Promise and Possibility in Special Education Services for Students with Emotional or Behavioral Disorders: Peacock Hill Revisited

Abstract

* Students with emotional or behavior disorders (LVBD) present teachers, administrators, policymakers, and researchers with a diverse range of challenges necessitating early and effective intervention practices. Although a lofty goal, students with E/BD need and deserve our help. These students have dismal short- and long-term outcomes, including placement in more restricted instructional environments, limited access to highly qualified teachers, increased rates of suspension and expulsion, and low rates of postschool employment (Bradley, Doolittle, & Bartolotta, 2008; Bradley, Henderson, & Monfore, 2004; Henderson, Klein, Gonzalez, & Bradley, 2005; Wagner, Kutash, Duchnowski, Epstein, & Sumi, 2005). Perhaps most troubling, estimates suggest that approximately 55% of students with E/BD drop out of school, highlighting the gravity of the current state of affairs (Bradley et al., 2008).Even more disconcerting is the decline in outcomes for students with E/BD since the late 1980s. A study by Wagner and colleagues (1992), reporting on the first National Longitudinal Transition Survey, found that when compared among other high-incidence disabilities, the long-term outcomes for students with E/BD were troubling (p. 11). In light of the limited outcome improvements for students with E/BD over the past 20 years, we contend that the current state of affairs is particularly troubling. The findings of recent national studies of students with E/BD provoke broader questions about how to remedy the situation and provide these students with practices to best impact outcomes.Intervention and prevention research and practice for students with FVBD has a long and storied history (Kauffman & Landrum, 2005). Even before the passage of P.L 94-142 in 1975, programs were designed specifically to address behavioral problems in children and youth. Since 1975, an immense body of research has evolved across diverse areas of intervention, including academic skills, social skills, positive behavior interventions and supports, and self-determination, to name a few. Intervention and prevention efforts have been further compounded by the advent of the evidence-based practice movement (Walker, 2004), articulating a need for scientifically supported practices, currently defined by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) as evidence from predominantly random clinical trials (RCTs; WWC, 2008). A comprehensive elaboration on the impact of the evidencebased practice movement on the E/BD field is beyond the scope of this article, but the key point is that the WWCs RCT criterion relegates much of the research published in the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders flagship journal Behavioral Disorders as below evidential standards (see Gage, Lewis, & Adamson, this volume).Not only have students with E/BD's shortand long-term outcomes remained unchanged and abysmal since the 1980s but also has the validity and usability of the field's scientific evidence come under attack due to limited RCT studies. This begs the question, where do we go from here? As future leaders in the field of E/BD, we face the task of improving the day-to-day realties of students with E/BD and the methodological concerns outlined previously. Yet, as Antonio eloquently responded to Sebastian in The Tempest, What's past is prologue; what has transpired has set the stage for what is to come. We contend that the answer as to how we improve outcomes is functionally tied to how we improve our practices and programs for students with E/BD and that the answer has been around for almost 20 years.This article provides an historical look at how programs and practices have been evaluated since 1964, leading to a codified, although not universally recognized, set of recommendations for evaluating best practices for students with E/BD set out by The Peacock Hill Working Group (1991). We contend that, in addition to the programmatic features of best practice, the addition of the quality indicators and standards for research in special education (Brantlinger, Jimenez, Klingner, Pugach, & Richardson, 2005; Gersten et al. …