California Dept. of Education Releases Proposed Emergency Regulations Dealing with Students with Disabilities and Epilepsy
By Marty OmotoThe State Board of Education issued notice on Friday (March 9th) that it will be submitting to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) - the State agency that reviews and approves all state regulations - two new proposed emergency regulations dealing with the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) that impacts students with special needs and disabilities, and a second proposed emergency regulation regarding students with epilepsy.
The proposed emergency regulation relating to students with epilepsy concerns the implementation of SB 161 that allows under certain conditions non-medical school employees to provide emergency medical assistance in public schools to students with epilepsy by administering an anti-seizure medication.
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Language Barriers Could Dampen Exchange Enrollment
By Viji SundaramNew America Media
Health care advocates worry that more than 100,000 Californians who are eligible to purchase affordable insurance through the Health Benefit Exchange will not enroll because of language barriers, according to a study released last week by the Oakland-based nonprofit, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN).
The study, by researchers at UC Berkeley-UCLA, estimates the likely enrollment in health care reform programs in the state, including the Exchange -- a health insurance marketplace that launches nationwide on Jan. 1, 2014, as part of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
The study’s lead researcher, Daphna Gans, a research scientist at UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research, said that the study predicts that people who speak English “less than well are going to be disadvantaged” when the Exchange becomes operative.
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School Reform Again: From Pillar Back to Post
By Peter SchragThere’s nothing surprising in California’s most recent attempt to re-do California’s school accountability and rating system. The system’s problems were probably predictable a dozen years ago when it was first set up.
What’s interesting is the question of whether the sharp improvements of the past ten years on the state’s Academic Performance Index, the API, really mean anything, and if so, what.
When State Senate President pro-tem Darrell Steinberg tried to fix the system last year by de-emphasizing tests and including criteria like dropout and graduation rates, Gov. Jerry Brown shot it down, not because he liked the existing test-based regime, but because “adding more speedometers to a broken car won’t turn it into a high-performance machine.”
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Mental Health Services Act Needs to Focus on Mental Illness
By DJ JaffeThe chair of the California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) wrote an op-ed in Capital Weekly criticizing families of people with severe mental illness who criticize how Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) funds are spent. He claims the program is working well. But it's not.
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