Immigrant students in U.S. educational system experience challenges learning to adapt and integrate into new educational environments. Little is known, however, about factors that facilitate acculturation strategies of immigrant youth from West Africa and how they affect their academic success and challenges faced. Considering the current political discourse over the influence of immigration in U.S. schools, 20 immigrant youth from Ghana and Nigeria were recruited and interviewed in the metropolitan area of New York City. Analyses of semi-structured interviews revealed that teacher, parent, and peer support; social and electronic media; and extracurricular activities emerged as the factors that helped acculturation strategies and academic success. Challenging factors were dealing with sociocultural differences; discrimination, stress, and social integration; and language differences. The article discusses the implications of these findings for teachers to understand acculturation strategies to help West African immigrant youth to adapt, acculturate, and integrate into new school environments.

Students with learning disabilities are suspended at disproportionate rates in schools. Although research has shown the ineffectiveness of suspension as a disciplinary tool, school administrators continue to use it to combat behavior infractions. This column presents a review of the literature on suspension for students with learning disabilities, its impact on their academic achievement, and sociodemographic factors that put students with learning disabilities at risk for suspension. Implications are discussed and further areas of research are suggested.

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Teacher evaluation has been at the forefront of accountability-related reforms in the United States due to the realization that teacher effectiveness is a major contributor to student success. Data from evaluations have revealed vital insights into contributing factors to teacher effectiveness and generated valuable information for hiring, promotion, remuneration, and retention of teachers. Using existing evaluation systems to assess special educator performance, has, however, been challenging for a plethora of reasons, leading to disparate experiences for special educators. This study examined special educator knowledge of the process, perceptions about the applicability of existing teacher evaluation frameworks to their roles, responsibilities, and classroom contexts, as well as views about personal cost incurred. Findings reveal that special educators lacked deeper knowledge about the key components of evaluation systems and perceived the evaluation rubrics as impractical for their roles, responsibilities, and classroom contexts. The findings also reveal a strong preference for differentiated evaluation systems for special educators. Implications for practice, policy, and research are presented.