Amy McCart named director of SWIFT Education Center

LAWRENCE — For almost a dozen years, KU researchers Amy McCart and Wayne Sailor have collaborated and then co-led the SWIFT Education Center through more than $66 million in research funding to improve educational outcomes nationwide.

With a change in role for Sailor, now professor emeritus of special education, McCart has assumed full leadership of the center that is the culmination of their long-term body of research.

SWIFT develops and delivers initiatives nationwide in partnership with schools, state organizations, education centers and districts to "foster rightful presence and true belonging for students once on the margins of their schools," McCart said.

Much of that work is focused on increasing the capacity to implement or advance what is known as the equity-based Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), shown to improve academic, behavioral, social and emotional student outcomes.

Sailor, whose career at KU began in 1992, was center director beginning in 2012, when a $24.5 million grant to KU from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs established what was called the National Center on Inclusive School Reform at KU. McCart, who joined KU in 2003, was a principal investigator for the foundational grant and director of technical assistance. She was named co-director of the center in 2016.

“Wayne Sailor was pivotal in establishing the center and in pushing for change in education to meet the needs of all students,” McCart said. “He believes, and his research supports, that children and youth should have the power to advance their own educational agenda and to be educated alongside grade-level peers in their neighborhood schools.”

McCart said that as the center has expanded nationally, she and Sailor balanced growth with their dedication to equity and justice.

“Our work is committed to interrupting the policies, systems and practices that perpetuate injustice for students and their families,” she said.

McCart has expertise in inclusive education, MTSS, family systems of support, positive behavioral interventions and support, and special education. She is a leader in the field of system implementation and professional development practices and co-author of "Leading through Equity-based MTSS for All Students" (2020) and "Build Equity. Join Justice: A Paradigm for School Belonging (2023)."

Sailor’s career has been centered on inclusion, beginning in the 1960s with his first scholarly paper. He has focused on comprehensive school reform at the elementary, middle and high school levels. He has done extensive research within the framework of multi-tiered system of support and response to intervention. Much of this research has been concentrated on policy reform, students with disabilities, and school and systems change.

Today the SWIFT Education Center includes more than two dozen researchers, technical assistance providers, project managers and administrative staff who manage projects in more than 25 states.

In addition to the founding grant from the Department of Education that established SWIFT in 2012, major milestones in the history of SWIFT include:

• A $3 million, four-year grant from the Institute of Education Sciences in 2022 to develop “Resources Aligned and Integrated for Student Equity,” or RAISE. Principal investigator Jeong Hoon Choi is leading the project that partners with 18 grade schools to validate the RAISE framework to make instruction and support decisions for students with or at risk of disabilities.
• A $10 million, five-year cooperative agreement funded in 2022 by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, that launched the National Center on Inclusion Toward Rightful Presence at SWIFT. The project aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of a transformational process in up to 32 schools in four states, as well as provide specific technical assistance to other education agencies.
• A 2018 award of $8.6 million from the U.S. Department of Education to improve student educational outcomes by focusing on supporting the leadership skills and professional development of 50 school principals in several school districts across the country. The project, "Equity Leadership in High Need Schools: Building High Quality Effective Instructional Leaders to Improve Student Outcomes," aims to ensure equity for students of color, students segregated because of disability or learning disorders, students who are high achievers, who are English language learners, who are refugees, or who live in poverty, among others.