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No one is happy with special education so let's fix it.  It's the climate change we like! http://educationviews.org/2011/06/17/an-interview-with-miriam-kurtzig-freedman-m-a-j-d-author-of-fixing-special-education%e2%80%9412-steps-to-transform-a-broken-system/

This is a trend worth watching. Just because high school students are in college classes, does that mean they are doing college work?  Not so sure. http://communitycollegespotlight.org/content/iowa-are-dual-enrollees-ready-for-college_5201/ And I relate this to inclusion classes in public schools. Just because students with disabilities are included in regular classrooms, does that mean they are doing regular classroom work? Not so sure.

Here's the citation--article came out earlier this week.http://www.aei.org/paper/100227. I haven't read it yet, but will do so! Rethinking special education--yet again. We need to reform it. Here are a few numbers that say it all. We educate 13-14% of students in special education (6.8 million students). In contrast, we educate just 2-3% in charter schools and perhaps 1-2% receive vouchers--for a total of 3-5%.  Yet, to date, there's been very little talk of reforming special ed and [...]

Here's a great piece by Julia Steiny--about the children and families left behind with school choice options. While she supports those options, she raises concerns about the children left in the regular schools.  http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/157707.html. We've always known that, with choice options, most children and families will be left behind in schools that come to have an even greater concentration of needs. This piece states the case well.  Thus, choice, which Steiny [...]

Fascinating article about how the web is personalized for each of us... and how we get 'news' only about the stuff we already like and favor... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/technology/29stream.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26 The web is personalized. We get cocooned. We  live in echo chambers--listening to and seeing only what we are predisposed to. Our world view gets limited... I'm afraid this happens in our schools and communities, also. We create bubbles--and talk [...]

Yes, it's more than possible. While he talks about lots of things in the comparison with how other good school-nations do it (including getting better teachers from the get- go and paying them well, etc., etc., and not focusing on charter schools, testing, accountability, vouchers, etc., etc., I will write about only one of those aspects.  Testing and accountability... I believe that our curent obsession with accountability to "get rid of bad teachers" is over the top-- it's like using [...]

We have two gaps in our educational system... One we work hard at and one we ignore--to our detriment. The one that we work hard at is the gap between the lowest performing students and the middle (making AYP under the No Child Left Behind Act).  Let's say, the bottom 50% of achievement. The one we ignore is the gap between students who already have grade level skills and the top students--gifted, talented, etc.  That is, closing the gap of potential--how do we focus on getting, let's say, [...]

http://educationnext.org/sage-on-the-stage/ Say it ain't so! Another example of education by belief system--not research!  In modern pedagogy, we are lead to believe that problem-solving is better than lecturing --especially in the middle school years. Well, here's research to question that. From my perspective in this blog over the years, we can add this research to the list we have compiled about special education.  For example, the belief in 'learning styles' has been deeply [...]

Interesting piece. The saga goes on and on.... about using student test scores for everything.  Will doing the dishes be next?http://www.joannejacobs.com/2011/05/the-exaggerated-power-of-test-scores/comment-page-1/#comment-163857 But WAIT!! Before we use test scores for any accountability--student and/or teacher and/or schools, let's be sure the tests are valid--that is, that they actually measure what they say they measure. Check out my friend, Marcia Kastner's new book, TESTING THE [...]

Here's my friend, Marcia Kastner's email blast about her COMMENTARY this week! Thought you'd like to see this. Before we start to base so much on testing (student, school, and teacher accountability, for starters), let's be sure that the tests are valid and reliable. Hello everyone,  As you know, I’ve written a book titled “TESTING THE TEST:  How to Recognize When Math Tests Are Flawed, How to Fix Them, Why We Should Care.”  If you’ve had a chance to read my book, I hope you’ve found it [...]