This essay grew out of a mutual frustration over differences between two fields within education. In the following discussion, special education professor, Leah Wasburn-Moses, argues that special and general education can resolve their differences. Her colleague, teacher education professor, Alan M. Frager, argues that the differences have become…

Several issues make standardized assessment of ELLs a challenge and the information provided by these assessments unreliable. However, as educators, they do need to know how students are doing, what gains they are making, where gaps in their understanding exist, and what types of instructional strategies and topics need to be introduced to…

Mainstreamed students should be graded in terms of their growth rather than by comparison with nonhandicapped students. Fair evaluation procedures include determining terminal and enabling objectives; pretesting and functional assessment; monitoring progress; measuring achievement; and transferring the evaluation into a meaningful grade. (SK)

Problems involved in grading mainstreamed students are examined, and solutions are suggested, including communication between regular class and resource teachers, use of a combination of corrective feedback and quantitative scores, use of individualized education program performance objectives, and emphasis on intra-individual assessment. (CL)

An interview with university professor E. Gotts and regular education teacher K. Hargrove focuses on mainstreaming mildly handicapped students at the secondary level. (CL)

Thomas Hehir, special education chief of Chicago Public Schools, is evangelist of integrating children with disabilities into regular classrooms. By completely reorganizing department viewed as political patronage dumping ground, Hehir has made remarkable progress in handling large number of children awaiting evaluation and placement in special…

Suggests a popular model of service delivery for students with disabilities is full inclusion. Suggests regular classroom teachers should identify and focus on included students' strengths and carefully examine students' academic and social gains. Argues that school personnel should work in collaborative teams in which skills, experience, talents,…

A position is stated which contends that the least restrictive environment for a given child should not necessarily imply "mainstreaming." Rather, decisions about school placement should be made on the basis of the individual child's needs and on the availability of professional support by qualified persons after the placement. (Author)

Contending that traditional grading practices victimize the mainstreamed handicapped student, this essay analyzes the uses of grades and recommends a flexible grading system based on the use of grades to assist mainstreamed students to achieve a sense of competence. (MJL)

The introduction to several articles on measurement issues in supported education for severely handicapped students stresses the importance of measurement in evaluating outcomes and identifying variables responsible for those outcomes. (DB)

This paper notes the need for an empirically based model for helping students with disabilities make transitions toward less restrictive settings and exit special education. Emphasis is on defining the least restrictive environment, identifying students with mild disabilities who are potential candidates for reintegration, assessing the…

This paper argues for a rethinking of what it means to "do science" in language minority classrooms by putting forward a view of science as a sense-making practice. Before outlining a sense-making perspective on scientific practice, some familiar images of what science is like in many classrooms are invoked in order to lay out a few critical…

The authors consider reasons for increased emphasis on measuring pupil progress in special education, the use made of pupil progress data, the desirable qualities of measurement systems, and some problems associated with current commercially available data systems. Techniques for measurement are discussed, based on the requirements of P.L. 94-142,…

The National Association of School Psychologists' position on 3-year evaluations for handicapped students calls for a flexible, individualized approach to student evaluations, rather than a standardized testing system. Specific issues to be addressed by these evaluations are discussed, including effectiveness of the student's individual education…

The special education referral-placement phenomenon has reached crisis proportions in New York City. Problems affecting effectiveness of approaches include: inadequate state and federal funding; fragmented decision making; lack of uniform terminology and standardized criteria for special education; lack of training, support services, and resources…