The nature of special education has changed appreciably over the past several decades. As a result, the role of special educators needs to be examined and further developed to provide the most effective education for all learners at-risk and those with high-and low-incidence disabilities. In this article, the authors discuss five important roles in which special educators should possess skills to collaboratively educate learners at-risk within a multitiered instructional system.The contemporary trend in education for all learners, including those with disabilities, is education within a multitiered system using the learner's response to instruction as the basis for making instructional and diagnostic decisions. Multitiered learning provides students with a continuum of services (i.e., typically presented as three levels of instruction) that increase in intensity based on the severity of learner needs. Embedded within multilevel instruction is the practice of determining how well the student responds to the interventions implemented, a process termed response to intervention or RTI. According to Bradley, Danielson, and Doolittle (2005), RTI has been broadly described as a process in which students are provided quality instruction, their progress is monitored, those who do not respond appropriately are provided additional instruction . . . those who continue to not respond appropriately are considered for special education. (p. 486) Therefore, through multilevel education a student's responses to instruction would serve as the basis for making decisions about instructional needs in today's classrooms.

The project setting was a remote rural county school district located in a mountain western state with some overrepresentation of English Learners (ELs) in special education. Referral issues are especially prominent in rural school systems due to continued challenges associated with limited resources and lack of contemporary professional development. This article describes the efforts of one rural school district to improve its referral process for ELs in grades K-5 implemented through a university-school district partnership. We developed and piloted a culturally responsive referral guide with findings, providing promising implications for appropriate referrals of ELs in rural county school districts.

Rather, the percentage of Pasifika students who did not have the baseline reading competencies necessary for effective and productive participation in life (that is, below PISAʼs Level 2 proficiency level) increased from 31% in 2006 to 35% in 2009. Although this was not a significant difference, it is an indicator of concern.

There is a well-documented need for leadership personnel who are prepared at the doctoral level to fill special education faculty positions at institutions of higher education (IHEs) and train the next generation of teachers. The intersection of continued retirements of special education faculty, shortage of well-prepared special education faculty to fill those positions, and changing preK-12 student demographics provides unique challenges to special education doctoral leadership preparation programs. Although a variety of variables influence special educator preparation in 21st-century schools, five contemporary issues (i.e., changing roles, evolving diversity, need for funding support, situating doctoral trainees in teacher training, and training delivery models) rise to a level highly relevant to special educator preparation at the doctoral level. In this article, the authors explore this complex landscape and offer policy recommendations to strengthen and update special education higher education leadership preparation.

What are the key issues in leading school-based response to intervention (RTI) efforts? Several key components are essential to successfully implementing an RTI model in schools. RTI is an evolving practice; a school-based collaborative consultation RTI model offers a process that enables a school to apply RTI principles to its unique setting and concerns. Three schools in the Western United States implemented this RTI model with success, and their experience offers some guidelines and direction to school-level RTI team leaders in effectively implementing an RTI model.Between 90% and 95% of all learners are expected to be successfully educated through Tier 1 and Tier 2 instruction (Yell, 2004).