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Featured News 2008
Leaving "No Child Left Behind" Behind, Richard Rothstein, 12/17/07
The next president has a unique opportunity to start from scratch in education policy, without the deadweight of a failed, inherited No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. The new president and Congress can recapture the "small d" democratic mantle by restoring local control of education, while initiating policies for which the federal government is uniquely suited -- providing better achievement data and equalizing the states' fiscal capacity to provide for all children. ~ from CEC SMARTBRIEF | 06/02/2008
Developmental disabilities won't shut door to college, by Rachel Stults, Tennessean, 12/29/08
Vanderbilt University has received a three-year grant to begin a post-secondary education program for students with developmental disabilities, the first of its kind in the state.
Officials at the university hope the program, aimed at providing not only continuing education but also career development, will pave the way for more like it across Tennessee, and will help shed stereotypes and raise awareness about the capabilities and talents of people with developmental disabilities.
*I am a strong supporter of maximizing a student's strrengths, but somehow, programs like this one are changing the traditional definition of "college."
Dropouts Establish Patterns Early On, by Allison Sherry, The Denver Post, December 1, 2008
Warning signs of high school academic woes can be seen in students as young as 11 and addressed, researchers say.
Researchers found that 52 percent of Pueblo's ninth-graders who were absent 18 or more days ended up leaving school altogether before graduation. Almost half of all dropouts had at least one suspension in four years. And 88 percent of all dropouts had at least one F in ninth grade.
*Educators and parents should heed the early warning signs of poor attendance, suspensions, and failing grades in 9th grade and intervene early to keep students in school. ~ posted 12/28/08
Hunger Pangs: The Empty-Stomach Problem, Andrea Orr, Edutopia
Want to improve test scores, behaviors, and attitudes? Feed the children. (posted 12/21/08)
Fallling asleep in class? Blame biology, Madison Park, CNN
Parents flick the light switch, flap the sheets and prod their groggy teenagers to get to school on time. Then, when the teenagers get to school, they slump over their desks to snooze.
Sleepy teenagers may not be able to help it, researchers say. Blame it on the early school start time and their circadian rhythms: the mental and physical changes that occur in a day.
Starting high school an hour later increased the number of hours teenagers slept and decreased car accident rates. (posted 12/15/08)
Policy Approved To Waive Exams For Graduation, (in MD) by Nelson Hernandez and Daniel de Vise, Washington Post
... the exit standard has been updated so many times that it is effectively "a moving target. Nobody understands exactly what the requirements are."
As it should be when we are educating individuals, not robots. (posted 12/21/08)
Children forced into cell-like school seclusion rooms, by Ashley Fantz, CNN
Public schools in the United States are now educating more than half a million more students with disabilities than they did a decade ago, according to the National Education Association.
"Teachers aren't trained to handle that," said Dr. Roger Pierangelo, executive director of the National Association of Special Education Teachers.
So, some very questionable practices for controlling behavior continue to be used and abused ... (posted 12/17/08)
1 in 5 young adults has personality disorder, by Lindsey Tanner
Almost one in five young American adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life, and even more abuse alcohol or drugs, but few get treatment. (posted, 12/05/08)
Universities, colleges see students with disabilities as a growth market, by Joanne Laucius
Technology, like the computer ... or simple accommodations, like lighter course loads, are making higher education possible for people who would have been shut out only a few years ago.
Meanwhile, universities and colleges, which face stagnating or declining enrollment as the baby boom echo clears the school system, are looking to learning-disabled students as a growth market. (posted 12/05/08)
Unraveling Math Dyslexia
Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics.
I can assure you mine are still greater.
Albert Einstein, Swiss/American 1879 - 1955
Combat to College
... with the passage this summer of a new GI Bill that offers a greatly improved package of education benefits, there will be more. When the bill goes into effect, in August 2009, a boom in post-9/11 veterans is expected at colleges and universities across the nation. And unlike the aftermath of the Vietnam War, when few colleges and universities welcomed military veterans, a growing number are taking steps to ease the difficult transition. ... the law is viewed both by veterans and colleges as an opportunity to do right by today's combat-tested troops and mend a relationship that has badly frayed since the antiwar movement of the 1960s. The hope is that new veterans, buffeted by war and a troubled economy, can seize on college as a roadmap to a productive life beyond the military. (posted 11/8/08)
We Teach Teens Trigonometry, Why Not Money 101?
Why does the school system require classes such as math, English, and science, but not basic personal finance?
We force students to learn trigonometry, yet how many of us ever use it again after graduation? In contrast, how many transactions involving money will we each conduct on a daily basis for the rest of our lives?
Schools Overlook Disabled Students, David Utter
The arrest and detention of a 9-year-old girl with mental illness at a Fort Myers school last month was more than just a personal tragedy for the family. It was a sad reminder that children with disabilities are not getting the special care they need in our schools and that too many are being shoved needlessly into the juvenile-justice system.
I'm not casting blame on individual police officers or school officials. I am saying, however, that the system is broken.
It's time to change the attitude pervasive in our schools that the police and the courts are the most appropriate way to handle children who have behavioral problems.
In this case, the girl was charged with two felony counts after she was accused of spitting at teachers and fighting their efforts to restrain her during a confrontation.
As the girl's mother told a reporter, the arrest was an extreme response to a child diagnosed with schizophrenia, obsessive oppositional disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The girl's condition is why she was enrolled in Royal Palm Exceptional School, a special-needs school.
A statement issued by the Fort Myers Police Department after the girl's arrest says a lot about the situation: "This was the end of the line, and it is a very fine line we walk. Now, she can be mandated by a judge to get the assistance she needs."
School officials echoed that sentiment. A spokesman said the juvenile justice system must be involved "in order to get the dominoes lined up in order to get the child the help they need."... it shouldn't take handcuffs and felony charges for a child with mental illness to get the help she needs. ...
In fact, this harsh approach - encouraged by zero-tolerance policies that have been in vogue for the past decade or so - is just flat wrong. And it's not working for anyone, least of all the children who get caught up in the cold bureaucracy of courts, judges and jails.
It is this approach that is feeding Florida's most vulnerable children into the state's "school-to-prison pipeline" and, ultimately, into its adult prisons. Read more ... (posted 11/08/08)
ADA 2008: An act to restore the intent and protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
Congress finds that in enacting the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Congress intended that the Act "povide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities" ...
FL starts virtual school mandate, by Laura Green, THE PALM BEACH POST
Starting next school year, the first generation of Florida students can earn a diploma from their public schools entirely online, without ever setting foot in a classroom from kindergarten through 12th grade.
While virtual schools and online distance learning will not save public schools, at least there will be another option for some students whose learning styles will be better accommodated with flexible hours, self-pacing, and less blah, blah, blah.
"Redneck Woman," Gretchen Wilson, earns GED and advocates for adult education ...
"Gretchen came to the program because she wanted to fulfill this void that had been missing for all these years for her ... I don't think she realized how much this would speak to other people. Her fans are legion. If their role model, the Redneck Woman, could get her GED, then ... maybe they could too." (11/08)
One-Size-Fits-None School: A mother living in FL tells us why she wants NCLB to go away ... NCLB is detrimental to my family. It undermines childhood pleasures and threatens to destroy my son's self-esteem. (posted 10/17/08)
Bing and Ingrid talk about education theory: What is passing? Should everyone pass? What is our purpose here: to help children or measure their brains with a yardstick? Perhaps closing schools would be better than breaking their hearts ...
Students with Disabilities Preparing for Postsecondary Education: Know Your Rights and Responsibilities
U.S. Department of Education, July 2002
Key Differences Between Section 504, the ADA, and the IDEA by Peter & Pamela Wright
ADHD Parenting Advice from Michael Phelps' Mom
Need some ADHD parenting advice? Learn how the mothers of three ADHD super-achievers — an Olympic record-breaker, a TV heavyweight, and a world-class adventurer — helped their kids beat the odds. ~ Judy Dutton (posted 9/12/08)
Students propose changes to new graduation rules, Lori Higgins, MI
A group of high school students today proposed dramatic changes to the state’s tough new graduation requirements that would create separate routes to a high school diploma based on whether a student planned to attend college, enter the work force or pursue a career in the fine arts. Some routes would require less rigorous coursework for students.
These students are asking for a modified "tracking system" like the one in place when I was in high school that allowed students to choose one of several pathways to a high school diploma: career prep (vocational ed), college prep, fine arts prep, and a special needs pathway. Made sense back then and makes sense now. (posted 9/21/08)
Testing of special-ed students should be re-examined, George Skelton
The predictable result came in last week from forcing students with disabilities to pass a high school exit exam in order to earn a diploma. Nearly half failed.
Failed. A demoralizing word for some kids who struggle daily to perform tasks most teens carry out with ease.
The psychological damage "is horrific" ... (posted 9/18/08)
Educators focus on ninth-graders' transition to high school
The idea that a few poor grades in freshman year are no real problem is gone. Grades during freshman year are more predictive of whether a student will drop out than other factors, including poverty and standardized test scores ... If they don't connect well in ninth grade, they tend to disappear in 10th. A high percentage drop out. (posted 9/18/08)
Obama Looks to Lessons From Chicago in His National Education Plan by SAM DILLON
... research ... found that for every dollar spent on prekindergarten education and the care of infants and their families, there is a $7 to $10 decrease in spending on special education, remedial education and prisons. (posted 9/10/08)
Good news for secondary students with EBD!
Behavior Disorders in Teens Are Focus of New R&D Effort, by Christina A. Samuels
The numbers tell a grim story: By the time students with behavioral or emotional problems get to high school, they may be so alienated from adults or disruptive to their classmates that they simply drop out. ...
To help address that problem, a consortium of seven universities has received a $9.6 million grant from the federal government to establish the National Research and Development Center on Serious Behavior Disorders at the Secondary Level. Researchers affiliated with the new initiative will search for successful methods for educating a group of students that some experts see as long overlooked. (posted 8/9/08)
College is Not a Must
The total damage inflicted on students by the college-is-for-everyone mentality is incalculable. Students who cannot measure up to the demands for a college curriculum are made to feel like failures. (posted 9/6/08)
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. The best way to decrease the crime rate is to increase the graduation rate. One police chief says that he'd rather see kids in graduation caps and gowns than orange jumpsuits. (posted 8/3/08)
... the Army prefers those who graduate from high school on their own, because it demonstrates "tenacity." But the reality of current graduation rates has the Army pressed to find an alternative ...
So the military is opening GED prep schools in order to be able to recruit enough soldiers to meet our current military needs. Read more ... (posted 8/3/08)
These good paying jobs do not require a college education, just some training and ability to do physical labor ...
Here are 10 blue-collar jobs that are following the ways of the world as technology, the environment and the population rapidly changes. These labor-intensive jobs offer decent (though not the highest) pay and job growth through 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Some of them you might not have heard of -- but when you read the job requirements, you'll realize how often you utilize their work.
Read the list ...
(posted 8/3/08)
AHEADD: Achieving in High Education with Autism / Developmental Disabilities
Very little research exists regarding the efficacy of individualized support programs in higher education. It appears, however, that a continuum of support is becoming available for students who require dramatically varying levels of assistance to be successful in a post-secondary environment.
But, now there's a model that can help ...
(posted 8/26/08)
Just have to say something about the "pink hair suspension", GPS ankle bracelets, jumpsuits, and corporal punishment. We preach tolerance then suspend students for dying their hair. How many faculty members should be suspended until their hair returns to it natural color? Tracking truants with GPS ankle bracelets and forcing students to wear jumpsuits for violating school dress codes equates schools with prisons. And, how can corporal punishment be allowed and legal in schools when we rant and rave against bullying? I do believe that common sense has died in K-12 public school environments. (posted 8/27/08)
Living with Autism in College
College students must become their own advocates, a change that can take them and their families by surprise, said Donna Martinez, executive director of George Washington University's Heath Resource Center, an online clearinghouse for students with disabilities.
"It's night and day" from high school, she said. "It's a whole different world." (posted 8/27/08)
Bellevue Community College in Seattle WA offers an associate's degree in Occupational and Life Skills. College officials are touting the Venture program as the only accredited associate-degree program in the nation for people with mental disabilities. Earlier this month, President Jean Floten said educating students with autism, obsessive-compulsive disorders and other disabilities is "one of the final frontiers in higher education." (posted 6/17/08)
Read more: Four grads from BCC are true believers in life skills program
Fitting in was hardest lesson
A student with Asperger's Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, achieves his goal of becoming valedictorian. "What he lacks in social graces, he makes up for in academic prowess." Congratulations to Aaron Snook of Turpin HS in Cincinnati! (6/16/08)
Study: Girls equal to boys in math skills
Sixteen years after Barbie dolls declared, "Math class is tough!" girls are proving that, at math, they are just as tough as boys.
Girls have caught up on test scores, which researchers attribute to more taking higher math classes like calculus.
In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in math in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science.
Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math ... And girls, who grew up believing it, wound up avoiding harder math classes. (posted 7/27/08)
Turning point arrives as US community colleges' purview grows
Community colleges train 80% of the country's police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians and more than half of its new nurses and health care workers. They are the go-to destinations for displaced workers and immigrants seeking language and cultural skills. Community colleges are where people most often go when they need to brush up on math or English before pursuing a college degree. And they have become increasingly attractive to families who can't afford to send their kids to a four-year school.
Now, community college leaders insist that their institutions, created to serve their local communities, have grown even more important on a larger stage. If the USA wants to keep pace with other industrialized nations, studies show, more of its workforce will need to be educated, including those who have traditionally been left behind by higher education: low-income students, working adults, underserved minorities and those who need remedial help before college. Community colleges, which were founded on the very notion that anybody who wants an education ought to be able to get one, are positioned to serve those populations, advocates say. (posted 7/26/08)
Youths Rally for Disabled Rights in Schools
Too often kids with special needs are bullied and left out. In NJ, student mentors lobby for a curriculum that would include the history of treatment for disabilities and the disability rights movement; empathy and problem-solving skills to help children better relate to those with disabilities and discussion of various types of disabilities. (posted 6/17/08)
Showing What They Know
RI adds performance assessments to its requirements for graduation, but is it manageable? (posted 6/17/08)
Schools experiment with paying kids
To pay or not to pay: that is the question. Rewarding students is not new. Gold stars and pizza parties have been around for ages. But the new programs are more systematic. They are often available on a school-wide basis or throughout certain grades rather than just doled out by select teachers, many times with their own money. (posted 6/17/08)
My recent ed/op article, "It's Never Too Late to Earn a Gold Star", was published in the local newspaper, The Curry Pilot, on Saturday, June 7, 2008 with the title: "It's Never Too Late to Earn a General Ed Diploma." A Coos Bay, OR, newspaper, The World, has expressed an interest in printing my article, too. I have also been invited to write some spotlights on GED graduates. (posted 6/8/08)
Dr. Ed Hallowell, specialist in ADHD, addresses graduates with learning differences as "magnificently-minded." He tells these students: So revel in your differences. Exult in who you are. Tough as it may have been, it is worth it to be you. And this world really needs the real you, not some altered version being forced to fit an old mold. (posted 6/4/08)
Judy Kihslinger is a lead instructor in an adult education program who is described as being a "master of second chances." Indeed, she has helped many students move ahead after "being left behind" in public schools. Read more. (posted 6/4/08)
Maryland school first in state to attain 100% proficiency
CEC SMARTBRIEF | 06/02/2008
Every third- and fourth-grader at one Maryland elementary school passed the state's standardized math and reading tests last year, the first full-sized school to do so. Eleven years ago, the school started pairing students so that each learner would have a partner to engage with on discussion questions versus the more limited exchange that takes place between a teacher and whichever students volunteer to participate. Washington Post, The (05/28)
The principal says: "I think kids don't talk enough in school. In fact, I think they're told not to talk."
Increased language skills would certainly improve test scores in most subject areas.
Sex abuse, violence alleged at teen jails across U.S.
A CNN check of other juvenile facilities shows that, despite years of court wrangling, serious problems persist.
- U.S. Justice Department suing 11 jurisdictions, alleging abuse of teen inmates
- Girls as young as 13 say they were shackled for days at Mississippi lock-up
- An official at a Texas jail allegedly offered birthday cake for sex with teen
- "It's a nationwide crisis," says expert with 30 years experience in juvenile justice (4/4/08)
You will find several book titles about juvenile justice in this reference list.
One of my favorites is HUNGRY GHOSTS, Mary Taylor Previte.
You will find several web resources about juvenile justice here.
A teen columnist with his own disability (dysgraphia or illegible handwriting) states that not allowing appropriate accommodations for individual students per their IEP plans on state mandated tests is "nonsensical, cruel, and violates everything education disability law has tried to do over the past 35 years."
If you are reading this on the PBIS.org web site, chances are you’re already aware of the profound impact school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is having on public schools throughout the US. However, you may not know that it also is being successfully applied in a variety of juvenile justice settings.
A special educator in NC explains why he is just saying, "No," to testing students with severe disabilities, and why he is saying, "Yes!" to their spirits ...
As Little Hood arrives at her grandmother's cottage one morning, she's horrified to find the big, bad wolf and a mean crow trying to con the old woman and eat her. But Little Hood knows just what to do.
School teachers, therapists uninformed of learning disabilities ...
The law says all teachers and therapists must receive copies of their students' Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). But a teachers union survey shows that many are not getting them. "This is a real problem," said Kim Sweet of Advocates for Children. "The IEP is basically a road map of a kid's particular needs and how they can be effectively dealt with in a classroom. If you don't give a teacher a road map, then the teacher is driving blind." (3/30/08)
Education Professor Reaches Out to Students Who Need Help the Most
“What happens in society is we have this group of kids who we know have behavior disorders, and a lot of people look at these kids and say ‘That kid’s a troublemaker; that kid is a juvenile delinquent; that kid just doesn’t try,’” she said. “These kids aren’t broken, though they may be in a broken system. We need to give them the support and intervention they need to put them on the right path.” ~ Kelley Lassman, Ph.D., Fordham Graduate School of Education (3/5/08)
... A college education is no longer a meal ticket because the table is crowded and the competition is now global and fierce.
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