With the increase of anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion educational policies and guidelines at local school boards and state-level agencies, campus administrators have seen an increase in complex situations as they concentrate their attention on supporting the educational needs of students from marginalized communities, including those with…

The need for teachers who have both the knowledge and skills to teach students in special education, especially students who are emergent bilinguals, is more critical today than ever before. Assumptions about the assurances outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have led to practices that have limited the scope of…

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of Oregon's public schools. The purpose of the Statewide Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving the goals referred to in ORS 329.015. This report also provides a tool that makes…

Since the adoption of the "No Child Left Behind Act," states have had to adopt rigorous, K-12 academic science standards to secure federal funding. Corresponding to this legislation and a concurrent call for equitable, relevant science standards, the "Next Generation Science Standards" were developed. As the country learns to…

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a scientifically validated framework that has been included in policy like the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 and the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008. However, studies have pointed out the variability in definitions and implementation surrounding UDL. In order to clarify this conversation,…

This collection of resources for postsecondary institutions is designed to assist in planning for a successful and equitable return to schools and campuses. The resources include fact sheets, Q&As, letters to educators, and other materials explaining the obligations that postsecondary schools have under the federal civil rights laws enforced…

As classrooms become more diverse and inclusive, classroom management is a consistent issue that new teachers, in particular, special education teachers report being ill-prepared for. The enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) and continued punishment referral patterns have given rise to concerns regarding the overuse of…

This article aims to highlight the challenges faced by schools when addressing a wide range of learning needs--specifically English language learners (ELL) and students with exceptionalities. Both populations of students have a history of being isolated rather than included with sameaged peers due to non-traditional learning profiles. Many…

With the growth of online learning, as well as the use of technology to supplement in-person learning, technology has enabled many opportunities for creating highly interactive and highly accessible learning environments. However, it is important to design learning environments to be accessible to diverse learners and learners with disabilities.…

In US public schools, linguistic diversity is growing rapidly with an increasing number of students who are learning English. Federal and state policies lay the foundation for language acquisition through (re)classification processes for English Learners (ELs). However, the classification process runs the risk of establishing separate services for…

In recent years and especially over the past 12 months, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the unrest after the death of George Floyd, community colleges have been making efforts to view and rethink their missions through an equity lens. These efforts have included turning this prism toward institutional operations like student services, human…

This resource collection features a selection of Office for Civil Rights (OCR) guidance and resources that may be useful to elementary and secondary schools throughout the school year. For each resource, there is a brief description and a link to full information online. Each topic area includes a combination of specific and general resources.

The long-standing effort to desegregate schools in the United States has been fostered, in part, by the development of magnet schools, which were launched in the 1960s to offer appealing choices of educational programs that could attract an integrated population of families. Magnet schools are public elementary or secondary schools that seek to…

This paper provides an analysis of inclusive education policies across international, and Anglo-American national and provincial/state jurisdictions to reveal how policies discursively construct inclusion under current, increasingly neoliberal conditions. In making this case, the paper draws upon primary UNESCO and Organisation for Economic…

New assessments aligned to college- and career-ready standards are a major step forward in accessibility and accommodation features for students with disabilities and English language learners. Designed by two consortia of states--the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, and the Smarter Balanced Assessment…