The 2017 Supreme Court ruling in "Endrew vs. Douglas County" charged educators to provide evidence toward the attainment of Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals beyond "de minimus" educational benefit. The purpose of this article is to present two methods that may be useful for supporting IEP teams in evaluating progress…

Middle school learners with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, struggle with organizing their thoughts, expressing their ideas, spelling, the use of content vocabulary, the mechanics of writing, fluency, and overall, the primary elements of written expression (Graham et al., 2015). While writing complicates learning for students…

Curriculum-based measurement in reading (CBM-R) was developed in the 1980s and has been established as a valid means to measure students' progress towards acquiring reading skills in response to instruction (Ball & Christ, 2012). Efficiency of administration and cost-effectiveness add to the appeal of CBM-R. As a result, CBM-R is a popular…

The 2017 Supreme Court decision "Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District" highlighted the importance of monitoring students' progress toward appropriately challenging individualized educational program (IEP) annual goals and making changes to students' educational programs when needed. The process for setting an IEP goal should be…

Despite challenges educators face when assessing needs of students with significant cognitive disabilities, providing a fair and accurate assessment of skills is crucial to a student's future success. Dismal outcomes for these students indicate the current transition planning process is weak and not appropriate. Research suggests meaningful…

Phoneme discrimination is the ability to detect subtle similarities and differences between phonemes. Phoneme discrimination is a strong predictor of reading development and poor phoneme discrimination may predict reading disabilities (Lyytinen et al., 2004). The ability to discriminate phonemes may be an even more critical skill for Emergent…

This white paper offers an approach for using a theory of action as an outline to develop the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP) Phase II evaluation questions and plan that will guide the SSIP work in Phase III and beyond. Key areas of focus include generating evaluation questions at each level of outcomes, identifying essential steps and…

To support students with disabilities who do not respond to typically effective reading intervention, special education teachers are expected to implement evidence-based practices for intensifying intervention. Data-based individualization is an effective, evidence-based practice recommended in research to intensify intervention, but requires…

For Wisconsin schools and districts, implementing an equitable multi-level system of supports means providing equitable services, practices, and resources to every learner based upon responsiveness to effective instruction and intervention. In this system, high quality instruction, strategic use of data, and collaboration interact within a…

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many school districts have moved from brick-and-mortar instruction to remote instruction with little planning time and limited resources. Rural localities, already facing barriers and hardships, attempted to provide special education and related services in accordance with rapidly changing state and federal…

Similar to many states, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) does not mandate the use of specific literacy screening or progress monitoring tools. LDOE sought a measurement approach that resulted in accurate and reliable information on student progress and outcomes, yet respected local control. This state spotlight presents initial…

Accessibility is a hot topic in online education these days. Despite the increased focus on accessibility, most discussions of creating "accessible" online courses and elearning simply focus on adding alternative text to images and captions to video. In this article, we argue that online educators and workplace learning professionals…

In a pioneering effort to improve school accountability and move it beyond a simple recitation of high-stakes test scores, New York City developed the Progress Report (PR), a set of metrics that includes the overall "A" through "F" letter grade that the Department of Education (DOE) began issuing annually to most public schools…