IDEIA mandates that parents be active participants in the educational decision-making process for their children. It is recommended that parents and professionals collaborate for individualized educational services for students with disabilities, especially for students with significant disabilities. Research suggests that parents must advocate…

In this paper, the authors address the question: what are skills, knowledge and professional dispositions that U.S. co-teachers need to balance the seemingly competing mandates of NCLB and IDEIA in order to prepare teachers for the classrooms of today and tomorrow? Based on the results of two recent studies that focused on secondary co-teacher…

Early career special educators must be engaged in conversations with developers of preservice teacher preparation programs to co-construct initial teacher education programs which meet their needs. The process of listening to the teachers themselves could serve to ensure that teachers are an explicit element of program design. This article…

Social inclusion of students with disabilities into the school system is a primary goal for many educators as well as advocates for this population. One program that seeks to increase levels of social inclusion for students with disabilities is the Circle of Friends Program (COFP). Its purpose is to widen the social network of students with…

This article describes a multiage classroom led by three co-teachers who facilitate the education of 42 students ages six through nine years. The classroom is located in a public school district that practices inclusion and subscribes to the principles of whole schooling. A literature review defines the concepts of co-teaching, multiage education,…

In regards to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the emperor is not wearing any clothes. The author contends that this bill uses impressive sounding buzz words and phraseology with which one can hardly disagree, but in essence it offers no new innovations or does nothing to improve the fundamental quality of education. This bill is not based on…