Disability Studies and Educational Leadership Preparation: The Moral Imperative

Abstract

This article details the experience of two instructors of P12 educational leadership programs in two university settings in different states, NY and NJ, as they seek to disrupt ableist thinking among educational leadership candidates. Analysis of data on placement of students with disabilities in New York and New Jersey from the period of 2014 to the present and state Department of Education field memos were used to contextualize their analysis of critical incidents relevant to their teaching experiences. The authors offer a critique of the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) Continuum as it has been used to segregate students with disabilities from their non-disabled peers and offer suggestions for how educational leadership preparation should include a Disability Studies (DS) framework as a foundation to disrupt these taken for granted practices.