In this article, the authors clarify the role of the leadership team, providing a rationale for one integrated team to examine academic, social, and behavioral programming, with careful attention to including all key stakeholders. Next, the authors discuss the procedures for teaching all key stakeholders the comprehensive, integrated, three-tiered…

The student population across U.S. schools has become increasingly diverse and has presented educators with a number of concerns in assisting students demonstrating challenging behaviors. Educators have historically had difficulties in distinguishing between cultural differences and genuine indicators of emotional and behavioral disorders. It is…

In this article, the authors discuss 4 critical components of mathematics assessment that relate to instruction: (a) teachers need to be knowledgeable about mathematical standards and align them with assessment; (b) assessment should combine formal and informal approaches to obtain a more authentic picture of students' performance and meaningfully…

This article presents and discusses an informal tool, the Idea Development Instrument, for teachers to use with students with learning disabilities to guide writing instruction, to evaluate writing samples, and to provide specific feedback in the area of idea development in written compositions. The assessment instrument is appended. (Contains…

This article examines ways in which state departments of education can ensure that students who are incarcerated receive needed educational services. Guidelines for collaboration among agencies include sharing information and resources and making full commitment to the partnership. A checklist fosters self-evaluation by state departments of…

This article provides a framework for systematically evaluating and adapting reading comprehension curriculum lessons for children with various reading abilities, including children with mild disabilities who are in the regular classroom. A sample checklist for evaluating reading comprehension curriculum lessons and a sample teaching format for…