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Courtney Davis, Ph.D. cdavis@air.org Primary Interests Behavior Disorders Disproportionate Representation Home-School-Community Collaboration Teacher Preparation

Courtney Davis is a research analyst and joined the American Institutes for Research in 2001. While working on the EMSTAC project, she provides technical assistance to school districts with issues related to disproportionality. She is working closely with Anne Arundel and Baltimore County, Maryland school districts on implementing effective, research-based interventions based on the needs of the school districts. Ultimately, her goal is to increase the academic and behavioral outcomes of students with disabilities or placed at risk for school failure.

Prior to joining AIR, her career in special education began over 12 years ago. Courtney graduated from Hampton University with a Bachelor's degree in special education. The following fall semester, she accepted an assistantship at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana to pursue a Master's degree in special education with a focus on collaboration and team-building between general education and special education teachers. While in graduate school, Courtney taught in diverse educational settings in rural Illinois. She taught K-12 students identified with cognitive delays, learning disabilities, and /or behavior disorders. In addition, she provided instruction in self-contained, resource, and collaborative settings. Next, Courtney worked as a resource teacher/inclusion specialist for grades K-8 in Chicago. Her students were identified with learning disabilities and cognitive delays. During this time, she focused on additional efforts to sustain parental involvement and form lasting connections between the school, families, and the community. In 1998, she pursued her doctorate as a Multicultural Special Education Leadership Training (MSELT) fellow at the University of Virginia. As a doctoral student, she participated in research projects focusing on reading skills of elementary students, minority parent participation of students with disabilities, students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools, and teacher preparation. She also conducted research on the classroom practices of university faculty in special education and presented her findings at several conferences.

In addition, she participated and facilitated colloquia to critically analyze the concept of multicultural special education, the inclusion of cultural competence into teacher preparation programs, and increasing the academic achievement of urban youth with and without disabilities. Courtney was chosen to be a fellow at the Urban Summer Scholars Program, sponsored by the National Institute for Urban Improvement. The purpose of the Institute was to assemble urban scholars to explore the issues of race, poverty, culture, and disability as they are reflected in urban schools and communities in the United States. Courtney is a guest reviewer for Behavioral Disorders and is the current Ethnic and Multicultural Concerns Member-at-Large for Council for Children with Behavior Disorders (CCBD).

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