Under a proposal being considered by New Jersey lawmakers, schools would be able to provide special education services for an additional year beyond what is required by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. By maintaining eligibility for students through the age of 22, as would...
For many schools, ensuring that students who receive special education resources were able to continue receiving services during the pandemic proved to be one of the most difficult challenges resulting from school closures – one that has carried an uptick in “due process” litigation cases...
As the first presidential candidate in decades to include full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as a campaign goal, President-elect Joe Biden has promised to make an effort to deliver billions of dollars of additional federal funding to special education programs...
Responding to growing confusion around the provision of special education services after a chaotic back-to-school season, the federal Department of Education released several Q&A-styled documents to offer guidance to states and districts still determining their plans for special education. This follows the Department’s declination to...
Writer and mom to a student who happens to have Down’s Syndrome, Vicki Vila discusses how accountability measures put into place by ESSA have helped and motivated schools to ensure a proper learning environment for students who receive special education services at a greater rate...
A coalition of education organizations is pushing Congress “to waive a provision in federal law that requires school districts to maintain consistent funding levels for special education from year to year.” The “maintenance of effort” provision, part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, is...
“After years of frustration in her attempts to expand education choice, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is picking up steam,” writes Andrew Ujifusa for Education Week. “Fresh evidence that DeVos is continuing her push to prioritize choice with federal funds can be found in...
Ashley Jochim, senior research analyst at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, notes the growing skills shift students need from traditional academics to non-achievement-based educational outcomes. She explains that ESSA, “implicitly recognizes this shift with its requirement that assessment of a non-academic measure of student...
Reporting for The 74, Sarah Berger Sandelius highlights three takeaways from D.C. data on special education. While “evidence shows that addressing the needs of our most diverse learners presents a tremendous opportunity, with benefits for the entire education community,” she writes. “We have a lot...
Theresa Bourke reports about a local district’s effort to improve their special ed math curricula as part of their continuous improvement plan under ESSA. The district “began the initiative last year because data showed special education students—especially at the elementary and middle school levels—were not...
