Both No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act require educators to use research-validated practices in classrooms. And yet education, special education, and the field of emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) continue to show large gaps in the consistent use of best practices. The authors propose that the research-to-practice gap can be traced to the lack of clear, consistent criteria to determine what are research-based practices and the absence of support structures to assist educators in implementing such practices. A four-phase review process was developed based on current recommendations from the E/BD literature, and a brief review of classroom-based strategies was conducted. Four practices were identified as being research based. The authors discuss each of these practices and call for the field of special education, and E/BD in particular, to develop and adopt a universal set of standards to determine research-based practice and look to school systems to support their use.

The importance of effective instruction on student academic and social achievement has been well documented. Strong classroom management and the use of high rates of opportunities to respond (OTR) have been two advocated classroom practices to positively impact student performance. This article presents an analysis of data collected across 35 general education classrooms in four elementary schools, assessing instructional variables associated with OTR. The relationship among OTR, measures of classroom management, and student work products was analyzed across Title and non-Title schools. Results indicate that teachers in the present study used components of OTR at rates similar to past research, but there were clear differences among Title I and non-Title schools. In addition, as teacher use of key instructional variables increased or decreased, other key variables posited as necessary by the literature often suffered. Implications for future research are discussed for students in high- and low-risk general education classrooms.

Scaling of evidence-based practices in education has received extensive discussion but little empirical evaluation. We present here a descriptive summary of the experience from seven states with a history of implementing and scaling School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) over the past decade. Each state has been successful in establishing at least 500 schools using SWPBIS across approximately a third or more of the schools in their state. The implementation elements proposed by Sugai, Horner, and Lewis (2009) and the stages of implementation described by Fixsen, Naoom, Blase, Friedman, and Wallace (2005) were used within a survey with each element assessed at each stage by the SWPBIS coordinators and policy makers in the seven states. Consistent themes from analysis of the responses were defined and confirmed with the surveyed participants. Results point to four central areas of state “capacity” as being perceived as critical for a state to move SWPBIS to scale (administrative leadership and funding, local training and coaching capacity, behavioral expertise, and local evaluation capacity), and an iterative process in which initial implementation success (100–200 demonstrations) is needed to recruit the political and fiscal support required for larger scaling efforts.

This study examines predictors of abandonment of evidence-based practices through descriptive analyses of extant state-level training data, fidelity of implementation data, and nationally reported school demographic data across 915 schools in three states implementing school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS). Schools included in this study were tracked for a 5-year period after initial training, yet some elected to abandon SWPBIS at various times during implementation. Results showed that a small proportion of schools in the sample abandoned SWPBIS (7%). Logistic regression analysis identified school locale as the only statistically significant predictor of SWPBIS abandonment with schools located in cities being more likely to abandon. Results are discussed in terms of addressing types of schools at greater risk for abandonment and the importance of state-level training and coaching support.

The purpose of this review is to present factors that impede and promote successful transition to kindergarten, with a focus on the specific needs of students with problem behavior. The review addresses competencies that teachers report are critical for success in kindergarten, traditional transition practices, and challenges in implementing transition practices. Suggestions are provided to begin to attend to some of the issues affecting successful transition for children with challenging behavior and include an overarching framework to better support transition practices and specific suggestions for appropriate supports.