Tag Archives: special education

Exactly what role should unelected judges play in making policies for our schools? What problems have been created? What can we expect in the future? These are the kinds of questions that University of Colorado at Colorado Springs professor Joshua Dunn addresses in a new iVoices podcast with my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow (click the play button below to listen to the 15-minute discussion): The podcast only scratches the surface on the issue of the courts and education policy, because Joshua Dunn really knows what he’s talking about. Along with Martin West, he edited an important new book on the topic called From Schoolhouse to Courthouse — published by the Brookings Institution Press and Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

My mom and dad have been drilling the importance of sharing into me for years. I’ve finally got it down now (okay, for the most part). But as far as I recall, sharing my Legos or Matchbox cars with other kids has never been encouraged as a way to save money. I guess it’s a little different when it comes to school districts and “sharing” services. A recent article in the Pueblo Chieftain offers an account of a new development in the region’s two largest school districts: Talk of consolidating Pueblo City Schools and Pueblo County School District 70 may be too early right now, but the concept of sharing services is not.

It isn’t easy for me to say this, and many of my fellow kids may vote me out as a Benedict Arnold, but Colorado teacher Kathy Kullback has a good point: Maybe there’s something to the year-round school idea. What? No more summer vacation, you argue? Ms. Kullback writes: As a special educator, I tried to sign up special education students with generalized learning disabilities reading below grade level for summer school, but soon learned that the only special education students who take an extended year are cognitively disabled. I was advised that I not extend my students’ school year because the esteem issues associated with students of average cognitive ability attending summer school with students with cognitive disabilities is too severe. Then why not offer different classes for the learning disabled student? If year round classes are good for cognitively disabled students, it seems to me that year round classes would give regular education students that needed boost of continuity, and aid in their achieving academic success. It just makes sense. Year-round school usually means more overall days in the classroom. But just because you give up the long summer vacation doesn’t mean you’re in school every week of […]

You may think I spend a lot of time complaining about the education spending proposal inside Congress’ so-called stimulus (I prefer “magical money tree”) bill. Well, rather than just get up on my soapbox again (but hey, if I don’t stand up there, nobody will see me), I decided to share firsthand thoughts from a couple of Colorado’s state education officials on the issue. Earlier this week, new State Board of Education member Marcia Neal shared some thoughts on the education portion of the federal stimulus bill with Grand Junction reporter Mike Saccone: “I think there’s growing concern over this huge amount of money they’re throwing around,” Neal told Political Notebook today. “As always my concern … is the issue of local control. That when you accept money from the feds and they direct the way you spend it, they’re basically directing your local educational program and increasing your dependence on federal money.” Neal, a Republican, said she hopes the Senate, when it mulls the economic stimulus package this week, clears up the issue of local control. As I’ve highlighted before, Marcia Neal has expressed support for choice and local innovation. My friends in the Education Policy Center, though, wanted […]

Let’s admit it. None of us likes to take the blame, including the things we really are responsible for. And many times there are easy targets for those of us who like blame-shifting. One of my favorite education policy people, Dr. Jay Greene, put up a great post a couple days ago that is really worthwhile reading, titled “Blaming Special Ed”. In the post, he deconstructs the widely-held myth that special education is to blame for the lion’s share of increasing K-12 costs in recent decades: Blaming special ed is easy. Most attempts to blame special ed don’t even bother presenting data or make the most crude use of data to support their claims. Reporters simply accept assertions from school and state officials without question. Folks accept the blame-special-ed-story so easily because — well, to put it bluntly – it is a a widely held but unstated prejudice. People quietly resent special education because they fear that it is short-changing their regular education students. They assume that money spent on disabled kids is necessarily money taken away from general education. They can’t imagine that resources for general education have also increased at a very rapid clip even as special ed […]

The Rocky Mountain News today has an inspirational feature on Colorado Teacher of the Year Susan Elliott: Elliott, 54, grew up in California. She has been deaf since early childhood. “When I was 5 years old, I flunked the hearing test when I tried to get into kindergarten,” Elliott said. “And I continued to keep losing my hearing. It got worse and worse every year until I was profoundly deaf in my late teens.” The cause was genetic. Elliott has been teaching since 1977. She taught in Denver Public Schools and has been with Douglas County since 1994. While she has taught at all grade levels, she currently teaches English and social studies at Highlands Ranch High School. “We have a wonderful team of interpreters,” she said of the people who enable communication between students who speak and those who sign. “I guess I could say that creativity and the opportunity to be a lifelong learner is what keeps me coming back to the classroom.” Susan Elliott seems like a remarkable teacher. She is deserving of congratulations for the tremendous honor. It’s interesting to note that she teaches in Douglas County School District, a local leader in advancing ways to […]

On Tuesday, voters in Colorado’s largest school district rejected both a mill levy increase and bond proposal: “When you are a people intense organization those reductions will be people,” [superintendent Cindy] Stevenson said. “That’s teachers, counselors, librarians, um, special education staff. That’s where we’re going to have to look for cuts. And that’s going to be difficult because that will result in increased class size, fewer choices for our kids, less teacher training.” Stevenson said the money from the ballot issues would’ve gone toward teachers, books and significant structural improvements. The first reaction many may have is: Why doesn’t the district threaten to cut the number of administrators rather than classroom staffing? No doubt there are some additional efficiencies that could be found by rearranging these priorities. But no matter how good it makes some people feel to say so, just cutting the size of central administration isn’t the answer.