The headline, “Special ed students could bankrupt districts. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/education&id=7786691 On KGO television in California. It’s not the kids’ doing. It’s the system for special education that is broken. It promises more than it can deliver. It is burdened by bureaucracy and legal threats. It does not have good evidence of success. All that is true. All that lead us to establish Special Education Day on December 2–to attempt to fix the system. www.specialeducationday.com.
It’s not children who are bankrupting a system. It’s the system itself that will bankrupt schools. The 35-year-old system, full of unintended, ineffective, and burdensome consequences, that does not work. It must change. Don’t blame it on the students.
About Miriam
Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, JD, MA—an expert in public education, focused on special education law— is a lawyer, author, speaker, consultant, and reformer.
For more than 35 years, Miriam worked with educators, parents, policy makers, and citizens to translate complex legalese into plain English and focus on good practices for children.
Now, she focuses her passion on reforming special education, with her new book, Special Education 2.0—Breaking Taboos to Build a NEW Education Law. Presentations include those at the AASA Conference, Orange County (CA), Boston College (MA), CADRE (OR), and the Fordham Institute (DC). Her writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Education Week, Education Next, Hoover Digest, The University of Chicago Law Review on line, DianeRavitch.net, and The Atlantic Monthly on line.
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