This book provides a practical focus and framework for establishing insightful leadership that will enhance the learning of students with exceptionalities in the 21st century by discussing critical leadership dimensions and topics by leading academics. Topics discussed include the following: shifting leadership paradigms for all students in general and special education, district leadership strategies for implementing individualized academic and behavioral student interventions, preparing leaders to work with students with diverse learning needs, critical leadership roles for regular classroom teachers in educating learners with special needs, innovative leadership to increase school completion and graduation of general and special education learners, why psychologists need to be a part of the school leadership team, the importance of culturally responsive leadership in general and special education, the role of school leaders in helping learners with physical and health impairments, school leadership for all students in rural schools, the use of technology by leaders to improve special education services, an international example model of leadership in general and special education, and future perspectives of leadership in special education. Leadership Matters in the Education of Students with Special Needs in the 21st Century is a critically needed addition to the successful education of students with exceptionalities as it provides much needed and innovative leadership perspectives for effective instructional practices for today's students with special needs. The book can be a model for best practices for school district leadership teams challenged by the multifaceted needs of students with exceptionalities.

"Educational leaders are empowered by a 7-steps framework to move their schools and districts forward in a quest to create community consensus and build the professional capacity for preparing students for 21st century learning."--Book cover.

This volume is an excellent resource for special education professionals who teach and serve learners with disabilities, and other related professionals involved in the educational process such as administrators, school counsellors, and psychologists.

Over the last quarter century, educational leadership as a field has developed a broad strand of research that engages issues of social justice, equity and diversity. This effort includes the work of many scholars who advocate for a variety of equity-oriented leadership preparation approaches. Critical scholarship in Education Administration and Educational Politics is concerned with questions of power and in various ways asks questions around who gets to decide. In this volume, we ask who decides how to organize schools around criteria of ability and/or disability and what these decisions imply for leadership in schools. In line with this broader critical tradition of inquiry, this volume seeks to interrogate policies, research and personnel preparation practices which constitute interactions, discourses, and institutions that construct and enact ability and disability within the disciplinary field of education leadership. To do so, we present contributions from multidisciplinary perspectives. The volume is organized around four themes: 1. Leadership and Dis/Ability: Ontology, Epistemology, and Intersectionalities; 2. Educational Leaders and Dis/ability: Policies in Practice; 3. Experience and Power in Schools; 4. Advocacy, Leverage, and the Preparation of School Leaders. Intertwined within each theme are chapters, which explore theoretical and conceptual themes along with chapters that focus on empirical data and narratives that bring personal experiences to the discussion of disabilities and to the multiple ways in which disability shapes experiences in schools. Taken as a whole, the volume covers new territory in the study of educational leadership and dis/abilities at home, school, and work.

This book provides readers with a comprehensive description of procedures and practices that can enhance special education collaboration, consultation and cooperation in classroom learning environments and ancillary educational services. Experts in the field of special education provide detailed information on critical topics such as fostering the collaboration between regular education and special education teachers. Detailed discussions also focus on the role of mental health providers in special education, and the innovative use of technology in enhancing partnerships in general and special education. Unique chapters include the psychologist in the special education process, the role of the government as a partner to enhance special education services, and the vital role that principals play as school leaders to insure that special education students garner the necessary services to maximize their learning potential. Lastly, the critical roles that speech and language and physical education specialists play are discussed with regard to optimizing the overall development of students with special needs.

This volume focuses on divergent perspectives and innovative interventions known to maximize the fullest potential of people with exceptionalities. Emphasizing that intervention strategy objectives must always be to meet individual learners unique needs, contributions reflect where we are and where we are going in the field of special education.

Reducing Hate through Multicultural Education and Transformation is a book that reminds us that we live in a complex world; and at micro and macro levels, the demography is changing and people are worried about the current state of affairs, their future, and the future of their children. At local, national, and global levels, there appears to be unsteadiness, crises, and struggles in our economies, politics, and societies. Disruptions, disasters, and deaths are visible at all spectra of our lives; and our leaders seem unready, unwilling, underprepared, and unprepared to bring us together to solve our problems for the common good. Even when we make efforts to respond to human differences and multicultural valuing, they seem to be half-baked cakes that are unready for consumption; and there continues to be visible hateful actions that devastate our sacred existence. While these hateful actions have filtered into our families, schools, communities, nation, and world, we pretend to solve them by engaging in phony community relations, fraudulent multiculturalism, and unreasonable “wokeness” to masquerade our inefficiency, inflexibility, prejudice, and jaundiced views. Reducing Hate through Multicultural Education and Transformation provides cutting edge solutions for innovative educators and leaders. Yes, hate is a controversial construct that is rarely researched, studied, and discussed in education. The reason is that teachers and related professionals are supposedly very liberal people who cannot hate their culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, parents, and colleagues. And, the lingering question is, can a teacher who is always liberal be also hateful? This question seems legitimate; and, to answer it, we must look deeper into traditional presumptions. The reality is that White educators and professionals who dominate the educational profession are human-beings who live in their respective White dominated communities. As a result, they teach or lead people who they do not know very well. If not, why should CLD individuals continue to experience hateful misidentifications, misassessments, miscategorizations, misplacements, and misinstructions in school programs? And, why should disproportionate placements of CLD learners with special education needs, gifts and talents, and emotional/behavioral problems continue to be burning issues in education? This book provides outside-the-box solutions!