Knowledge and skills essential for secondary campus-based administrators to appropriately serve students with special needs

textTo explore the reported knowledge and skills held by secondary campus-based administrators pertaining to the instructional and programmatic needs of students with disabilities, a mixed-methods nationwide study of administrators was conducted. Data were collected through an internet survey delivered via email, yielding a total of 159 secondary campus-based administrators. The theoretical framework of Critical Pedagogy served as an analytical tool for investigating whether the lack of knowledge and skills of special education policy and procedures on the part of participating secondary campus-based administrators may contribute to the use of oppressive practices when serving the needs of students with disabilities. Additionally, using the lens of Critical Pedagogy, three national sets of leadership standards (CEC, 2008; ISLLC, 2008; and ELCC, 2011) for general and special education administrators were compared. The analysis of national leadership standards revealed a gradual yet limited progression toward a moral imperative (Burrello, Wayne-Sailor, & Kleinhammer-Tramill, 2012) to include more stakeholders in the education process and development of individual education programs at the secondary level for students with disabilities. Quantitative data obtained from the internet-based survey were analyzed using a frequency distribution. Using naturalistic inquiry without a predetermined focus or preordinate categories of analysis (Patton, 2002), qualitative responses to open-ended survey questions were investigated to discover and identify emergent themes. Findings indicate a breakdown in communication between administrators and students with disabilities and their families has occurred. Secondary campus-based administrators need and want more training in all areas of special education policy and procedures. Specifically they would like more coursework and professional development concerning special education law, information concerning specific disabilities, accommodations or modifications appropriate for said disabilities, RTI and Identification, discipline, understanding the IEP/BIP process, and how to work with teachers concerning special education requirements. Critical Pedagogy is advanced as a useful tool to be used by program directors for leadership preparation and professional development to assist them in determining the most appropriate and beneficial type(s) of leadership preparation, mentoring, and follow-up training to facilitate the transformation of secondary campus-based administrators' leadership practices on behalf of students with disabilities and their families.Special Educatio

Identifying the Cost of Preventable Chronic Disease in Prison: Can Illness Prevention of Adults in Custody Save Money?

This study investigates the cost of preventable health problems and ailments when compared to other costs of incarceration. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of imprisonment on the costliest chronic illness. The health of adults in custody related to the general population and the overall fiscal cost of the deadliest chronic illness among incarcerated adults is discussed. Linear regression is used to analyze the occurrence of heart disease and diabetes among adults in custody while controlling for other factors. The results of this analysis provide insight that chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes should be addressed. This research presents an opportunity for future cost-benefit analysis of cost-effective health promotion and prevention with prisons

BEYOND DUALISM: THE HERMENEUTIC MEDIUM AS A COMMUNICATION-BASED PERSPECTIVE ON THE CARTESIAN PROBLEM IN EPISTEMIC RHETORIC (OBJECTIVISM, RELATIVISM, CRITICISM)

The Cartesian dualist paradigm posts a gap between the subjective mind and those objective elements external to it. This paradigm has led inexorably toward what Bernstein calls the Cartesian Anxiety : the assumption that either some ultimate foundation exists against which knowledge and action can be judged, or skepticism is inevitable and we will be enveloped by a moral and intellectual chaos that will render us unable to critique alternative positions. This Cartesian influence pervades Western thought and action, and is present in communication studies and, more particularly, in the epistemic rhetoric literature. This dissertation views Cartesian dualism as a distinct problem in the epistemic rhetoric literature, and adapts Gadamer\u27s motion of a hermeneutic medium so that it can function as a communication-based alternative to the Cartesian dualist paradigm. The dissertation seeks not to solve the problems of Cartesian dualism, but to obviate or work around them. The goal is to offer a perspective which evades the Cartesian agenda and the issues that agenda has established as important. To accomplish this task the dissertation (1) identifies the central problems and issues in the epistemic rhetoric literature that are fostered by Cartesian dualism; (2) explains how the concept of a hermeneutic medium can provide a communication-based alternative to the Cartesian framework; (3) explains how this concept of the medium can help obviate problems of Cartesian dualism in epistemic rhetoric; and (4) details some implications of this concept for the ways in which scholars of epistemic rhetoric think about and critique various modes of discourse. The dissertation argues, finally, that the concept of the medium highlights the importance of the practical public argument that gives people voice in the creation and management of their worlds

Response to Intervention: Perspectives of General and Special Education Professionals

This article describes implications for school leadership and the need for preservice and continuing professional development concerning all aspects of response to intervention (RTI)