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Language proficiency assessment (LPA) serves as a gatekeeper to accessing language services for English learners (ELs) with and without disabilities. Moreover, research suggests that EL services are often deemphasized compared with special education services for students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCDs). We highlight the intersectional nature of educational inequities faced by ELs with SCDs by briefly examining the implications of current legal requirements and offering a critique of LPAs, particularly those designed for students with SCDs. The difficulty of identifying the relative contributions of both limited English proficiency and disability to perceived deficits in English language proficiency is especially salient for students with SCDs, as their communication challenges may be misunderstood as primarily stemming from their underlying disability. This issue raises concerns about how English language proficiency should be understood for ELs with SCDs. A failure to understand this in turn may lead to inaccurate results in diagnostic testing, in addition to inequitable access to appropriate EL services. Finally, a case is made for alternative processes that could increase access to appropriate educational programs and foster increased educational equity.

The use of alternate English language proficiency (Alt-ELP) assessments is an emerging phenomenon with real-life consequences for students with complex support needs from language minority homes. Our examination of U.S. state practices during the 2017-2018 academic year for the identification of English learners (ELs) with complex support needs revealed that only 36 states and the District of Columbia used an Alt-ELP assessment. In addition, some states provided criteria for students to exit EL services, but others did not report or have established redesignation criteria. We found that a wide range of redesignation criteria were adopted by states, revealing a lack of consensus about what constitutes ELP for students with complex support needs. These data suggested substantial challenges remain in developing and implementing Alt-ELP assessments. [This article was presented orally at the Diversity and Cultural Competence Research Colloquium at the 2019 TASH Conference on December 5, 2019.]

This qualitative case study investigated faculty perceptions of the purposes, costs, and benefits of program evaluation during a comprehensive review by the Office of Graduate Studies at a large Research I university. The assumptions held by the faculty at the beginning of the review process about the purposes of a program evaluation and their roles within it were challenged by the manner in which the evaluation was carried out. Analysis of interviews conducted over the course of the program evaluation focused on notions of participation and voice as seen through the lens of the faculty participants. Implications for enhancing stakeholder participation and voice are discussed.

Continued concerns about educational equity for minority students require looking beyond analysis of enrollment in primary disability categories to additional issues of educational opportunity for students receiving special education services. This study examined the relationship between student ethnicity and language proficiency status with (a) number and type of disability labels, (b) access to the least restrictive environment, and (c) ancillary services using data from a large southwestern school district. Data quality was also examined as part of this study. The results suggest that minority students and English language learners were disproportionately enrolled in special education and placed in more segregated settings. A trend toward increased disability labels for minority students was also identified. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to consider the relevance and contributions of sociocultural theory and multicultural and critical pedagogies to professional development in special education. To this end, a brief review of the major tenets of sociocultural theory is presented. The position taken in this article is that an adequate and a sufficient theoretical framework for professional development in special education must explicitly and directly address the issues of power, discrimination, and relative status that, we argue, underlie many dilemmas of application of practice, Vignettes illustrating such dilemmas, with reference to the 1998 Council for Exceptional Children professional standards, are presented. Multicultural pedagogy and critical theory are suggested as potentially complementary and important additions to sociocultural theory, as applied to the professional development of special educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]