Blog

I don't usually read the Huffington Post-- but this entry caught my eyes. (Our children in crisis). Stephen R. Covey--we need parents to parent, teachers to teach, children to learn--we need to build trust, community, leadership. Sound familiar?Yes, a very good read.

My angle to fix special education? It's not about getting more money... In my view, rather than more at this time--we need to spend what we have (already 20-40% of school budgets!) much better. Right now, too much goes for process, compliance, regulations, lawyers, etc. One of my special education director colleagues informally surveyed her teachers to find that special ed teachers spend about 19% of their time actually teaching! That is scary. We need to "educate, not litigate!" My [...]

Life is great, isn't it. Every day brings new ideas! So here is Dr. Richard Selznick's book, The Shut-Down Learner--Helping your Academically Discouraged Child. (Shut down learner). This psychiatrist is trying to help kids without labeling them as disabled. So, it's SDL, not SLD! I love it! It reminds me of my own book, Fixing Special Education--we need to focus on what kids can do, not just what they struggle with, etc. etc. etc. Not just dicing and splicing weaknesses that lead to [...]

It's been said before and I'll say it again--it's tough being a student today. Getting into college used to have some benchmark certainty. For many elite colleges, there used to be 'Early admission' in January and regular admission in the middle of April. But now, we learn that colleges are hedging their bets and adding more high school students to their wait lists... no YES or NO on the first round for many. It's a tough year out there. (Colleges expanding waiting lists)And it's been said [...]

I always sit up and take notice when E.D. Hirsch sends out an alarm. He's the Core Knowledge guru--students need to learn basic knowledge about the world. Let's call that stuff. It turns out that reading cannot be taught in a vacuum as a series of discrete skills that are supposedly transferable.It turns out that students who know stuff, can comprehend what they read better. Students who don't, can't comprehend the material before them--even if they can decode and have phonemic awareness. [...]

I was just reading about this! How amazing-- a state law that actually encourages schools to develop programs to improve student outcomes--and to obtain waivers from policies that would get in the way of innovation! Wow. It's about time! Schools that are drowning in paperwork have a reprieve when they design effective programs for student learning.That is exactly what we need in special education. (Colorado's Innovation Schools Act)For example, Procedures Lite, a Massachusetts program, [...]

Schools need to cut budgets. State funding is down. We all know that.Special education is an entitlement program--the only one in our schools.With tight budgets, what do we do about special education? Maintain programs? Well, what of other students.Cut programs? Well, what of the entitlement?Cut the number of students covered? Easier said than done.Any ideas?

(Discussion on Fixing Special Education at Accept Collaborative).Would love to have you join the discussion in Natick, MA.The theme.....Celebrating what's right; fixing what's not. Let's build Trust-Based Special Education through Back Door (but legal!) Solutions.See you on May 27!

As my loyal readers know, I was a member of the NAGB (National Assessment Governing Board) panel of experts about the testing of students with disabilities on the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress). We worked to tighten the exclusion of too many students and the need for accommodations that maintain the NAEP's validity. HOPEFULLY, the new policy, newly adopted by the NAGB, will solve the challenges pointed out below by Richard Innes. If we can't compare apples to apples, [...]

It's hard to know what the NAEP scores mean for students with disabilities--since we don't have a handle on the exclusion rates and accommodations policies that differ from town to town and state to state. Hopefully, once NAGB's new and improved (!) policy is implemented these test results will be more consistent and easier to interpret. At the end of the day, we would expect the scores of students with disabilities to be lower than those of their general education peers, due to their [...]