Special Education and Individualized Academic Growth: A Longitudinal Assessment of Outcomes for Students With Disabilities

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of participating in special education on the academic outcomes of students with disabilities. A sample of 575 students from a large, urban school district were followed longitudinally as they transitioned between general and special education to evaluate whether receiving special education services was associated with improvements in academic trajectories. Using student fixed effects models of within-person change over time, individuals’ performance on standardized tests were compared before, during, and/or after special education placement. Results indicate that test scores of students with disabilities improved after being enrolled in special education. Additionally, students exiting special education exhibited a sustained trajectory of academic growth, suggesting that participation in special education in this district was associated with enduring improvements over time.

Design Thinking for Challenges and Change in K–12 and Teacher Education

“…Regarding pedagogical approaches, design thinking is applied in K-12 education to promote collaborative and creative problem solving among learners across the curriculum (Carroll et al, 2010), with a strong presence in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects (a typical application of design thinking is within programming projects; see, for example, Koh et al, 2015). It aligns with social constructivist, sociocultural and relational theories of learning (i.e., Bandura, 1986;Vygotsky, 1934Vygotsky, /1978, reflective (Schön, 1983), experiential (Kolb, 1984), and, finally, authentic learning (Herrington, 2011). As such, design thinking favors pedagogical strategies that engage in active learning, such as project-based learning (PBL), inquiry-based learning, or problem-based learning (although there are distinct differences between PBL and design thinking, see Lord, 2019).…”

“…Undoubtedly, with COVID-19, a global and historical pandemic, not only does this truism persist, but the state of affairs exasperates many existing educational concerns—inequities and issues around exclusion are magnified. Challenges facing K–12 public schools involve classroom size, poverty, bullying, learning quality, and student attitudes and behaviors (Burkhauser et al, 2012; Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, 2018; Hurwitz et al, 2020; Kainz, 2019; Middleton, 2020). An expanded list includes district policies, the lack of sufficient resources (including money, time, and staffing), school crime and safety, technology in education, and student performance on standardized testing assessments (Burkhauser et al, 2012; Hussar et al, 2020; Johnson et al, 2019; Middleton, 2020; Mason-Williams et al, 2020; Thibodeaux et al, 2015; Wyse et al, 2020).…”

From Interpretation to Instructional Practice: A Network Study of Early-Career Teachers’ Sensemaking in the Era of Accountability Pressures and Common Core State Standards

“…The term θ j represents 9 fixed effects for the teachers who appeared in our sample in more than 1 year and whose fixed effects estimates were statistically different from those of the group of teachers measured only once (including 34 fixed effects for all teachers who participated in more than 1 year would have overtaxed the degrees of freedom). Fixed effects account for the dependencies due to repeated observations on a given teacher (Wooldridge, 2010) and have been used extensively in education research (e.g., Evans, 2019; Hurwitz et al, 2019; Ronfeldt et al, 2013). The term α y represents the fixed effects for the year of data collection as well as a single fixed effect for Year 3 in a specific district that had a dramatic change in curriculum and corresponding professional development.…”

The Relationship Between Inclusion, Absenteeism, and Disciplinary Outcomes for Students With Disabilities

“…A key contribution of this study is the use of student fixed effects to investigate the role of student placement in predicting attendance and disciplinary outcomes. While some have used this approach to estimate the impact of special education placement on student achievement (Hanushek et al, 2002; Hurwitz et al, 2020; Schwartz et al, 2019) and attendance (Schwartz et al, 2019), the application of this approach to changes in educational setting for SWDs is particularly novel. To my knowledge, none of the work on the role of educational setting (e.g., Daniel & King, 1997; Gottfried et al, 2019; Rea et al, 2002; Theobald et al, 2017) have accounted for student heterogeneity in this way.…”