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The better regular education is, the fewer IEPs and Section 504 plans we need.  Check it out! Sticker #2: Better-regular-ed=Fewer IEPs/504 Plans! FREE stickers are sent with book orders or, if you wish, send a stamped self-addressed envelop to School Law Pro, and a selection of FREE  stickers will be sent to you.

NEW!  FREE stickers!  Six different stickers.  Choose the ones you like! Collect all 6! Check them out at FREE stuff! Sticker #1: It's the RELATIONSHIP! FREE with book orders. Or, send prepaid envelope to School Law Pro at PO Box 960515, Boston MA 02196--and we will be happy to send a selection to you.    These vinyl stickers are 5.5 x 1.75 inches.  They are beautiful and make the message stick!

It's April and time for STEP  Four!  As you know, every month in 2011, we’ll post a STEP  to FIX special education.  There are 12 steps. By December, our systemic transformation should be well underway! Please share your comments and let us know the steps you are taking to fix special education.   April 2011—Step Four to change the path we are on  Educate all students, without labels. End the reliance on the medical model as gatekeeper for services in our schools.   Where we are [...]

It is April. Time for step 4!  Tomorrow's blog will be just that. Steps 4 through 9 are for changing the path we are on. Switching gears. Following credible research. Keeping our eye on the prize--educating all students to high standards and preparing them for life after K-12. As the editors of Rethinking Special Education for a New Century  wrote, back in 2002, "The choice confronting today's policymakers is not whether to keep the program as it is or return to the pre-IDEA status quo.  [...]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/congress/2011/03/us-house-reinstates-dc-school-voucher-program# All that fuss and commotion and angst and emtion about vouchers.  AT MOST, they serve 1% of US students. Special education serves some 14% of US students.  The system is broken. Yet, it reform of that system does NOT make the front pages of our papers.  It's about time that it does.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/03/dear_diane_if_george_orwell.html?intc=mvs If you're puzzled, join the crowd. This Bridging Differences piece includes  most interesting language used to describe our President's speech. The disconnect between our government's policy and this speech about, in part, his own daughters in private schools--now what are teachers supposed to think and do? We need clarity, not obfuscation.

Dear readers.... If you tried to download the nifty practical ONE-PAGE definitions of FAPE under the IDEA/ MA law and under Section 504, please try again. The links are fixed! Please let me know what you think of the FREE STUFF. Thanks.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/03/lawmakers_grill_duncan_on_spen.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CampaignK-12+%28Education+Week+Blog%3A+Politics+K-12%29 This  article is listed under Politics-K12 in Education Week. Need we say more? While it's good that we're talking about whether more spending on education is leading to better results (it is not, necessarily) it is bad that the discussion is wrapped in politics. One party says [...]

http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/thinks_tanks/151930.html Thank you for this story. Finally, we are talking about burdensome federal regulations.  However, the story has a HUGE gap--not a word about special education. That arena alone is burdened by paperwork, has onerous bureaucratic requirements that impede teaching and learning for all students, and costs schools some 20-40% of their budgets--though we  don't even know how much of that cost is due to bureaucratic [...]

http://edworkforce.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=229296 Thank you, Duncan Hunter, for bringing this issue forward at last. Let's hope we finally get action to reduce  paperwork work and  focus attention on teaching and learning for all students! And thank you www.mkcresources.net.  Teaching on Edge, for bringing this post to my attention. http://www.mkcresources.net/teachingonedge/.  Go,  Mary!  as you say, let's hope this action pushes that elephant out of the middle of [...]