For many years, the General Educational Development (GED) credential has been viewed as the high school dropout's safety net. Though not as well regarded as the high school diploma, the GED has opened up educational and economic opportunity for millions of young people and adults who did not finish high school. Nearly 680,000 people take the full…

High dropout rates and low on-time graduation rates across the United States suggest that for many students proper transitioning is not taking place from middle schools to high schools. This study was designed to examine what measure perceptions and expectations held by students, faculty, and parents dealing with transition from middle school to…

This paper describes an experiential learning activity designed for a New England university freshmen course, BUS101-Marketing First-Year Experience (FYE). The purpose of the activity is to teach basic principles of marketing, develop a general perspective of business, and provide FYE activities that facilitate the college transition. The specific…

This paper examines the effects of a two-day working conference on attitudes and dispositions of educators and other professionals who have a responsibility to students with disabilities. During this professional meeting, participants shared their experiences and suggested strategies to better educate students with sensory and mobility…

Despite the potential contributions of adolescent employment to postschool success, many youth who experience emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBD) do not access these opportunities. This intervention study examined the effects of a package of strategies designed to increase access to summer work experiences. Fifty-seven youth with EBD from…

Although summer offers a natural context for adolescents to gain community-based work experience, little is known about the extent to which youth with disabilities are accessing these transition-related opportunities. We examined the summer employment experiences of 220 youth with high-incidence disabilities at two time points. Although more than…

In many industrial nations, the processes of transition from education or training to employment are very important. Using Japan as a case study, this article considers these processes from an external perspective. The main criterion used is the issue of stratification within the education and training system. A detailed analysis of the transition…

Young people with learning and behaviour disabilities often leave school without transition planning. When planning does occur, there is generally a discrepancy between the goals of students, parents, and professionals. Students requiring higher levels of support may not even be included in the planning process and transition plans are often…

Youth and Adolescents with Special Needs (YASN) face many challenges during transition into employment. Although most of their physical challenges are secondary, yet they call for attention since most of them are hired for blue collar jobs. Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) should be adapted to prepare them addressing the physical job-demands,…

This study examined the outcomes of 409 students with mental retardation or multiple disabilities from 177 school districts in a Great Lakes state. These students with intellectual disabilities were interviewed at exit and 1 year following graduation. The authors developed and tested three regression models--two to predict full-time employment and…

Until the past decade, college wasn't much of an option for students who have significant intellectual impairments. Vanderbilt University's Next Steps program is one of many created for students with severe cognitive disabilities in the last 10 years. The programs have grown in number from about 15 in 2002 to almost 170 now, as tracked by Think…

Concern that too many Australian children, particularly Indigenous children, are not ready to start school has spurred a series of changes to the pre-school sector. Included among these changes are nationwide mass surveying and the introduction of a unified curriculum framework together with moves towards standardised entry assessment. Focusing on…

Few studies of school leadership succession document the processes of continuity and change, especially within situations where there has been a strong tradition of tenure of principal, within a "quality" school. This article examines how a new principal with a commitment towards notions of Learning Community Schools, "quality" teaching and…

This article describes a secondary analysis of variables from the National Longitudinal Transition Survey 2 (NLTS-2) database. Specifically, students with intellectual disability (ID) were compared to students with other disabilities regarding post-school transition goals listed on their IEPs/Transition Plans, contacts/referrals made to outside…

This article reports the outcomes of a multiyear study comparing the English and Spanish language and reading performance of Spanish-dominant children randomly assigned, beginning in kindergarten, to transitional bilingual education (TBE) or structured English immersion (SEI) for periods of up to 5 years. On the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and…