Feature Issue on Achieving Secondary Education and Transition Results for Students with Disabilities From the Editors

Today’s educational systems are being called upon to re-examine how they prepare students with disabilities for adult life. For instance, the shift toward greater participation by students with disabilities in the general education cur-riculum is requiring exploration of new strate-gies for attending to the needs of diverse learn-ers in the same classroom. Standards-based education is pushing schools to figure out how to meaningfully include students with disabili-ties in assessment and accountability systems. The need for early involvement by and continu-ity between school-based services and com-munity services for individuals with disabilities is moving districts and schools to engage in in-tegrated service planning and to link systems that may not have collaborated in the past. And increased involvement of families and stu-dents in individual planning, as well as in shap-ing educational policy and practice, is continu-ing to shift the locus of decision-making about education. In this Impact are descriptions of these and other issues related to the education of students with disabilities during their transi-tion years. Along with these articles are profiles of strategies that are proving successful across the country in addressing these issues. It is hoped that the ideas and models in these pages will present readers with resources for use in their own work to achieve the best pos-sible outcomes for students with disabilities