CONSTRUCTING AN EQUITABLE FRAMEWORK FOR THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS FOR EXCEPTIONAL STUDENTS: THE ‘IDEA’ OF CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE INSTRUCTIONAL AND SCHOOL LEADERSHIP

Abstract

Today’s public schools support students who bring with them a variety of special education, linguistic and exceptional needs. Many of these students are required to make progress within the general education curriculum based on the Common Core State Standards frameworks, which focus on two areas: English language arts and mathematics. In high school, however, the English language arts standards for reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language are also translated to literacy standards in history and social studies, science, and technical subjects (Conley, 2011). The United States Department of Education (“USDOE”) expects that students will develop literacy skills specific to these subject areas in addition to what they learn in their language arts classes. However, students who present with special education and learning-diverse needs are often coached to make minimal progress based on high stakes testing that is erroneously used as the primary measurement of their success with the Common Core. To this end, in order for all educators and school leaders to provide an equitable inclusive framework for students who possess learning-diverse needs, they must construct an educational system that is based on these learners’ needs and is interwoven with rigor, meaning and equity while using standards as a meaningful and ethical guide rather than the final measure of student-success.