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This chapter focuses on the critical work of Dorothy Lipsky and Alan Gartner’s Inclusion and School Reform: Transforming America’s Classrooms, specifically through their 1987 piece, Beyond Special Education: Toward a Quality System for All Students. The chapter explores the five broad, interrelated areas of: (1) The Separate Special Education System; (2) Inclusive Education; (3) School Restructuring; (4) The Reform of Education and the Remaking of American Society; and (5) Amplification of Inclusion Issues. The chapter shows how the work of Lipsky and Gartner examines each theme in a discrete way whilst also showing how they are interrelated, analogous to jigsaw pieces that ultimately create a more comprehensive analysis of inclusive education scholarship and practice.

Special education in the USA is, in most respects, a 20th century phenomenon and is now governed primarily by federal legislation first enacted in 1975. The federal law in its most recent reauthorization (2004) continues to require a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all students with disabilities, a full continuum of alternative placements (CAP) ranging from residential or hospital care to inclusion in general education, an individual education plan or program (IEP) for each student identified as needing special education, and placement in the least restrictive environment (LRE) that is thought best for implementing the IEP. Parents must be involved in the special education process. Approximately 14 percent of public school students were identified for special education in 2004–2005, but the number and percentage of students identified in most high-incidence categories as needing special education have declined in recent years (the total for all categories was about 8.5 percent of public school students in 2010). A variety of evidence-based interventions can be used to address the wide range of instructional and behavioral needs of students with disabilities and their families, including transition to further education or work, family services, and teacher education. Special education in the USA may find new sources of support and thrive or may become less common or be abandoned entirely due to criticism and withdrawal of support for social welfare programs of government.

Concern about special education's future is widespread. Now there are calls for special education's abandonment or its nonexistence in any environment other than general education (i.e., for full inclusion or some form of general education only). Some advocates for reform consider special education obsolete, to be rejected in favor of newer ideas known as inclusionary education, and they advocate abandoning special education.

Now may be the time for a second revolution in thinking about what special education is and does so that it evolves into a service that more consistently realizes its promise. Special education is likely to become extinct if its devolution continues. Its collapse would hasten the abandonment of public education. Alternatively, it could evolve to become a viable part of public education, a distinct entity, a clearly identifiable and viable part of educating all children appropriately in public schools.

Among the many causes of special education's devolution, some stand out prominently: (1) confusing must and may; (2) accepting illogic and imprecision of language; (3) responding to all diversities in the same way; (4) spurning science; (5) confusing attribute and person; (6) putting the worst possible face on special education; and (7) misconstruing least restrictive environment.

Better thinking and clearer communication are required to achieve special education's revitalization. These include calling things what they are and relying on new, younger leaders. Clear and wide understanding – consensus – about what special education is and does and acceptance of the idea that we must have it as a separate and distinct part of universal public education would be revolutionary.

Multitiered systems of support (MTSS) is widely advocated as an approach to improving education for all students, including students with disabilities. A hope for MTSS is that it can solve or mitigate many problems associated with providing special education to students with disabilities. While MTSS shows some promise for better addressing these problems, enthusiasm for MTSS and unsound thinking about what MTSS can do, cannot do, and has not done can veil lack of progress toward improving special education, as well as obscure what improving special education requires. We suggest that for both MTSS and special education to make more progress toward achieving their promises, several reality checks are urgently needed.

This chapter addresses emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in the larger context of special education. The author suggests that EBD, like special education more generally, has been distracted by issues such as labeling, disproportionality, and inclusion rather than keeping a clear focus on instruction. Revisionist history has led to misunderstanding of what special education is and does. A more promising future for the field depends on focusing on instruction, embracing scientific research, developing checklists and manuals to guide practice that are based on scientific evidence whenever possible, working for sustained student success, and using language more carefully and precisely.

Tropical wetland ecosystems are threatened by climate change but also play a key role in its mitigation and adaptation through management of land use and other drivers. Local-level assessments are needed to support evidence-based wetland management in the face of climate change. This study aims to examine the local communities’ knowledge and perception of climate change in Yala wetland, Kenya, and compare them with observed data on climate trends. Such comparisons are useful to inform context-specific climate change adaptation actions.

The study used a mixed methods approach that combined analysis of climate data with perceptions from the local community. Gridded data on temperature and rainfall for the period from 1981 to 2018 were compared with data on climate change perceptions from semi-structured questionnaires with 286 key informants and community members.

Majority of the respondents had observed changes in climate parameters – severe drought (88.5%), increased frequency of floods (86.0%) and irregular onset and termination of rains (90.9%) in the past 20 years. The perceptions corresponded with climate trends that showed a significant increasing trend in the short rains and the average maximum temperature, high incidence of very wet years and variability in onset and termination of rainfall between 1981 and 2018. Gender, age and education had little influence on knowledge and awareness of climate change, except for frequency of floods and self-reported understanding of climate change. The community perceived the wetland to be important for climate change adaptation, particularly the provision of resources such as grazing grounds during drought.

The study faced challenges of low sample size, use of gridded climate data and reproducibility in other contexts. The results of this study apply to local communities in a tropical wetland in Western Kenya, which has a bi-modal pattern of rainfall. The sample of the study was regional and may therefore not be representative of the whole of Kenya, which has diverse socioeconomic and ecological contexts. Potential problems have been identified with the use of gridded data (for example, regional biases in models), although their usefulness in data scarce contexts is well established. Moreover, the sample size has been found to be a less important factor in research of highly complex socio-ecological systems where there is an attempt to bridge natural and social sciences.

This study addresses the paucity of studies on climate change trends in papyrus wetlands of sub-Saharan Africa and the role of local knowledge and perceptions in influencing the management of such wetlands. Perceptions largely influence local stakeholders’ decisions, and a study that compares perceptions vs “reality” provides evidence for engagement with the stakeholders in managing these highly vulnerable ecosystems. The study showed that the local community’s perceptions corresponded with the climate record and that adaptation measures are already ongoing in the area.

This study presents a case for the understanding of community perceptions and knowledge of climate change in a tropical wetland under threat from climate change and land use change, to inform management under a changing climate.

There are few challenges as daunting as achieving positive outcomes for students with emotional disabilities. A major obstacle is the generally poor quality of classroom instruction. Too few general education teachers or special education teachers possess the knowledge and skills to adequately serve this population of learners. Various factors account for the inadequate level of teacher preparation, including licensure requirements that emphasize quantity over quality, the research-to-practice gap, a train-and-hope rather than a train-and-coach approach to teacher preparation, and the absence of an infrastructure to support sustained use of evidence-based practices. I discuss each of these factors and offer some recommendations for improving the quality of teacher preparation and, in turn, the potential for more positive student outcomes.

Change is not synonymous with improvement. Improvement of special education requires better instruction of individuals with disabilities. Although LRE and inclusion are important issues, they are not the primary legal or practical issues in improving special education. Federal law (IDEA) requires a continuum of alternative placements, not placement in general education in all cases. To make actual progress in education of students with disabilities, a single and strict principle of equality or/and antidiscriminatory legal instruments, such as the CRPD, is not enough. Social justice as a multifaceted principle can serve the education of the whole spectrum of special educational needs in national and international contexts. Responsible inclusion demands attention to the individual instructional needs of individuals with disabilities and consideration of the practical realities involved in teaching. If inclusive education is to move forward, it must involve placing students with disabilities in general education only if that is the environment in which they seem most likely to learn the skills that will be most important for their futures.

The world is changing very rapidly with events that alter the landscape for students during a time when entrepreneurs are needed more than ever. This chapter explores trends in entrepreneurship research that are focused in areas of the entrepreneurial mindset, alleviation of poverty through entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, portfolio thinking about entrepreneurial venture types, the crucial nature of racial diversity, and the drive of women entrepreneurs. It also examines COVID-19’s disparate impact on smaller ventures and Black entrepreneurs, while highlighting its impact on spurring entrepreneurial innovations causing an entrepreneurial explosion. Most importantly, this chapter focuses on how the emerging research trends amidst the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted entrepreneurship educators to enact educational innovations. The chapter includes tools and tips to integrate into the changing nature of university programs and entrepreneurship curriculums facing a dynamic future.

A confluence of events has created an opportunity to rethink special education, including the lingering effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic, advances in technology, and changes in how special education is conceptualized and delivered. In this chapter, I discuss each of these in turn and then describe three possible futures for special education: maintain the status quo, revolutionize and revitalize special education, or abandon special education completely. The possibilities and implication of these alterative futures for students with disabilities are then considered.