Educational Reform and Accountability: Implications for African Americans with Exceptionalities

Reform and accountability are imperative for programmatic changes in general and special education. Understandably, any form of reform matters to students, parents, and other educational stakeholders. However, the question is not whether special education is a necessity; the questions continue to be, How "special"s is special education for African American learners? Why are these learners consistently misidentified, misassessed, miscategorized, misplaced, and misinstructed? And, what can general and special educators do about these problems? In this article, we respond to these critical questions and suggest ways for making reform accountable for African American learners.