Chapter 7: The Common Core State Standards: Implications for Students With Learning Disabilities

The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) civic mission “demands the inclusion of all students—addressing … learning diversity that includes similarities and differences based on … exceptional learning needs, and other educationally and personally significant characteristics of learners” (NCSS, 2010, p. 9). With the advent of inclusion, students with exceptionalities are spending more time in the general education classroom. Over 90% of students with exceptionalities receive social studies instruction in a general education setting (Schweder, 2011).

As students with exceptionalities are accessing the same social studies curriculum as their nondisabled peers, they are, of course, accessing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These standards ask students to read and write increasingly complex and specified forms of text (Haager & Vaughn, 2013). As such, all students (and teachers) must now “adapt” to the new and often difficult literacy expectations inherent in CCSS.