This essay is based on a keynote address, "A Tour of the Horizons," presented to the 2012 annual conference of the Association of College Educators/Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ACE/DHH), held in Atlantic Beach, Florida.

Federal and state initiatives (No Child Left Behind, 2001) require schools and districts to set high standards for student growth and achievement. Currently, student growth and progress are measured in Louisiana via statewide achievement tests. In 4th and 8th grades these assessments are considered to be 'high-stakes', as promotion and retention…

Schools often administer brief intelligence tests as the first step in the identification of students who are cognitively gifted. However, brief measures are often used without consideration of underlying constructs or the psychometric properties of the measures and without regard to the links between screening decisions and educational…

Psychologist Robert J. Sternberg's conviction that American standardized testing does not accurately reflect a child's intelligence or potential is far from theoretical. As an elementary school student in the 1950s, he scored poorly on the ubiquitous IQ test of the time, freezing up when the school psychologist entered the room. Thankfully for…

The final regulations of the "No Child Left Behind" Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2007a, 2007b) indicate that a small group of students with disabilities can be counted as proficient through an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards. This new policy gives individualized education program teams the…

Universal screening measures are an integral component of any tiered system of instructional delivery. Recent studies of screening measures have often excluded examinations of bias in predictive validity. The present study examined a common screening instrument for evidence of bias in predictive validity across the four disaggregation categories…

Response to Intervention (RtI) is a general education initiative that takes place prior to evaluation for placement in special education. Essentially, the first two tiers of RtI require general education teachers to use research-based instruction with all students and then to evaluate the effectiveness of that instruction. Given that the use of…

By the end of the kindergarten, students are expected to possess early academic skills as well as the social maturity to be successful in first grade. Students leaving kindergarten without these readiness skills are sometimes held back in first grade or referred for a special education evaluation in later grades if they fail to make adequate…

Educators in the Chula Vista Elementary School District determined what kind of instruction students needed through a "response to intervention" (RTI) process, which provides extra help to struggling students with an aim of reducing the number of referrals to special education. As RTI catches on throughout the country, the district is on…

Under the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind legislation, screening for reading risk has become routine in kindergarten. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of the timing of kindergarten assessment and the type of support provided to teachers to translate assessment results to instruction. Sixty-two schools…

This article describes the development of a process for universal screening and progress monitoring in reading at the elementary level that can be used in a school-wide Response to Intervention (RtI) model. University personnel worked with teachers and administration at an urban elementary school to develop and implement the model in response to a…

Reading difficulties and disabilities present serious and potentially lifelong challenges. Children who do not read well are more likely to be retained a grade in school, drop out of high school, become a teen parent, or enter the juvenile justice system. Building on the extant research and seminal studies, including the National Reading Panel and…

Written by leading special education researchers with the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities and the University of Kansas, this comprehensive yet accessible reference provides administrators with practical guidelines for launching RTI in their schools. Highlighting the powerful role that RTI can play in prevention, early…

In this article, the author presents the story of Hope--an education student who, despite many successes, was consistently unable to pass the reading portion of a screening test (Praxis I) that is a prerequisite to student teaching in her home state of Georgia. Hope's only trouble was the fact that she was a slow reader due to attention deficit…

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, reauthorized as Title X, Part C, of the No Child Left Behind Act, requires schools to enroll homeless students immediately, even if they do not have the documents normally required for enrollment such as school records, medical records, proof of residency, or others. Unfortunately for many homeless…