Improving the mathematics skills of students with disabilities has long challenged both teachers and researchers. Not surprisingly, the research in this area has focused primarily on identifying and teaching students strategies for unlocking the meaning of text-based problems because most instructional materials and assessments define problem solving this way. However, text-based problems rarely generate the academic, attitudinal, and emotional responses in low-achieving students that problems in everyday life do. This paper describes how Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI) uses video-based math problems to promote the development of math skills in low-achieving adolescents.

In many Western countries in the past two decades, there has been considerable general education reform, typically with increased educational accountability through national reporting. The major features of this accountability process, as it has occurred in the United States, are described, with an emphasis on what this has meant for students with a disability. Key features of the process include the provision of significant federal funding contingent on the achievement of specified outcomes; the introduction of a widespread testing regime using standards-based assessment and the reporting of these outcomes at the state, district and school level; and providing access to the regular curriculum to students with a disability unless there is a good reason not to do so. The education reform process in Australia is also described and contrasted with the US movement. A conclusion of the discussion is that the Australian states and territories have been reluctant participants in the reporting process for students with a disability, and that leadership by the Commonwealth is the only likely avenue by which improvements in reporting for these students may come about.

Teacher judgment (TJ) is frequently employed as the basis for selecting students in need of specialist help in reading. Two studies are presented in which TJ is compared with a quick alternative deriving from curriculum-based measurement (CBM) that has been shown to be both highly reliable and valid. In the first study, 32 teachers of year two to year six classes were required to categorise their students into the top 25%, middle 50% and bottom 25% for reading performance. Compared with categorisation based on the more objective CBM measure, the mean accuracy of TJ was 67%, varying between 29% and 100%. In the second study, 24 teachers of year one to year five classes were required to categorise ten randomly selected students from their classes into the top three, middle four and bottom three for reading performance. Similar results were obtained with mean accuracy of TJ at 65%, varying between 20% and 100%. Taken together, the findings of the two studies suggest that reliance on TJ for instructional decision-making may be misplaced and that a more objective, quick alternative based on CBM may be preferable.

This study investigated the transition of 314 children with disabilities to mainstream kindergarten classes in state schools in New South Wales from the perspectives of parents, sending service providers and receiving teachers. Results indicated that the majority of parents and kindergarten teachers considered the transition and early integration to have been successful, regardless of the child’s disability or the severity of the disability. The factors that related positively and significantly to teacher perception of successful integration were (a) receiving school attitude and school community acceptance of the integrated child, (b) receiving teacher perception of the adequacy of the support received, (c) preparation of the child for the mainstream school placement, specifically classroom skills and self-help skills, (d) preparation of parents of other children in the class, and (e) receiving teacher perception of the value of liaising with parents. The implications of this research for planning and programming for transition to school for young children with disabilities are discussed.