encompassing all aspects of service delivery. But their
plans for rehauling special education tended toward extremism, and
the accompanying rhetoric was often unremittingly negative, if not
downright hostile and threatening. By the late 1980s, conservationists
had fixed on their adversaries’ unrealistic remedies and intemperate
rhetoric to portray them as out-of-touch ideologues. To some extent,
they succeeded. Simultaneously, and often inadvertently, they
discredited, or at least muffled, the truthful ring of the abolitionist
critique. (p. 413)

As a result, it could be argued that the discourse of special education was changed.
Now, one was either in favour of special education or against it. To be in favour of
special education was to be against the ‘extremism’ [p. 11 ↓ ] and the ‘intemperate
rhetoric’ of advocates for change. To support the reform of the ‘cascade of services
model’ of special education provision was to be against special education itself.
Brantlinger (1997) called those in favour of special education ‘traditionalists’ and those
who advocated for systemic change (for example, models of inclusive education to
replace the cascade of services model), ‘inclusionists’. Traditionalists called those
who advocated for inclusive education ‘radicals’. More recently the camps have been
described as ‘incremental reformers’ and ‘substantial reconceptualists’ (Andrews et
al., 2000). There is the beginning of a recognition that a ‘with us or against us’ type
of debate has polarized the field in ways that have made it difficult to move practice
forward. In an attempt to find common ground in the widely shared commitment of

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acting in children’s best interests, a group of scholars representing a range of divergent
perspectives has come to the following position:

We believe that special education can shape public opinion about
disability in ways that help schools see all children as important
stakeholders, while promoting the development of methods that
enhance capacity for successful postschool adjustments among
individuals with disabilities … We believe that a division of labour makes
sense, wherein the ncremental reformers focus on what to do on behalf
of children, and the substantial reconceptualists focus on achieving the
conditions necessary for promoting optimal methods. We believe the
field needs to work simultaneously with the children and on the system
(Andrews et al., 2000, p. 260).

While this is a refreshing departure from what had become a very polarized debate,
there is a need to recognize that a call to work simultaneously with the children and on
the system does not simply call a truce between those who hold different perspectives,
but that new ways of conceptualizing the work are required.

The Problem of Difference Discourse

Sociological critiques (Tomlinson, 1982), legal analyses (Minow, 1990) and
philosophical explorations of disability (Nussbaum, 2004) all show how assumptions
about difference, deviance, ability and what is considered normal, interact in ways
that produce, sustain and reproduce the dilemmas of access and equity in education
that special education was intended to address. As one of the mechanisms by which
schools accommodate diversity, special education, as currently construed, reinforces
the exclusionary practices of general education, in part because it relies on a ‘difference
discourse’ that essentially, though not entirely, agrees with the mainstream view that
some children are qualitatively different from others and therefore require something
different from that which is available to the majority.

Difference discourse is a term used by Ford (2005) to describe what he calls a set of
interconnected beliefs conversations and practices that are mutually reinforcing and

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socially pervasive. Though he uses the term in an analysis of the concept of racial
culture he is careful to point out that the concept applies to other social classifications
and identities. Many disabled activists and scholars argue for a concept of disability
culture, a kind of identity politics that seeks to challenge representations of disability as
deviant, grotesque or otherwise impoverished (for example, Mitchell & Snyder, 2000).
This is important work that serves to uncover and expose the deeply held belief that
disability is tragic because it is abnormal. Although this begs any number of questions
about what is normal, it also unwittingly affirms the concept of normalcy. Disability
studies scholars do not want to abandon difference discourse; they seek to change it
in favour of a concept of disability culture that is vibrant, beautiful and alive. But until
that day arrives, disabled people in general and children with disabilities in particular
will rightly continue to require and demand protection from discrimination within the
larger society and its institutions. What Ford cautions is an awareness that difference
discourse itself is problematic and limited. It might alter, but will not alone solve, the
problem of discrimination. So long as there is discrimination, dilemmas of access and
equity remain.

[p. 12 ↓ ] Thus far, this analysis suggests two interdependent problems facing the field
of special education. The first is the concept of normal as usual and good, the second
is the dilemma of difference. Clearly there is a need for understanding and challenging
the roles that notions of deviance, difference, disability and special educational need
play in all aspects of social life, but particularly in education. There is also a need to
confront the paradoxical nature of special education as it currently operates within the
larger education system. Should it be acceptable that dilemmas of difference are seen
as an inevitable feature of special education, a necessary evil that must be endured for
the sake of providing special education? Or is it time to reimagine the work of educating
children who experience difficulties in learning, not as a Faustian pact whereby in
exchange for access the field is eternally condemned as a measure of the failure of
public responsibility to children with disabilities and ‘special needs’, but as an integral
part of a school’s response when students experience difficulties?

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Reimagining Special Education

Changing the difference discourse is necessary and urgent work for the future of special
education (whatever name it calls itself). The task of reimagining special education
suggests that current assumptions, systems and procedures might be replaced by new
ways of thinking and working, and many of the contributors to this book point in such
directions. In the remainder of this chapter three areas of particular importance to the
task of reimagination are discussed: issues of definition (what is special education?)
deterministic assumptions (what is ability?) and the practices they have given rise to
(what is special about special education?).

Special Education, Special Needs
Education, or Something Else?

In 1997 the International Standard Classification of Education replaced the term special
education with special needs education in order to differentiate it from the earlier
international definitions of special education as that which took place in special schools
or institutions (OECD, 2005). This change in terminology distinguished the provision of
special education, meaning intervention, from placement in special education schools
or classrooms. It is an important distinction because the concept of place had long
been associated with provision, as placement in special schools and classes was
often assumed necessary for provision. Special needs education, meaning provision,
is defined as ‘educational intervention and support designed to address special
educational needs’, wherever that intervention takes place.

The concept of special educational needs is broad, extending beyond categories
of disability, to include all children who are in need of additional support. However,
many countries still use categorical descriptions of disability for the purpose of special
educational provision though the precise nature of the categories varies. In the United
States, the Code of Federal Regulations defines special education as ‘specially
designed instruction … to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability’ (34 C.F.R. §

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300.14). Currently there are 13 categories of disability covered by the American special
education legislation.

Identifying children as having special educational needs (needing special treatment)
or needing special education (requiring additional resources) has never been a
straightforward process within education. First, children rarely fit categorical descriptions
of difficulty. Second, not all disabilities give rise to special educational needs, nor
are all special educational needs a result of a disability. A child with spina bifida may
or may not experience difficulties in learning. A child who experiences difficulty with
literacy may or may not have dyslexia. Categorical descriptions of difficulty may or may
not have educational relevance. It was for these reasons that they were abolished in
England and Wales in 1981 as a result of the recommendations of the Warnock Report
(DES, 1978).

[p. 13 ↓ ] Though a number of countries have tried to leave the notion of discrete
categories behind, some process of classification remains in place. England abandoned
the use of medical categories in favour of a classification of ‘special educational
need’ (SEN). Special education provision is that ‘which is additional to, or otherwise
different from, the educational provision made generally for children of their age in
schools maintained by the LEA, other than special schools, in the area’ (Department
for Education and Employment, 1996, § 312). In Scotland, the non-categorical nature
of special educational needs is also recognized. Recent education legislation specifies
that ‘a child or young person has additional support needs (ASN) where, for whatever
reason, the child or young person is, or is likely to be, unable without the provision of
additional support to benefit from school education provided or to be provided for the
child or young person’ (Scottish Parliament, 2004).

Whether the term special education, SEN provision or additional support is used,
there is a common understanding that special needs education involves something
‘different from’ or ‘additional to’ that which is generally available in schools. When
students are classified as needing something different or additional they become
categorically distinct from other children and are often assumed, by virtue of needing
something different or additional, to be qualitatively different as learners. This is the
central dilemma. To further complicate the picture there is evidence that in countries
without a system of special needs education, little educational provision is available

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to disabled children (see Peters, this volume). The shame and stigma associated with
disability in many countries without a system of special needs education often acts as a
barrier to the development of any kind of educational provision, as children are hidden
at home or in institutions (UNICEF, 2005). The challenge is how to make educational
provision available to all children without the shame of marking some as different or
deviant.

Deterministic Assumptions about Ability,
Difference and Deviance

Since its inception, special education has been bound by deterministic notions of
ability. The idea of one’s ‘intelligence’ or ‘ability’ as a single fixed entity that is normally
distributed throughout a population is so deeply entrenched and pervasive in Western
human thought that it generally goes unquestioned even by those who have studied this
controversial topic as part of their professional training. The debates about intelligence
and IQ (whether it exists, in what form, how to measure it, under what conditions
and when) are well known in education and psychology, and yet it is a widely used
construct for sorting learners and in attempting to understand the difficulties they
encounter in school. The belief in intelligence as something an individual is born
with, though it may be stimulated or stunted, is foundational in education despite
professional acknowledgement that it is a problematic concept. As a result, there is a
deep professional ambivalence about the notion of intelligence that reflects both the
discomfort and the usefulness in using the construct.

Gould (1996) attributes the belief in fixed ability to the pervasive influence of biological
determinism, the recurrent view that we are primarily determined by biological rather
than social or environmental factors. Though most contemporary accounts of this
position claim that biological, environmental and social factors are not isolated
from each other but interact in reciprocal ways that influence each other and
produce individual differences, Gould asserts that these complex insights have been
misunderstood:

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Errors of reductionism and biodeterminism take over in such silly
statements as ‘Intelligence is 60 percent genetic and 40 percent
environmental.’ A 60 percent (or whatever) ‘heritability’ for intelligence
means no such thing. We shall not get this issue straight until we realize
that the ‘interactionism’ we all accept does not permit such statements
as Trait x is 29 percent environmental and 71 percent genetic’ When
causative factors (more than two, by the way) interact so complexly,
and throughout growth, to produce an intricate adult [p. 14 ↓ ] being,
we cannot, in principle, parse that being’s behaviour in to quantitative
percentages of remote root causes. The adult being is an emergent
entity who must be understood at his own level and in his own totality.
The truly salient issues are malleabity and flexibility, not fallacious
parsing by percentages. A trait may be 90 percent heritable, yet entirely
malleable. A twenty-dollar pair of eyeglasses from the local pharmacy
may fully correct a defect of vision that is 100 percent heritable. (p. 34)

The Mismeasure of Man, Gould’s 1981 masterpiece (revised in 1996), presents a
critique of biodeterminsm not as a rejection of science but using the tools of science and
philosophy to reveal the fallacious reasoning that underlie the theory of a unitary, innate,
linearly rankable IQ. His analysis of the history of mental testing and measurement
shows that the notion of fixed intelligence is based on some fundamental errors of
science, notably reductionism, dichotomization, hierarchy and reification. As Gould
explains it, the drive to understand intelligence resulted in the parsing of complex
phenomena by subdividing and ranking it into grades of intelligence, for example,
normal or retarded, average or above average, smart or stupid, and so on. This in turn
led to the reification of intelligence as an entity rather than an abstract concept. Gould’s
central argument does not reject a concept of intelligence or deny individual differences
but points out that, contrary to popular belief, intelligence, expressed as IQ, has not
been verified as a single entity let alone one that can be expressed numerically. He
disagrees with IQ as an expression of the concept of intelligence

because the two most contradictory hypotheses are both fully consistent
with it: 1) that it reflects an inherited level of mental acuity (some people
do well on most tests because they are born smarter); or 2) that it
records environmental advantages and deficits (some people do well on

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most tests because they are well schooled, grew up with enough to eat,
books in the home, and loving parents. (p. 282)

It is important to remember that there are many definitions of intelligence and a number
of views about its development, measurement and assessment. Though scholarly
reviews of the concept remind us that intelligence is an attribute that reflects what a
person has learned (for example, Sattler, 2001), the popularity of IQ as a meaningful
expression of a person’s ability persists. Many educational practices are based on a
tacit assumption of fixed ability and the belief that it is normally distributed within the
population. Moreover, in many parts of the world, identification of disabilities and/or
special educational needs depends, at least in part, on some form of ability test scores,
and again this tends to reinforce the notion that groups of learners can be sorted into
students with and without special educational needs, who become those in special and
those in mainstream or general education.

Hart (1998) has argued that much educational practice, including special education
policy, standards-based reforms and classroom practice serves to reaffirm the
legitimacy of the notion of fixed ability. Schools use ‘cognitive abilities tests’ to group
pupils and target additional support, but this serves to confirm judgements about ability
rather than raise questions about intervention. In commenting on the resilience of
the concept of fixed ability, she cites Brown and McIntyre (1993), and Cooper and
McIntyre’s (1996) suggestion that the concept of fixed ability serves a practical purpose
in that it enables teachers to reduce vast amounts ‘of information about their pupils
to a manageable form that can inform and guide their teaching’ (p. 161). But is there
another way to serve such a purpose? Hart and her colleagues (this volume) suggest
what might replace the notion of fixed, differential ability in practice. Their notion of
transformability offers an alternative way of thinking about the difficulties children
experience in learning.

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Reimagining Special Education beyond
Special Needs Education

Many of those who have attempted to articulate what is ‘special’ about special
education begin with a defence of teaching practices that have been shown to work
with students identified as having disabilities. However, [p. 15 ↓ ] contrary to definitions
of special education as something ‘different from’ or ‘additional to’ that which is
available to other pupils, the strategies they identify also work with students who are not
identified as having special educational needs. There is a similar situation in the field of
psychopharmacology where the drugs used to treat presumed neurological disorders
such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also improve the functioning of those who
are not so identified (Farah et al., 2004). Tenner (2005) describes hypermotivational
syndrome, a condition where students who have not experienced difficulty in learning
use prescription drugs to attain a competitive advantage by chemically enhancing their
performance. As they note, this begs a number of questions about who should have
access to drugs that enhance neurocognitive enhancement, when and why. It also
suggests that those whose neurocognitve functioning is considered to be impaired or
deficient may not be qualitatively different physiologically to those who are considered
to have normal functioning. The same can be said about teaching strategies. If
strategies work with children who experience difficulty in learning and they work with
other children, then who should have access to them and under what conditions should
this access be available?

Critics of special education have questioned the terms and conditions of this access
and they have questioned the high price that is paid by the unintended consequences
of a dual system of special and regular education. To argue that sound teaching
practices have been developed by special educators does not refute the criticisms that
are levelled at the field. Placement in special education does have unintended side
effects. It can and often does stigmatize those who are singled out for the ‘extra help’.
Thus, to justify placement in special education on the grounds that it is better than the
alternatives is to close off the possibility of thinking differently about alternative ways of
working.

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It is the process of providing something ‘additional to’ or ‘different from’ that which is
‘otherwise available’ in school that defines special education provision. The task is not
to defend what is ‘special’ about this kind of provision but to challenge complacency
about what is not ‘otherwise available’. Reimagining special education involves rejecting
the questionable construct of normal as biologically determined, usual and good in
favour of a more nuanced understanding of difference. As Minow (1990) reminds
us, it is not difference, but the difference we make of it, that matters. Responding to
individual difference is important but how this is done is equally important. Much has
been learned about the processes of education. Our understanding of the relationship
between teachers, learners, schools as communities and their relationship to society
has deepened, creating an opportunity to think differently about the nature of special
needs education, what it is called and how it is provided. Palinscar (1997) suggested
that the sheer number of students served by special education programmes in the US
– approximately 11.5 per cent of all school aged students – renders it a part of general
education rather than one branch of a dual system of ‘general’ and ‘special’ education
as it has been seen historically. The problem is that the history of a dual system has
become part of the field’s view of itself rather than a history of the struggle to achieve
education for all.

The impact of this version of history can be clearly seen in the attempts to articulate
what is special about special education. In examining the research evidence, Cook
and Schirmer (2003) found that there was ‘substantial and compelling evidence of
effective practices developed by special educators for students with disabilities’ though
the ‘techniques that are effective for students with disabilities are generally effective
for all students’ (p. 202). They went on to conclude that ‘there is little inherent, [then]
in the content of the particular effective practices that make special education special’.
What is unique is what Vaughn and Linan-Thompson (2003) called ‘the delivery of
instruction’. In their review of notions of specialist pedagogy, Lewis and Norwich (2005)
came to a similar conclusion and suggested that rather than thinking of particular [p.
16 ↓ ] teaching strategies as differentially effective, they might be arranged along a
continuum from high to low intensity. Here again the emphasis is on application rather
than technique. If it is true that practices that are effective for students with disabilities
are effective for all students, then it cannot be concluded, as it often is, that mainstream
classroom teachers do not recognize or know to implement effective teaching practices

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for pupils with special needs. A cursory look at the content of many teacher education
and educational psychology textbooks will recommend virtually the same teaching
practices to those identified as empirically validated procedures in special education.

Arguing that the notion of a distinct special pedagogy is unhelpful, Davis and Florian
(2004) pointed out that sound practices in teaching and learning in both mainstream
and special education literatures are often informed by the same basic research,
and that certain teaching strategies developed for one purpose could be effectively
applied to other groups of children with different patterns of educational need. In fact,
attempts to define what is special about special education generally acknowledge
that effective practices in special education often originate in general education (for
example, Kavale, this volume). Cook and Schirmer (2003) list direct instruction, self-
monitoring, mnemonic instruction, strategy training, curriculum-based measurement,
applied behaviour analysis and functional assessment as effective special education
techniques. However, these are all well-known mainstream educational practices
discussed in many mainstream educational psychology and teacher education texts
(see, for example, Lefrancois, 2000; Pollard, 2002; Whitebread, 2000) though, as Cook
and Schirmer point out, little is known about their uptake in special or general education
classes.

This is not to say that all learners are the same or that there is no need to differentiate
or otherwise be concerned with the delivery of instruction. On the contrary, it is the
interest in how learners differ and the ways in which they can be helped to overcome
the difficulties they experience in learning that is what drives much research in special
education. But when the work is done in collusion with the exclusionary force that
dichotomizes learners on the basis of ‘ability’ it cannot help us to resolve the dilemma of
difference. Nor can it help with improving what is generally available in schools.

Conclusion

Seymour Sarason, in his foreword to Blatt’s (1973) Souls in Extremis, noted that in
between values and actions are our knowledge theories and conceptions. He suggested
that ‘the road to hell is not only paved with good intentions, it is often coated with a thick
layer of what is thought to be the best thinking’. It is important therefore to reconsider

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what is thought to be best thinking, not because it is necessarily wrong, but because
what may have seemed logical, just or right, no longer serves these aims, or when the
cost of unintended consequences becomes too high. In this chapter, I have argued that
the paradox of unintended consequences, of perpetuating exclusionary practices in the
name of equity, that has defined the nature of special education to date, need not do
so in the future. To move forward, however, will require some new thinking and a fuller
level of engagement with the complex processes of education in general, than scholars
have undertaken to date. Three areas of work deserve particular attention.

The right to education. Many educators accept the right to education as a human
right and align themselves with the Deweyan idea of education for democracy.
However, the right to education is situated within the purposes of education. In recent
times the concept of democracy and the principles of a market economy have been
combined, resulting in an emphasis in education on high standards and competition
(see, for example, Rouse and McLaughlin, this volume). The curriculum is driven
by international competition [p. 17 ↓ ] that places a premium on the skills thought to
produce economic advantage. In such a situation there are winners and losers. As
Nussbaum’s examination of the role of shame in social life suggests (Nussbaum, 2004),
those who lose in the educational marketplace are stigmatized by being considered to
have ‘special educational needs’. Nussbaum argues that:

modern liberal societies can make an adequate response to the
phenomena of shame only if they shift away from a very common
intuitive idea of the normal citizen that has been bequeathed to us by
the social-contract tradition so influential in the history of European
thought: the image of the citizen as productive worker, able to pay for
the benefits he receives by the contributions he makes. (pp. 176–7)

Reimagining special education requires differentiating education as a human right
from education as a means of achieving human rights, for example, economic and
development rights. Such differentiation shows how designations of special educational
need or placement in special education can be unjust, a barrier to, rather than a
fulfilment of, human rights. But as Nussbaum’s analysis points out, deeply rooted
feelings of shame about human frailty make it difficult to change accounts of difference.

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In her 2002 Tanner Lecture on Human Values, Nussbaum (2006) suggests that the idea
of the normal citizen bequeathed by the social-contract tradition itself is fundamentally
flawed because it is underpinned by a notion of reciprocity that assumes some level
of equality among those who enter into it. She argues that theories of justice based
on the social contract treat those with severe disabilities and long-term care needs
as an afterthought rather than as full citizens. So, although rights-based policies are
essential in combating stigma, they cannot be adequate if our theories of justice do not
take account of human difference. Failure to take difference into account perpetuates
the cycle of marginalizing and protecting vulnerable groups. However, accounting for
difference as part of the human condition renders obsolete the notion of normal as the
appropriate educational standard.

Challenging deterministic beliefs. In addition, deeper consideration needs to be given
to the power of the beliefs that teachers hold about human ability, teaching, learning
and specialist knowledge. Rethinking the concept of normalcy requires a consideration
of how it is conveyed in teacher education and reinforced when working with pupils
in schools. This is essential. It may not be possible to win the battle to change the
structure of schools, as so-called ‘radical reformers’ advocate, but efforts to challenge
and confront biological determinism in all it various guises must continue. As Skrtic
(1991) reminds us, though professional work is inextricably bound by the organizational
context in which it is performed, professions set their own standards. While it may not
be possible to change the organizational context of schools, the field can determine the
standards by which it aspires be held to account. To adopt an anti-determinist stance as
a professional standard sets a new agenda for research and practice that requires, as I
have tried to argue, a reimagining of what special education is and can become.

Researching teaching practice. Many who have attempted to articulate what is special
about special education cite the lack of evidence that classroom teachers use ‘validated’
strategies when ‘including’ pupils with special educational needs (for example, Cook
& Schirmer, 2003). Based on the logic of the evidence-based practice movement in
medicine, the demand for more ‘scientific’ educational research is seen as the way to
improve both practice and outcomes (Howe, 2005). Yet the scientific research base
in education has been ‘stubbornly indeterminate’ (Huberman, 1993, p. 26) limiting its
usefulness to improve practice. Studies of how teachers do their work (for example,
Brown & McIntyre, 1993; Little & McLaughlin, 1993) suggest that its complexity and

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demands have not been fully appreciated or captured by many experimental or quasi-
experimental research designs. As Huberman (1992) notes:

[p. 18 ↓ ] Essentially teachers are artisans working primarily alone,
with a variety of new and cobbled together materials in a personally
designed work environment. They gradually develop a repertoire of
nstructional skills and strategies … through a somewhat haphazard
process of trial and error, usually when one or other segment of the
repertoire does not work repeatedly … Teachers spontaneously go
about tinkering with their classrooms. (p. 136)

Though some would say that such a seemingly haphazard process is insufficient and
inadequate for teaching pupils who experience difficulties in learning, it has been shown
that teachers who are adept at embedding responsiveness to individual need within
the process of whole-class teaching are able to sustain inclusive practice (Jordan
& Stanovich, 1998). In other words, it is when teachers persist in tinkering that they
expand their repertoire of responses to the difficulties students encounter in learning.
Perhaps it is a mistake to deride teachers’ practice as unsystematic and lacking in
rigour (Hammersley, 2001). McIntyre (2005) has argued that the kind of knowledge
that is produced by research is different from that which classroom teachers need.
He outlines a series of steps for bridging the gap between research and practice that
calls on teachers to articulate fully their craft knowledge and researchers to understand
better the indirect influence of the knowledge they generate. The question is not why
teachers do not make better use of research but how to develop research strategies
that more fully capture the complexity of classroom practice when teaching diverse
groups of learners. Such strategies can help to generate new understandings about
how to respond when pupils experience difficulty that do not continue to depend on
designations of special educational need.

These three things, clearer thinking about the fulfilment of the right to education, the
challenge to deterministic beliefs about ability, and a shift in focus from differences
among learners, to learning for all, set an agenda for special needs education that can
change the nature of what special education is and might become in the future. In time it
may also help change the organization of educational provision and prevailing concepts
of schooling so that the reimagining of special education becomes a reimagining

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diversity in education. Then research on the difficulties students experience in learning
might lead to pedagogical practices that are inclusive of all learners.

LaniFlorian

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