Introduction

We believe that Universal Design for Learning can help educators harness the power of new media and technologies to remove barriers to learning for all students, including students with disabilities. But how can we move from concept to reality? Taking a cue from brain networks, we know that change needs to happen both from the bottom up and from the top down. In the world of education, bottom-up changes are driven by individual students, parents, teachers, and administrators effecting change in classrooms, teaching methods, homework practices, and curriculum materials. Equally important are top-down changes — systemic changes in educational policies, professional development methods, publishing practices, economic models, and the participation of professional and lay organizations. Together, these two approaches have the power to make UDL a reality in schools worldwide.

CAST is working to bring about both types of change. Together with the Concord, New Hampshire, school system, we are researching and developing working models for school- and district-level implementation. In this chapter we offer lessons from Concord's UDL program, which we have distilled into the beginnings of a model for district change. Further, to exemplify CAST's efforts to elicit systemic change at the regional, state, and national levels, we provide information on the UDL initiatives spearheaded by CAST and the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum (NCAC).