Thesis advisor: Curt Dudley-MarlingImproving educational outcomes for students with disabilities remains a challenge for professionals in the field of special education. With the passage of NCLB and IDEA 2004 has come the recommendation to establish higher standards for educational productivity for these students. This call to action seems warranted, especially in light of recent findings published in a report by the U.S. Department of Education (2002) entitled A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and Their Families . The report suggests that students with disabilities drop-out of high school at twice the rate of their peers and higher education enrollment rates for students with disabilities are 50 percent lower than rates for the general population. Recent literature indicates that improving educational outcomes for students with disabilities depends in large part on creating constructive partnerships between their families and schools. The present study contributes to the knowledge base on partnership-making by investigating family-school partnerships in special education from the perspective of parents. This study utilized the qualitative methodology known as narrative inquiry to investigate the following research questions: 1. What stories do parents tell regarding their personal experiences with the special education process? 2. What do these stories tell us about the family's perspective of family-school partnerships in special education? 3. What can we learn from these stories that might translate into effective policy and practice in schools? Findings from interviews with fourteen parents of students receiving special education services indicated that they were concerned about issues of teacher effectiveness, honesty and trust, and their role in securing services for their children. Knowledge derived from their experiences offer suggestions for schools, institutions of higher education, and future researchers.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction
