Kristi Santi

This book examines the critical issues associated with the topic of social justice in primary and secondary education. Understanding the challenges related to educational inequity requires a comprehensive and systematic re-examination of educational reform; specifically, this book defines social justice education, offers different perspectives from major thought leaders and examines the challenges faced by different populations when it comes to receiving equal opportunity and treatment. Emphasis will be placed on programs, approaches and strategies to increasingly teach tolerance, respect, and understanding within and between these groups and members of the majority culture. The focus, then, will be on educational practices designed to prepare students from diverse backgrounds to be active, contributing, and fully participatory members of our contemporary society. This book is most appropriate for preservice and veteran teachers, school and educational psychologists, related special education service professionals, educational administrators, guidance counselors, graduate education professors, policymakers, parents, and student leaders who wish to gain a better understanding of how social justice can and should become a valuable part of the educational landscape.

Written by an experienced team of practitioners and scholars, this text attempts to fill the gap in texts that specifically address the needs of Learning Disabilities (LD) students in the socioemotional and mental health domains. By providing a foundational understanding of some of the salient issues facing students with learning disabilities, we hope to empower all of those who are working to ensure their success by providing the particular challenges that LD students and their families may face, and strategies and best practices for building creativity, resiliency, prosocial behavior, and positive mental health. As a practitioner and family-oriented text, this book seeks to offer a truncated review of relevant literature followed by suggestions to guide practice.

Increasing numbers of students with disabilities who have been included in high school have transitioned to college over the past several decades. While many of those students are eligible for accommodations in high school, fewer of those same students with disabilities request or receive accommodations in college. The purpose of this chapter is to present the need to begin the transition process early, present the self-knowledge and skills that students need to support their success, outline the language, laws, and culture of college that students must negotiate, and propose the use of the summary of performance as an initial solution to the challenge of transition. Inclusive education has done much to spur changes in higher education and disability support. The supports are available in higher education. Students need the knowledge and skills to access them, use them, and self-advocate with their college counselors and instructors to meet their goals.

Written by an experienced team of practitioners and scholars, this text attempts to fill the gap in texts that specifically address the needs of Learning Disabilities (LD) students in the socioemotional and mental health domains. By providing a foundational understanding of some of the salient issues facing students with learning disabilities, we hope to empower all of those who are working to ensure their success by providing the particular challenges that LD students and their families may face, and strategies and best practices for building creativity, resiliency, prosocial behavior, and positive mental health. As a practitioner and family-oriented text, this book seeks to offer a truncated review of relevant literature followed by suggestions to guide practice.

The inclusion of students with special needs in general education settings has become an essential component of education. Including all students in the least restrictive environment to the maximum extent possible is the law and an innate human right. However, research reveals that some teachers do not have positive attitudes toward including students with disabilities. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss findings from a study that uncovered factors behind teachers' attitudes toward inclusion. The general findings and themes are discussed. The chapter concludes with a list of resources teachers can access without payment to help them better understand students with disabilities and ways in which the teacher can more easily develop an inclusive, inviting environment for all.

Digitization and the globalization of English have made it possible to incorporate different forms of digital technology into the infrastructure of English language programs. However, there are no clear criteria in the existing literature to identify and evaluate appropriate language-learning technology tools. To fill the gap, this project proposed empirically supported guidelines in a rubric called the ULTIA Rubric to facilitate and accelerate the process of identifying and evaluating technology-supported language-learning tools. The ULTIA Rubric has its basis in the major components of the five concepts of universal design for learning (UDL), learning science (LS), technology acceptance model (TAM), intelligent tutoring system (ITS), and automatic speech recognition (ASR). The rubric can function as a practical solution for program administrators, instructors, and English language learners (ELLs) who are seeking a reliable roadmap to evaluate language-learning software.

Empathic Teaching: Promoting Social Justice in the Contemporary Classroom is written for those who are committed to employing social justice practices in the classroom. The intent is to educate the next generation to value tolerance and to have respect and empathy for others in society. While this tome will largely focus on understanding the role that equity should play in P-12 education, it will do so with an acute awareness that there are myriad factors that influence student engagement and the motivation to learn. Although some of the subjects under consideration have been written about elsewhere broadly, this tome will offer a unique contribution by examining each from a social equity perspective. As schools move to ensure a more inclusive and well-rounded student body, this book will be a substantial asset to anyone interested in advancing a social justice agenda.

Universal screening is the first mechanism by which students are identified as at risk of failure in the context of multitiered systems of supports. This study examined the validity and diagnostic accuracy of a reading computer-adaptive test as a screener to identify state achievement test performance for third through fifth graders ( N = 1,696). Single time points and slopes within year and longitudinally were examined. Validity results for single points were moderate (.60–.79, p < .002). Validity for slopes and the state test were weak or not significant. Diagnostic accuracy cut scores that maximized sensitivity and specificity yielded high accuracy for single points whereas sensitivity was inadequate for slopes. Practical implications and future directions are presented.

ABSTRACT In this era of increased testing and expanding high stakes accountability systems, we need to remember the purpose for assessment. We want our schools to improve, and for this to happen, we have to do better at helping kids learn. Some of the tests teachers administer cannot help them much in this effort. Standardized measures (like those administered by states) and the outcome measures required under the No Child Left Behind law fall into this category. They are designed more to measure student achievement levels than to guide classroom instruction. However, many of the assessments teachers give are designed to guide classroom instruction; this makes them powerful instructional tools. To realize their potential, though, teachers need to understand and use these assessments well. Bringing teachers together, providing them guidance and support, and developing a process for studying and using assessment data is one way to move our schools forward. The primary challenge of implementing large-scale school reforms, including assessments, is to bring them into “the core of schooling” so that teachers transform their beliefs and practices about teaching, rather than layer new practices on top of old beliefs (Elmore, 1995). What is needed, Elmore (1995, 1996) argues, is to permeate the core of teaching by establishing the networks and incentives that will open teachers to new ideas. This assistance is especially important because teachers mediate instruction; that is, their ability to understand their students’ skills and needs affects both what they teach and how they teach (Cohen & Ball, 1999). In general, teachers are more likely to use assessments when they find the information valuable to their understanding of student instructional needs, and when instructional leadership exists to help them understand how the changes are part of larger school improvement and (when technology is involved) track how the technology fits teachers’ needs (Hawkins, Kulp, Gilbert, Mesa, & Schwarz, 1999; Paris, Paris, & Carpenter, 2001).

The focus of this Springer Literacy Edition is to provide the most current research regarding instruction in the area of comprehension for middle and high school students. Each author of the first four chapters will focus on a core subject area in middle and high school and discuss the current research along with instructional implications for this particular population. Core subject areas are defined as social studies/history, science, English language arts, and mathematics. Three additional chapters on special education, English language learners, and assessment will describe the current practices to ensure academic achievement remains the central focus for the all learners.

Assessment for accountability purposes is a current theme in education. While many would argue that accountability provides an opportunity for schools and districts to take stock of how effectively students are learning and to disaggregate findings for student groups to ...

Scaling Assessment-Driven Instruction Using the Internet and Handheld Computers1 Barbara R. Foorman, Kristi L. Santi, and Larry Berger This chapter discusses the challenges of scaling technological innovations for the Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI), an early ...