For the National Center to Improve Policy and Practice in Special Education Professional Development, a group of district administrators recently completed an analysis of state policy on induction and mentoring. State policy is important because it helps districts design and deliver induction programs and supplements local resources that are made…

Teacher quality is widely recognized as influencing student achievement and success in school. In this article, we consider various approaches to the assessment of teacher quality, including process-product observational measures, evaluation checklists, professional standards, large-scale surveys, and commercially available observation systems. We…

In this article we review research on alternative routes to certification (ARC) in special education. First, ARC is defined, and the confluence of factors that has hastened its growth and popularity, particularly in specialized, high-need areas such as special education, is discussed. Second, available research in the area of ARC in special…

Reviewed are the results of 17 studies of resource programs and their effects on the academic achievement and personal-social development of exceptional children. (Author/JYC)

From a priori and post hoc data collection perspectives, this paper describes the interrelations among (1) power, alpha, effect size, and sample size for hypothesis testing; and (2) precision, confidence, and sample size for interval estimation. Implications for special education researchers working with convenient samples of fixed size are…

Based on response categories of the Classroom Activity Recording Form, instructional behaviors of 30 teachers of mildly retarded and learning disabled elementary students (N=122) were used to predict reading achievement gain on the California Achievement Test. Time spent in teacher questioning was the single best predictor of achievement gain.…

To assess the reputations of 81 doctoral training programs in special education, the department heads and junior and senior faculty members of the programs were asked to identify the five programs with the most distinguished faculties and the five programs that graduate the best prepared students. (Author/DB)

Thirty-five studies on the efficacy of special class versus regular class placement for mildly handicapped students were reviewed for the power of their statistical tests. Twenty-one studies had adequate power to detect a large effect size but the power to detect a medium effect size was no better than chance. (Author/DB)

The authors cite problems but regard meta-analysis as an improvement over traditional methods of research integration. Advantages are increased objectivity, freedom from arbitrary levels of statistical significance, and potential to relate an array of independent variables to effect size. Disadvantages include questionable reliability of ratings…

To compare the effects of three tutorial reading programs, 53 elementary-aged disabled readers were assigned to hypothesis/test (H/T) instruction, oral reading (OR) practice, or word recognition (WR) training--or to a small-group H/T control. (Author)

This response to five case studies of inclusive practices for elementary students with learning disabilities identifies problems inherent in inclusive education (e.g., coteaching and logistics) and suggests that fundamental school reform offers an alternative that meets recognized best-practice standards and requires the trained skills of learning…