Brown v. Board of Education and the Development of Special Education

May 2020 was the 66th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In this case, perhaps the most important ruling of the 20th century, the Supreme Court ruled that the racial segregation of Black children in public schools was unconstitutional. In addition, the ruling in Brown v. Board had a profound effect on the education of children with disabilities. The purpose of this column is to examine the Supreme Court’s ruling and to explore the impact of the rulings on students with disabilities.

Evidence-Based and Culturally Sustaining Practices for Diverse Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Children from diverse backgrounds are more likely to receive special education services for emotional or behavioral disorders. These data validate the research that advocates for practitioners to use evidence-based and culturally sustaining practices. This article discusses how strategically implemented, evidence-based, and culturally sustaining practices can assist in preventing inaccurate referrals for special education services.

Born a Culturally Responsive Educator: A Conversation With Dr. Cathy Kea

Dr. Cathy Kea is a professor of special education in the Department of Educator Preparation at North Carolina A&T State University. Dr. Kea’s research interests focus on the intersection among general education, special education, and multicultural education, which she has labeled “a trilogy to be transformed.” Her current research focuses on preparing preservice teachers to design and deliver culturally responsive instruction in urban classrooms as well as providing methods, materials, and philosophy to educator preparation programs (e.g., via syllabi, lesson plans, lectures).

Multiple Stimulus Without Replacement Preference Assessment for Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) generally have behavior support plans that are based on a functional behavioral assessment. This article provides educators practical guidelines for conducting a multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment to rank order preferred activities that will align with the function of behavior for use in behavioral interventions. The use of highly preferred reinforcers to reduce student problem behaviors can enhance educational outcomes for the student.

Remote Schooling Supports for Linguistically Diverse Parents of Students With Disabilities

Remote schooling has increased in prevalence. Although remote schooling may feel novel, remote and online educational requirements have been consistent parts of the educational landscape for years. Remote schooling increases learning opportunities within the home, magnifying the need for home-school collaborations to support the academic and socio-emotional development of marginalized learners in urban settings, particularly multiply marginalized learners such as students classified as English learners who also have a high incidence disabilities (e.g., learning disability, speech and language impairment, autism spectrum disorder). Much policy and practice around remote schooling centers on ensuring students have access to devices and technology; little consideration is given to what happens after devices are distributed, especially within culturally and linguistically diverse households. This paper explores considerations to be made before, during, and after engaging in remote schooling, whether it’s for short- or long-term use, to ensure that students who are dually classified are not digitally excluded during remote schooling.

Asset Mapping in Urban Environments to Support Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Public schools located within urban environments are a critical component of a larger social network in their communities, with important reciprocal interactions occurring across settings. This is especially important for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), as integration and alignment of home, community, and school intervention programming is essential for their outcomes. However, teachers often have a deficit-perspective of urban communities and lack the skills to identify assets that may support generalization of interventions for students with EBD in a variety of settings. Asset mapping is one way to help special education teachers reframe this perspective. Definitions of assets and the asset mapping process, as well as practical recommendations for special education teachers to identify assets within their school community environment, are provided.

Educational Programming for Students With Disabilities in Urban Schools

Urban education is often defined as education provided to diverse students in communities with large populations, both in raw number of residents and in population density. Educational professionals often associate deficit-oriented perspectives about urban education. These perspectives are often developed due to systemic inequities that exist within urban environments and a narrative around the underachievement and lack of resources found within schools. However, schools in urban environments often have access to a wide variety of supports and opportunities that can expand and enhance the education provided to diverse students. A reframing of this deficit perspective can support special education teachers in identifying assets that exist within their community that can be integrated in culturally sustaining ways. This special issue features articles that focus on reconceptualizing urban education for students with disabilities in an assets-oriented way through teacher education, design of culturally sustaining intervention and instruction, and engagement of community stakeholders.

Recommendations for Teacher Education Programs to Prepare Practitioners for Diverse Urban Schools

The focus of this article is to provide teacher education programs with recommendations for meeting the educational needs of students with emotional behavior disorders (EBD) and learning disabilities (LD) in urban communities. Recommendations include preparing preservice special education teacher educators to effectively implement culturally responsive approaches. The article outlines critical features of teacher education programs that can be modified using culturally responsive approaches to design field experiences and collaboration between schools and teacher education programs to meet the distinctive needs of students in urban environments. Teacher education program leaders can incorporate and use the recommendations to modify programs so that preservice special education teacher educators can be better prepared to be inclusive of all learners and meet their diverse needs.

Preparing to Engage in Culturally Sustaining Practices in Urban Education Environments

It is important for special educators in urban environments to have a deep understanding of the values, beliefs, and practices of diverse students with disabilities and their families. Research indicates, however, that educators are often underprepared to understand the perspectives of members of their school community and often center their own perspectives in curricular decisions in urban environments. Therefore, it is important for special educators to engage in knowledge generation that both provides them information about the assets and beliefs of their urban school community while also challenging their mindsets so that they can better center the perspectives of their students when making decisions. This column provides recommendations for special educators to prepare themselves by developing a deep understanding of their school community that they can use to subsequently link to the implementation of culturally-sustaining practices.

Culturally Responsive Individualized Education Programs: Building Transition Bridges Between Families and Schools

Students with disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds often experience barriers and inequities in transition supports and services due to the cultural mismatch of beliefs, values, and expectations between their families and their schools. Though transition planning was designed for students and families to provide input, there is often a lack of space for the family to share their voice and long-term goals in the decision-making process. Through culturally responsive transition individualized education programs, in combination with a person-centered framework, bridging partnerships between the student, family, communities, and schools can be accomplished and built for sustainability. In urban settings and communities, these boundary-crossing collaborations for students with disabilities and their families could be more complex, as additional factors in urban schools are presented. This article presents a practical tool that could guide educators and families from cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds into depth and breadth in transition individualized education program (IEP) development.