Special Education Links
Since 1975 and the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (and its 1991 reauthorization as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) public schools in the United States have been legally required to educate all students in a "least restrictive environment." Essentially, this means that students with disabilities are to be afforded the same learning opportunities as students without disabilities, as far as possible. One strategy to accomplish this goal is the practice of "inclusion" -- educating all students in the same classroom, to the extent appropriate--with the support of special education teachers, aides, and other resources.
SPECIAL ED FLEXIBILITY
On April 4, 2007 Secretary Spellings announced new regulations under the No Child Left Behind Act allowing states to assess certain students with disabilities using an alternate assessment.
Specifically, states may develop modified academic achievement standards based on grade-level content -- and alternate assessments based on those standards -- for students with disabilities who are capable of achieving high standards but who may not reach grade level in the same time as their peers. States may count proficient and advanced test scores on these alternate assessments for up to 2% of all students assessed when calculating Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the law. These regulations build on flexibility already provided for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, where states may count up to 1% of proficient and advanced assessment scores based on alternate achievement standards toward the AYP calculation.
At the same time, the Secretary released guidance on the implementation of the new regulations, offering recommendations on such issues as how students with disabilities can be appropriately identified for this assessment. She also announced $21.1 million in grants to help states develop new assessments for these students and a Special Education Partnership for technical assistance (a July 2007 meeting with interested states, monthly teleconferences, etc.).
Plus, the Department's National Center on Education Statistics (NCES) has released a new issue brief on the timing of entry into special education and the primary grades in which students receive special services. About 12% of students receive special education in at least one grade: kindergarten, first-grade, and third-grade, including 16% of boys, 8% of girls, 18% of poor students, and 10% of non-poor students. Half of those who begin special education in kindergarten are no longer receiving special education by third-grade.
Many children in special education classes may not belong there, the government says. A new policy 2007 is aimed at intervening early with intensive teaching to give struggling students a chance to succeed in regular classrooms and escape the ''special ed'' label. There are nearly seven million special education students in the United States, and roughly half have learning disabilities. Most of those are reading related, such as dyslexia or problems in processing information. The Bush administration, following passage of a broad special education law, issued rules in October that rewrote the way schools determine if a child has a learning disability. States have largely relied on a 1970s-era method that looks for disparities between a child's IQ and achievement scores. The diagnosis of a learning disability is often made around 4th grade, reports the Associated Press. At younger ages IQ tests are seen as less reliable, and it often takes that long for severe achievement problems to become apparent. But that, critics say, is a wait-to-fail approach. They point to research showing that intervening early can make it easier for children to overcome their problems.
SUCCESS STORY JASON MCELWAIN
Jason McElwain Basketball Star & Hoop Hero Video happens to be Autistic. The autistic manager of his high school hoops team gets a chance to play ... and scorches the nets for 20 pts. Transcript and video. also USA Today story - MSNBC VIDEO
Special Needs - FOR STUDENTS WITH IEPs AND /OR 504 PLANS are allowed to use their accommodations and modifications in testing situations.
EASI: Equal Access to Software and Information
http://www.rit.edu/~easi/
LD Resources http://www.ldresources.com/
CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology)
http://www.cast.org/
BARKLEY AUGMENTATIVE AND ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION
http://aac.unl.edu/
ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education
http://ericec.org/
DEAF ONLINE Free K12 Teacher Resources
Clearinghouse on Educational Policy and Management (was ERIC)
The Virtual Reference Desk (Ask-An-Expert subjects):
GEM - Gateway to Educational Materials:
http://thegateway.org/index.html
KidsConnect on the web: - the question-answering service for kids!
(K-12 students) or (teachers & parents)
- Or send your questions by email to: AskKC@iconnect.syr.edu
SpEd section of the IDEA reauthorization, aka
A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and their Families and, the response of the Council for Exceptional Children
The CEC document quotes each major portion of the Commission's report and lists their response.Voice Recognition Systems.
Kurzweil Music Systems Inc
About Kurzweil
Kurzweil Systems Educational Group
Kurzweil Systems Educational Group
Millions of people around the world struggle with reading everyday. Whether due to blindness, learning disabilities, or a reading difficulty such as dyslexia, access to printed word is now possible thanks to the reading software developed by L&H's Kurzweil Educational Systems Group. This solution is made possible through the use of speech, language, and optical character recognition technology
Ray Kurzweil: A Career Summary
The Kurzweil Companies
Digital Divide issues, there is a substantial body of information on this issue on the Educational Cyberplayground.
The Digital Divide
