Batya Elbaum

Batya Elbaum, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education and Psychology at the University of Miami, is a developmental psychologist and special education researcher with a strong interest in the intersection of special education policy and outcomes for children with disabilities and their families. In her empirical research, she has examined academic and social outcomes of inclusion for students with learning disabilities, the impact of testing accommodations on student performance in mathematics and reading, the effectiveness of one-on-one reading interventions for struggling readers, family outcomes of early intervention, and schools’ facilitation of parent involvement. Dr. Elbaum has a long history of promoting the collection and use of data from parents to inform the evaluation of special education services. As part of ongoing discretionary grant from the Florida Department of Education that was first awarded in 1999, Dr. Elbaum has been responsible for the design and administration of the state’s annual statewide parent survey addressing the needs and concerns of parents of students receiving special education services. From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Elbaum served as a consultant to the National Center for Special Education Accountability Monitoring and led the development and validation of the Schools’ Efforts to Partner with Parents Scale, the survey tool that has been adopted by approximately two-thirds of states (including the state of New Hampshire) to address Indicator 8 of the State Performance Plan. Between 2007 and 2012, in her role as a consultant to the OSEP-funded Data Accountability Center, Dr. Elbaum worked with multiple state Part B and Part C agencies on the collection, interpretation, and utilization of parent data. Dr. Elbaum’s related dissemination and technical assistance efforts have included over 50 invited presentations, workshops, and OSEP-sponsored teleconferences on topics ranging from survey design to the interpretation of parent survey data to the development of district- and school-level action plans.