A longitudinal, 3-year study investigated the participation of African-American parents of 24 preschoolers in special education programs in a large urban school district. Data were collected through ethnographic interviews with parents and professionals, observations of conferences, and examination of students' documents. Despite current perceptions of low levels of participation by African-American parents, the data show consistent initial efforts by families to support their children's schooling, eventually giving way to disillusionment with the separations created by special education placements and the lack of avenues for parental influence. The article explores ways for professionals to move from preoccupation with compliance to true communication.

Suspension and expulsion are widely used to exclude students with and without disabilities who present problem behaviors in school, despite contentious legal debate and evidence associating these methods with high ecological stress and problematic developmental outcomes. Using selected participant data ( N = 1,824) from the SEELS study, the study authors entered multilevel predictors into logistic regression analyses to identify factors associated with higher likelihood of exclusion (HLE) among students in three high-exclusion disabilitygroups:emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD), other health impairment (OHI) with a diagnosis of attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and learning disability (LD). When the authors examined disability groups together, HLE was more likely among students with EBD and ADHD compared to students with LD. HLE was also associated with African American ethnicity, older age, male gender, low socio-economic status, multiple school changes, urban schooling, and having parents who expressed low school satisfaction. However, when the authors examined the disability groups individually, predictor profiles varied markedly by disability type.The authors discuss implications for school programs.

MS. MACK: This is Mary Mack from the University of Minnesota. I am going to introduce the call and deal with some housekeeping details. Then I am going to turn it over to Ann Clapper, who is an Associate Director for the National Center on Secondary Education and Transition here at the University of Minnesota. And Ann will introduce the speakers and we will get going. It sounds like we have a lot of people on the line and I am really excited about that. The title of today's teleconference is Accessing the General Curriculum: Including Students with Disabilities in Standards-Based Reform. I am just going to turn the call over to Ann. The process is the speakers will do a presentation and then there will be an opportunity for questions from the audience. MS. CLAPPER: Hi. This is Ann Clapper from the University of Minnesota. Our presenters for today's teleconference are Dr. Margaret McLaughlin from the University of Maryland, and Dr. Victor Nolet from Western Washington University. Drs. McLaughlin and Nolet co-authored the book by the same title as our presentation today, Accessing the General Curriculum: Including Students with Disabilities in Standards-Based Reform.

The education of students with disabilities in today's schools is being shaped by 2 very powerful laws: the 2004 Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004) and the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Title I, No Child Left Behind Act). These 2 laws are changing our conceptions about special education. Both of these laws are sources of a great deal of ambiguity and frustration among special education professionals mostly resulting from the tension that exists between the core policy goals and assumptions underlying Title I and IDEA. This article explores the sources of tension between the 2 major policies. Specifically, the article traces the evolution of the meaning of educational equity as defined in K–12 education and compares that to the underlying policy of a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). The article concludes with a proposal for reconsidering what constitutes equity for students with disabilities and a model that acknowledges different interpretations of equity for some students with disabilities.

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