Instruction's the Thing Wherein to Catch the Mind That Falls Behind

Abstract

The emergence of compensatory education and special education as two distinct entities within the larger educational system can be readily understood in terms of each program's unique social and historical background. An argument for continued separation of treatment along programmatic lines cannot be supported, however, due to growing evidence that the educational rationale for separate systems does not hold. That is, specific instructional treatments tend not to vary across programs, and particular strategies found to be effective are effective for both compensatory and special education students. Drawing upon a diverse pool of studies, we review the findings on the features of effective instructional practices that help to move the lower quartile of students closer to the mean and that are not setting bound. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of effective instruction research for future research, reform policies, and current educational practices.