National FORUM of Applied Educational Research Journal 27(1&2) 2014, NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS ((Founded 1982), Dr. William Allan Kritsonis, Editor-in-Chief - www.nationalforum.com NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS Founded 1982 NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS are a group of national refereed, juried, peer-reviewed, blind-reviewed professional periodicals. Any article published shall earned five affirmative votes from members of our National Board of Invited Distinguished Jurors and must be recommended for national publication by members of the National Policy Board representing all National FORUM Journals. Journal issues are distributed both nationally and world-wide. Our website features national refereed articles that are published daily within our National FORUM Journals Online Journal Division. Over 1,000 articles are available to scholars and practitioners world-wide. Over 250,000 guests visit our website yearly. About 56,000 articles are downloaded for academic purposes at no charge. We have about an 88% rejection rate. See: www.nationalforum.com Founded in 1982, National FORUM Journals has published the scholarly contributions of over 5,200 professors with over 2,000 articles indexed. Our journals are indexed with many global agencies including Cabell’s Directories, ERIC, EBSCO, SWETS International, Library of Congress National Serials Data Program, and the Copyright Clearance Center, Danvers, Massachusetts. Global Website: www.nationalforum.com

1. NATIONAL FORUM OF APPLIED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL
VOLUME 27, NUMBERS 1 & 2, 2014
FOREWORD
T
his issue begins our 27th year of publishing the NATIONAL FORUM OF
APPLIED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL. The journal was
founded in the interest of publishing the best original articles by educational
researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians on a variety of viewpoints for persons interested in
teacher education.
Professors, theoreticians, educational researchers, practitioners, directors of research
and service, deans, chairpersons, university administrators, curriculum and instruction
specialists, school superintendents, principals, supervisors, classroom teachers, management
consultants, facilitators, school board members, education policy persons, graduate students,
community leaders, and many others represent the cosmopolitan readership of the
NATIONAL FORUM OF APPLIED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL.
A function of the NATIONAL FORUM OF APPLIED EDUCATIONAL
RESEARCH JOURNAL is to strengthen the established common bond among professors
in higher education and practitioners in schools. The NATIONAL FORUM OF
APPLIED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL seeks to help maintain a healthy
mutual respect and awareness of the roles, the problems, and the progress of teacher
education in all appropriate settings. NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS are highly
regarded both nationally and internationally.
About the Issue
I am honored to have Reginald Leon Green serve as guest editor of this issue of the
NATIONAL FORUM OF APPLIED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL. Dr.
Green is Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Memphis. He has served at
the teacher, principal, deputy superintendent, and superintendent levels of K-12 education
and has been in higher education for 15 years.
In the first article, Angela A. Brown and Reginald Leon Green identify reform
strategies used by leaders of Blue Ribbon schools to successfully turnaround high-poverty,
low-performing schools and to determine if the use of the strategies altered the instructional
and institutional behaviors of teachers. In the second article, Blake Chism and Valerie Ooka
Pang discuss Opportunity to Learn (OTL) standards and literature that support using OTL as
a comprehensive assessment for transforming education by ensuring that all students are
provided with equity in education. In the third article, Sandra Cooley Nichols and Adriane
N. Sheffield emphasize the need for additional administrator training related to facilitating
inclusive environments in PK-12 schools. In the fourth article, Laura Baylot Casey, Robert
L. Williamson, Thomas Black, and Cort Casey develop and examine the results of an
online survey to better understand teachers’ perceptions related to the teaching of written
expression in an inclusive classroom environment. In the fifth and final article, Karen Ball
and Reginald Leon Green assess the attitudes and perceptions of school leaders in a
Southeastern United States public school district relative to inclusion of students with
disabilities in the general education setting.
To our readers, colleagues, and friends, thank you for your personal, professional, and
especially for your continued financial support.
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD
Professor
College of Education
The University of Texas of the Permian Basin
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