Perspectives on educating persons with disabilities and the move toward inclusive education and school restructuring are considered. Trends in the number of students with disabilities and placement patterns are briefly examined. Four categories of students that represent 95 percent of students served are identified: specific learning disabilities,…

This theme issue reports on a national survey to identify inclusive education programs for students with disabilities. First, chief state school officers were surveyed to identify local school districts where inclusion activities were taking place, including information about policy, funding, and evaluation. Next, districts identified were…

Grouping students by ability into courses with distinct curricula, or "tracking" as it is called in middle and high schools, has provoked a furious debate among educational scholars and practitioners. Research on tracking invariably characterizes the practice as a school-level, unitary phenomenon; schools are depicted as either tracked…

A research project was undertaken to determine: (1) the relationships between scores on the Florida College-Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) and prior scores on corresponding entry placement tests; (2) the relationships between course completion patterns and performance on CLAST subtests; and (3) the relationships between grades in reading,…

As part of a larger study of policy implementation, this paper discusses the changes in five Maryland high schools regarding the reform of graduation requirements. The study hypothesized that tracking systems have a powerful influence on educational experiences and that reform intended to change those experiences would be mediated by track. In…

In an effort to determine the correlation between assessment placement test scores and grade point average (GPA), a study was conducted at Terra State Community College (TSCC), in Ohio. A sample population was constructed of 93 potential students who took the American College Testing Service Assessment of Student Skills for Entry Transfer (ASSET)…

This study assessed the ability of high school advanced placement history students to choose the essay topic on which they can get the highest score. A second, equally important, question was whether the score on the chosen topic was more highly related to other indicators of proficiency in history than the score on the unchosen topic. Overall,…

Comprised primarily of data tables, this report presents findings from a survey conducted by Minnesota's North Hennepin Community College (NHCC) to determine outcomes for the 779 graduates from 1994-95. Following an introduction describing the study methodology and indicating that 672 graduates returned completed surveys, the first section…

This brochure summarizes law, policy, and practice concerning inclusion policies for students with specific learning disabilities (LD). It summarizes requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act concerning the availability of a continuum of placement options and placement in the least…

In a few years, the United States is going to have the largest number of teenagers it has ever had; at the same time, crime among teenagers is rising, and the recreational and learning activities and jobs that teenagers need for positive development are becoming scarcer in inner city and rural areas. Efforts in youth programs during the past 25…

This report contains an overview of the General Psychoeducational Program Network and four research papers on the education of students with Serious Emotional Disturbances (SED). The first paper, "Academic Progress of SED students Served in the Georgia Psychoeducational Program Network" (Thomas H. Cope), reports on a study which found…

This paper briefly addresses critical issues in documenting studies of the effectiveness of inclusive education for students with disabilities and includes a summary table of the existing literature and guidelines for problem solving about inclusion. The importance of sound methodology in documenting effects of inclusion and the dangers of value…

These proceedings addressed the question of the future of the classified honors degree in the United Kingdom with emphasis on improvements and alternatives. The meeting addressed four main issues: (1) the current presentation of final results in terms of only four categories (first, upper and lower second, and third class honors); (2) concerns…

It is only a slight exaggeration to describe the test theory that dominates educational measurement today as the application of twentieth-century statistics to nineteenth-century psychology. Sophisticated estimation procedures, new techniques for missing-data problems, and theoretical advances into latent-variable modeling have appeared--all…

Critics of academic tracking argue that it perpetuates society's existing social structure, which is unfairly organized and limited by race and class. This paper presents findings of a study that compared teaching practices in tracked and detracked high school classes in a small city in upstate New York. Four social-studies and four science…