The Equity Imperative
State leaders have committed to ensuring that each student has an equitable opportunity to be successful in college, careers, and life. Unfortunately, in many states, the academic performance of students with disabilities lags far behind their peers. Due to a lack of equitable access and opportunity, students with disabilities tend to experience lower standardized test scores, graduation rates, and post-secondary participation.
Schools are far more likely to suspend or expel students with disabilities. In fact, 23.2% of black students with disabilities are suspended out-of-school in a single school year. And students with disabilities typically have access to less effective teachers and less rigorous coursework.
Indeed, almost all states face teacher shortages in special education, which can result in placing unprepared teachers in classrooms serving our nation’s most vulnerable students. And general education teachers frequently lack the knowledge, skill, and support they need to work effectively with students with disabilities, who spend most of their days in general education classes.
Compounding this, low educator expectations can lead to students of color and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds being disproportionately represented in special education.
These outcomes are unacceptable and underscore the critical capacity needed to raise expectations and strengthen supports for students with disabilities.
What is inclusion?
Inclusive education is a schoolwide culture and practice of valuing each student as a learner across general education classrooms, rather than a particular program or place. Inclusion provides students with disabilities equitable access and opportunity in the general education curriculum and ensures that each student receives the educational resources and rigor they need at the right moment in their education. In inclusive schools, educators’ roles are restructured for shared accountability and responsibility. Learners who need differentiated support and additional intervention receive it. And school leaders use schedules, teacher teams, and data to ensure the academic progress and success of each student.
A Landscape for Change
CCSSO and the NCIPL believe inclusive school principals are vital to address these challenges.
Inclusive principals ensure each student excels and feels safe, supported, and valued in school. Inclusive principals establish high expectations and provide appropriate supports for students with disabilities. They play an essential role in improving instruction, promoting collaboration between general and special education teachers, and retaining effective teachers of students with disabilities.
Investing in inclusive principal leadership is a powerful, cost-effective strategy to elevate teaching and learning. And leadership practices for students with disabilities benefit all students. When a principal cultivates a school environment where each student feels safe, supported, and valued, students with disabilities, along with other students who struggle to learn in school, can thrive.
This online guide offers state education leaders high-impact strategies and resources to develop inclusive principals who can advance positive outcomes for students with disabilities.
What is inclusive principal leadership?
Inclusive principals create strong school cultures and distribute leadership across staff to serve all learners well and ensure all students feel safe, supported, and valued in school. In promoting equity for “all,” inclusive principals must respond effectively to the potential and needs of each student. Inclusive principals ensure high expectations and appropriate supports so that each student—across race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, sexual orientation, family background, and/or family income—can excel in school.
Why Now?
This is a critical time for states to use inclusive leadership as a lever for change—particularly in our nation’s lowest-performing schools. As states implement their plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and as many also update their professional standards for school leaders and their preparation, states have an opportunity to deepen and refine their principal development priorities to focus on equity and inclusion.
States can prioritize effective inclusive principal leadership as a strategy to improve conditions for learning in all schools, especially those targeted for improvement under ESSA. Now is the time for states to integrate their leader development and school improvement efforts to support the achievement of equitable outcomes for each child.
CCSSO and the NCIPL hope states use this guide to transform the landscape for students with disabilities by implementing policies and practices to better equip principals to enforce high-quality instruction and rigorous coursework for each student and reduce disparities in the placement and discipline of students with disabilities and students of color.
Now is the time to act on the belief that for all to mean all, it must mean each.