Universal Design for Learning by David H. Rose, Ed.D.

Universal Design for Learning by David H. Rose, Ed.D.:

Universal Design for Learning by David H. Rose, Ed.D.

By David H. Rose, Ed.D.

Thank you Nancy for inviting me to put some thoughts about UDL on your blog.  I hope I can reduce some of the misconceptions about UDL that appeared here, and then perhaps engage in discussion where I can learn more from you and your readers.

So, where did UDL come from?  The framework of UDL was developed by a group of neuropsychologists and special educators who worked at a children’s hospital in Boston.  Our job was to evaluate students who were having learning difficulties in school and to make recommendations to improve their progress.  Around 1984 we began to think that modern technology had a lot to offer those students, especially those with disabilities, and their teachers.  So, we formed a new clinic which we called CAST to learn what was useful (and what was not) so that we could make better recommendations.  Eventually that clinic became a very popular service for parents and schools in our area and we split from the hospital to focus more directly on research and development to learn more.

At first most of our attention was focused on assistive technology – the use of specialized technology to overcome the barriers students faced in school.  For some students that was astoundingly successful, but many students still faced barriers. Soon we discovered the architectural movement of universal design.  In that movement, a small group of architects developed principles and guidelines for designing buildings that, from the outset, had fewer barriers and more options. Now almost all new public buildings in the US are universally designed – and everyone benefits from the ramps and elevators (etc.) that are there for all of us.

That gave us a name for the work we wanted to do: Universal Design for Learning.  We Universal Design for Learning by David H. Rose, Ed.D.:

NEWS FLASH - Malloy, State Employee Unions DROP KICK $13 billion plus onto the backs of our children - Wait What?

NEWS FLASH - Malloy, State Employee Unions DROP KICK $13 billion plus onto the backs of our children - Wait What?:

NEWS FLASH – Malloy, State Employee Unions DROP KICK $13 billion plus onto the backs of our children

Governor Dannel Malloy, in concert with Connecticut’s State Employee Unions, have joined forces to shift a major portion of Connecticut’s massive unfunded pension liability onto the backs of Connecticut’s children and those yet to come.

Call it an outrageous effort to kick the can so far down the road that no one will be around to remember what today’s elected officials have done to the economic well-being of those who aren’t yet voters and those who haven’t even shown up on this earth.

Worse yet, the action will probably be taken without a vote of the Connecticut General Assembly.

Warning that such a disastrous deal would be forthcoming, Wait, What? published two recent commentary pieces on the topic.

Don’t shift Connecticut’s unfunded liability problem onto our children.   (Via CT Mirror 12-8-16)

And

Warning – Malloy likely to propose shifting State’s massive unfunded liability problem onto our children  (12-1-16)

But the warnings fell on deaf ears as Connecticut’s governor now seeks to duck significant responsibility for paying down Connecticut’s unfunded state employee pension fund.

As CT Mirror explains in a breaking story entitle, Malloy, unions strike deal to stretch out spiking CT pension costs;

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced a deal Friday with state employee 

NEWS FLASH - Malloy, State Employee Unions DROP KICK $13 billion plus onto the backs of our children - Wait What?:

Mother Crusader: Camden Voucher Advocate, Member Of Groups With Ties To Betsy DeVos, Nominated For NJ State Board Of Ed

Mother Crusader: Camden Voucher Advocate, Member Of Groups With Ties To Betsy DeVos, Nominated For NJ State Board Of Ed:

Camden Voucher Advocate, Member Of Groups With Ties To Betsy DeVos, Nominated For NJ State Board Of Ed

You've got to hand it to Chris Christie. He'll always keep you on your toes.

As reported in NJ Spotlight yesterday, the Governor announced nominees for long vacant seats on the State Board of Education yesterday, and in a move no one saw coming, he ousted the Board's President, Mark Biedron. John Mooney also noted one particular nomination, and what it may mean.

Christie added to the board well-known Camden activist Angel Cordero. A former mayoral candidate from the city, Cordero a few years ago was among the state’s biggest advocates for private-school vouchers, a topic that may see a revival in Christie’s last year.

A look at Cordero's Twitter account is, well, disturbing. His handle is @Christie_Guy_. The bulk of his tweets fall into three categories; love letters to Christie, hatred for the teachers' union, and more than a few that are just straight up bizarre. 

Here are some representative samples.

Let's start with the straight up bizarre ones to give you a sense of the guy Governor Christie Mother Crusader: Camden Voucher Advocate, Member Of Groups With Ties To Betsy DeVos, Nominated For NJ State Board Of Ed:

ACLU sues charter claiming transgender student denied admission - The San Diego Union-Tribune

ACLU sues charter claiming transgender student denied admission - The San Diego Union-Tribune:

ACLU sues charter claiming transgender student denied admission

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against e3 Civic High School amid allegations the charter school denied admission to a transgender student because of gender identity.

This is the second time in about a year that the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties has raised concerns about the charter’s culture when it comes to LGBT students.

“It looks like they have a problem,” said David Loy, ACLU legal director. “We think they have an obligation to dispel the concern that they do have a pattern and practice of discrimination.”

Helen Griffith, executive director of e3 Civic High, said the school couldn’t comment on the specifics of the lawsuit because they haven’t seen it, but she rejected the accusation.

 “e3 Civic High School adamantly denies discriminating against or denying admission to any transgender student,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “e3 Civic High School is committed to providing a positive, supportive educational environment for all individuals and strictly prohibits all form of discrimination.

“We feel very confident that it will be proven that at no time did e3 discriminate against any student.”

The suit stems from an October 2015 meeting between Mayra Velazquez and her daughter, a 15-year-old transgender student seeking admission to the charter, and Griffith, according to the lawsuit.

At that time, the ACLU said e3 Civic High was least 70 students under its enrollment capacity. Griffith declined to admit Velazquez’s daughter, claiming there was no space at the school and allegedly placing her on a waiting list, the lawsuit says.

The ACLU said Sheila Krotz, who was e3’s director of instruction at the time, informed ACLU sues charter claiming transgender student denied admission - The San Diego Union-Tribune:

Here's how the L.A. school board races are taking shape - LA Times

Here's how the L.A. school board races are taking shape - LA Times:

Here's how the L.A. school board races are taking shape

The winners of three L.A. school board races next March will have to help run a system facing a long-term financial crisis, lagging academic performance and declining enrollment.

Still, 15 people want the jobs and this week turned in paperwork that they hope will get them on the ballot.

 The election could prove pivotal because the seven-member board is divided on key issues, including the growth and monitoring of independently operated charter schools. L.A. has become a widely watched battleground for competing special interests and conflicting visions of reform, so campaign spending is expected to be in the millions of dollars.

Wednesday was the deadline for turning in petitions that are part of the process for getting on the ballot, and 15 of the 19 who had signed up to run followed through. Signatures on some petitions still need to be verified, so it’s possible that the final list of candidates will shrink.

In two of the three seats on the ballots, incumbents are running for reelection.

In District 4, which stretches from West Los Angeles into the west San Fernando Valley, current school board President Steve Zimmer is seeking a third term. He is expected to receive strong support from employee unions, and draw well-funded opposition from donors who oppose union-backed candidates and want to limit union influence. 

What’s not yet clear is where the major non-union money will go. Attorney and former teacher Nick Melvoin is one possibility. Another is Allison Holdorff Polhill, a parent and former board member of Palisades Charter High School. It’s possible that both will draw significant resources from the same group of donors.

In early campaign filings, Melvoin led all candidates with $161,742 raised, but the biggest spending is likely to come in independent expenditures, either from the teachers union or from its opponents. This spending is not controlled by the candidates.

Also in the District 4 race is parent Gregory Martayan, who describes himself in election filings as a “police specialist” based on his experience as a reserve police officer who served as a liaison with the Armenian community. 

In District 2, the non-union money will go to longtime board member Monica Garcia. She’s likely to receive support from some district employee groups, but not from the teachers union.

The teachers union still is deciding whether to engage in a costly, uphill battle to unseat Here's how the L.A. school board races are taking shape - LA Times:

Big Education Ape: Broad's Billion dollar Babies rack up early fundraising leads in LA Unified school board race | 89.3 KPCC - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/broads-billion-dollar-babies-rack-up.html

Big Education Ape: TBT: Wizard of Oz Lollipop Guild Gets Update for Trumplandia - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/tbt-lollipop-guild-gets-update-for.html

Miami-Dade, Florida’s Recent “Symbolic” and “Artificial” Teacher Evaluation Moves | VAMboozled!

Miami-Dade, Florida’s Recent “Symbolic” and “Artificial” Teacher Evaluation Moves | VAMboozled!:

Miami-Dade, Florida’s Recent “Symbolic” and “Artificial” Teacher Evaluation Moves

Last spring, Eduardo Porter – writer of the Economic Scene column for The New York Times – wrote an excellent article, from an economics perspective, about that which is happening with our current obsession in educational policy with “Grading Teachers by the Test” (see also my prior post about this article here; although you should give the article a full read; it’s well worth it). In short, though, Porter wrote about what economist’s often refer to as Goodhart’s Law, which states that “when a measure becomes the target, it can no longer be used as the measure.” This occurs given the great (e.g., high-stakes) value (mis)placed on any measure, and the distortion (i.e., in terms of artificial inflation or deflation, depending on the desired direction of the measure) that often-to-always comes about as a result.

Well, it’s happened again, this time in Miami-Dade, Florida, where the Miami-Dade district’s teachers are saying its now “getting harder to get a good evaluation” (see the full article here). Apparently, teachers evaluation scores, from last to this year, are being “dragged down,” primarily given teachers’ students’ performances on tests (as well as tests of subject areas that and students whom they do not teach).

“In the weeks after teacher evaluations for the 2015-16 school year were distributed, Miami-Dade teachers flooded social media with questions and complaints. Teachers reported similar stories of being evaluated based on test scores in subjects they don’t teach and not being able to get a clear explanation from school administrators. In dozens of Facebook posts, they described feeling confused, frustrated and worried. Teachers risk Miami-Dade, Florida’s Recent “Symbolic” and “Artificial” Teacher Evaluation Moves | VAMboozled!:

With a bigot like Bannon at Trump’s side, ‘never again’ is happening right now | The Lens

With a bigot like Bannon at Trump’s side, ‘never again’ is happening right now | The Lens:

With a bigot like Bannon at Trump’s side, ‘never again’ is happening right now

“Never again.” These two words haunt the moral imaginations of many American Jews who grew up on the survival stories of our elders. In particular, Ashkenazi Jewish institutions have invested millions of dollars into Nazi Holocaust education, making sure this phrase is imprinted in our brains.

And so in the past few weeks, as we process the election of a man who has promised mass deportation and religious bans while rising to power on a juggernaut of white nationalist propaganda, we recommit to never again letting fascism rule.

We have learned the warning signs of fascism all our lives. And yet, the very same Jewish institutions that taught us about our genocide are utterly failing to take a stand, opting instead to normalize dangerous choices, stifle dissent and, in the process, expose their own hypocrisy.

When the Jewish Federations of North America told Donald Trump in an open letter that “we very much look forward to working closely with you and your administration,” we were disgusted — but not surprised. Many of the repressive approaches to governing that we fear in a Trump presidency have long been tacitly accepted by Jewish institutions that promote a defend-Israel-at-all-costs philosophy.

Our local Jewish Federation recently released an admirable community statement on behalf of 20 local Jewish organizations calling for tolerance and understanding: “Together we pledge that our organizations and congregations will continue to be places of safety, protecting the vulnerable, reaching out to those who are under threat and offering them our allegiance and support.” Why, then, have the Jewish Federations, including the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, failed to oppose the appointment of Stephen Bannon as Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor?

Bannon has long used his platform as leader of Breitbart News to incite violence towards Muslims, people of color, women, immigrants, Jews, and people with disabilities. He openly claims that his website is an intellectual home for the movement that calls itself the “alt-right,” a far-right fringe movement that embraces white nationalism and a range of racist and anti-immigrant positions. Self-proclaimed alt-right members were recently captured on on film saluting Nazi-style and shouting “Hail Victory!” — a translation of the Nazi battle cry, “Sieg Heil!”

Bannon has a documented history of anti-Jewish rhetoric, including trying to stop his children from attending school with Jewish kids. His appointment confirms Trump’s commitment to make his repulsive campaign promises reality.

Jewish organizations should be ashamed to put their pro-Israel interests above the security of Muslims, people of color, women, immigrants, Jews, and people with disabilities. Jewish Americans should not stand for this hypocrisy any longer.

In order to protect Israel, too many Jewish organizations, among them the Jewish Federations of North America, have welcomed Trump to the White House and remained silent about the appointment of Bannon. Consistent with its anti-Muslim agenda, Bannon’s Breitbart News Network regularly publishes articles that pander to right-wing Israeli political elements while simultaneously trafficking in anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny and anti-Muslim bigotry.

Jewish organizations should be ashamed to put their pro-Israel interests above the security of Muslims, people of color, women, With a bigot like Bannon at Trump’s side, ‘never again’ is happening right now | The Lens:

Education Department civil rights officials urged to work through ‘tough times ahead’ - The Washington Post

Education Department civil rights officials urged to work through ‘tough times ahead’ - The Washington Post:

Education Department civil rights officials urged to work through ‘tough times ahead’

A celebration of the Education Department’s civil rights work morphed into a pep rally Thursday to bolster federal workers and advocates who are expecting difficult years ahead under president-elect Donald Trump.

“We’ve got some tough times ahead, but we are up to it,” Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and an education civil rights icon, told the audience at the department’s D.C. headquarters. “You might as well hunker down, do your crying at nights and on the weekends. We are not going backwards.”

Edelman — who is also a mentor of failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — thanked the career employees at the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and asked them to stay in their jobs: “You’re more important than ever.”

Under President Obama, OCR has aggressively stepped up its investigation and enforcement efforts, handling a skyrocketing number of complaints even as the number of its staff has declined. The office also has issued guidance documents that have reshaped expectations for how K-12 schools and colleges handle sexual assault, deal with discipline and accommodate transgender students.

Civil rights advocates have cheered those efforts. But school districts, colleges and Republican lawmakers have accused the Obama administration of burdensome requirements and legal overreach, while Trump surrogates have suggested that OCR should be stripped of much of its authority. Trump could revise or reverse key guidance documents, or his administration could starve OCR’s budget, making it impossible to keep up with cases.Education Department civil rights officials urged to work through ‘tough times ahead’ - The Washington Post:

A Nashville School Board Member Figures Out the Secret: How Charter SchoolsGet Rich Off Public Tax Dollars | BustED Pencils

A Nashville School Board Member Figures Out the Secret: How Charter SchoolsGet Rich Off Public Tax Dollars | BustED Pencils:
A Nashville School Board Member Figures Out the Secret: How Charter Schools Get Rich Off Public Tax Dollars

An excellent article. Even though it’s out of Tennessee, it’s spot-on true for anywhere. Share it with the pro-charter legislator you love to hate.

 “I explained that there are many ways non-profit charters make money, including: (1) a 39% federal tax credit that allows investors to double their money in seven years; (2) all sorts of land deals, including using taxpayer money to fund land investments that profit the investor, not the taxpayers; (3) requiring students to purchase materials from board members at marked up prices or charging students high prices for lunches and other necessities; and (4) taking money from classrooms and driving it up to the top by, for example, hiring cheaper, inexperienced, uncertified teachers; by using computers instead of teachers for classroom instruction; or by using uncertified teachers for enrichment like art and music.”

Read A Nashville School Board Member Figures Out the Secret: How Charter SchoolsGet Rich Off Public Tax Dollars.

CURMUDGUCATION: Disrupting the Moral Center

CURMUDGUCATION: Disrupting the Moral Center:
Disrupting the Moral Center

Sarah Jones at the New Republic yesterday posted a blistering take on technocracy entitled "The Year Silicone Valley Went Morally Bankrupt." It doesn't address education, but it surely could.

She takes us back to 1996, and “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" by John Perry Barlo, a statement of Silicone Valley's to rise over and above the nation that birthed it:

Barlow’s manifesto is undeniably grandiose. “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth,” he announced. “We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” This was more than an expression of ego. Barlow asserted a moral hierarchy, and in this new order, Silicon Valley outranked the world it had come to transform.  

Barlow's vision seems to keep the moral center of American democracy, but as examination and time have revealed, it's really the blueprint for the Betterocracy-- the mobility and openness of technology do not give all citizens an equal voice, but give all citizens an equal opportunity to rise to their appropriate level, because at the end of the day, Technocratic Bettercrats believe that some people really are better than others, and those who are Better should be in charge, and those who are Lesser should shut up.

Jones connects this to a moral aloofness, a technocratic solutionism, a belief that the only problems that really are problems are problems that have a technological solution. "Show us your problem," Silicone Valley says, "and we will disrupt the heck out of it." If it's not solvable by technology, it's not a real problem.

Jones centers on two examples. One is Peter Thiel, who bullied Gawker into silence and has been riding on the Trump train. Thiel is a vocal critic of democracy, diversity, and women, and like CURMUDGUCATION: Disrupting the Moral Center:

Trump launches war on unions - POLITICO

Trump launches war on unions - POLITICO:
Trump launches war on unions

Labor leaders said after the election they’d give him a chance to deliver on his pro-worker agenda. But the ceasefire appears over.

The war between Donald Trump and the nation’s labor unions is on.

Labor leaders, who spent almost $100 million campaigning against Trump, said after the election they’d give him a chance to deliver on his pro-worker agenda. But the cease-fire eroded in the last two days.

First, Trump blasted an Indiana union boss personally on Twitter, prompting a blistering response from labor leaders. Then he announced his choice for secretary of the Department of Labor is fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, a union critic who’s even floated the idea of automating his restaurants to avoid worker costs.

“It’s part of a larger agenda, and you can see it playing out in terms of his picks, which is to destroy the labor movement,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United. “They want to do away with democracy. That’s the problem. Labor is a check on the balance of power with corporations and they want labor out of the way.”

 The emerging battle could set the tone between Trump and unions — and affect the future of the U.S. labor movement itself. Trump won the election with the help of union household voters in key states, such as Ohio and Michigan. In the soul searching after the election, labor needed to decide whether to stand with or against him.

So far, Trump is making that decision easy. The president-elect seems to be assembling a pro-business Cabinet that could clash with unions at every turn.

Puzder would fit right in. He’s the top executive of CKE Restaurants, the parent company for Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s and Green Burrito. While he doesn’t oppose raising the minimum wage, he says it will lead to job losses and more automation.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Trump’s plan to nominate Puzder “makes a mockery of what the Department of Labor is about.”
Weingarten has been deeply critical of another Cabinet pick, Betsy DeVos, a billionaire businesswoman he plans to tap for secretary of Education who supports expanding charter and other private school options for low-income children.

“This is about the opposite of what Trump promised he was going to do when he said he was going to be the president for the working class,” Weingarten said about the Puzder announcement. “This pick is about pulverizing the working class.”

Mary Kay Henry, president of the two million-member Service Employees International Union, said Trump might as well rebrand the Labor Department as Trump launches war on unions - POLITICO:

Trump school voucher plan would face huge obstacles in California | EdSource

Trump school voucher plan would face huge obstacles in California | EdSource:

Trump school voucher plan would face huge obstacles in California

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Betsy DeVos to be his secretary of education virtually guarantees that his administration will try to promote a “school choice” agenda, which includes giving vouchers to low-income children that could be used to help pay for, among other things, private school tuition.

Promoting vouchers, especially for private schools, has been a decades-long passion of DeVos’. It is also the most specific idea Donald Trump proposed for K-12 schools during a turbulent campaign in which education issues were rarely mentioned. Trump first floated this idea on Sept. 8, just two months before election day. “I want every single inner-city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom, the civil right, to attend the school of their choice,” Trump said at a speech in Cleveland.

As outlined on his website, his plan would grant vouchers worth as much as $12,000 each to every low-income student in the United States to use at the private, magnet, charter or traditional public school of his or her choice.

School choice, his website declares, “is the civil rights issue of our time.” This not a new idea for Trump, suggesting that it is likely to have staying power after he gets to the White House. He described a similar notion in his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve.”

But how would such a plan work in California? At the moment, there are more questions than answers.

“It is hard to know how this will play out because we don’t have a firm proposal, just Trump school voucher plan would face huge obstacles in California | EdSource:

Advocates: Schools Need More Training to Tackle Bias and Fear - SchoolBook - WNYC

Advocates: Schools Need More Training to Tackle Bias and Fear - SchoolBook - WNYC:

Advocates: Schools Need More Training to Tackle Bias and Fear

Parent advocates with the Coalition for Educational Justice said on Thursday they wanted New York City to better train public school staff on addressing incidents of bias in the schools, and engaging students who may be scared about possible deportation or their own safety. 

Parents gathered in front of the Department of Education headquarters said that even well-meaning teachers who created opportunities for students to talk about issues did not necessarily have the tools to take the next step and ease students' concerns. They said schools also should be pro-active in engaging students around issues of racism, bias against Muslims and anti-Semitism.

"Have some training for our teachers so that they are able to speak to our kids and see that our kids are really fearful right now," said Angela Martin, an advocate and a parent of an elementary school student in Brooklyn.  

Carlos Menchaca, a City Council member representing Brooklyn, said he had met privately with constituents who said their children endured racist comments at school. He said that even though the Department of Education had policies against discrimination, the city needed to do more to make students feel safe and empowered to speak up.

"Those policies are great," Menchaca said, "but they're not working right now and they're also not getting the amount of reporting that they're supposed to be getting because people aren't safe to report."

Advocates specifically called on the city to train teachers, parent coordinators and others to engage students on racist and anti-immigrant incidents. They also asked for more workshops to teach parents about their rights, in light of concerns about deportations, bias attacks and potential changes to health care.

"Schools are safe havens for communities and must be free from bullying, harassment or discrimination of any kind," said Toya Holness, a Department of Education spokeswoman, in a statement. 

Holness said education officials shared "the same urgency" as the parents, adding the city was investing $47 million annually to hire more social workers and school counselors and train staff on restorative practices and crisis intervention. Advocates: Schools Need More Training to Tackle Bias and Fear - SchoolBook - WNYC:

Special Education Case at Supreme Court Could Prove Costly for Schools

Special Education Case at Supreme Court Could Prove Costly for Schools:

Special Education Case at Supreme Court Could Prove Costly for Schools

A fifth-grader with autism at an elementary school in Dubuque, Iowa. Advocates for disabled students say the absence of national standards means children in some states get a better education and more services.

© The Associated Press

The Supreme Court review of a battle between the parents of an autistic child and his Colorado school district could help raise the standards of education for some of the more than 6 million disabled schoolchildren across the United States. But it could also prove expensive for already cash-strapped school districts.

Federal law guarantees disabled students a free and appropriate public education, but precisely what that means isn’t well defined. Federal judges often have had different interpretations of what they’re entitled to, something lawyers for the Colorado family and other advocates for disabled students say leads to better education and more services for disabled children in some states than in others.

But some groups that represent school administrators fear that setting a national standard would prompt more parents to demand additional services for their children, leading to costly court battles and forcing schools to spend more on therapies or pay for disabled children to attend private school.

“Disabled people and their families say kids are not getting the help they need,” said John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and the author of The Politics of Autism.

“School districts want to provide services,” Pitney said. “But they have limited resources and they’re afraid that this case will trigger trade-offs that they won’t like, that money they spend on this is not going to be available for other purposes.”

The case, named for a 17-year-old student who is referred to as Endrew F. in court documents, is slated to be heard by the justices in January. The legal battle largely boils down to whether disabled children are entitled to “some educational benefit,” as the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the Colorado case, or whether schools should meet a higher standard and provide a “meaningful benefit” to students, as federal appellate courts in the 3rd and 6th circuits have ruled in cases from Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

The federal law under review covers children with 13 types of physical, mental, emotional and behavioral disabilities. Children with nonphysical disabilities, including learning disabilities and autism, make up the bulk of students covered. 

Gary Mayerson, a lawyer on the board of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, which submitted a friend-of-the-court brief siding with Endrew’s family, said schools should spend more now, in the wake of a rise in diagnoses of autism since the 1990s. It’s ultimately in the state’s financial interest to avoid expenses that come with caring for disabled adults, he said.

“They should be investing whatever funds necessary to produce students who graduate to something that’s meaningful for them — greater independence and greater self-sufficiency. They’ll spend way less later on,” he said.

Legal Language

Congress tried to make schools more accessible to disabled students in 1975, and that law has evolved into what is known today as the Individuals with Disabilities Special Education Case at Supreme Court Could Prove Costly for Schools:

Office for Civil Rights Releases Annual Report - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Office for Civil Rights Releases Annual Report and Reflections on Past Eight Years, Citing Accomplishments and Lingering Challenges

This from the Department:

Protecting our students’ civil rights is fundamental to ensuring they receive a high-quality education. Two reports released today spotlight the challenges and achievements of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

According to OCR’s FY 2016 annual report, the number of complaints filed last fiscal year skyrocketed to a record 16,720 at a time when OCR’s staffing levels remained at a near all-time low. Still, OCR has resolved more than 66,000 civil rights cases during the Obama Administration, according to a second narrative describing progress made toward educational equity through strong civil rights enforcement from 2009-2016.

The Department released the new reports during an event with U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr., former Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon, as well as Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund.

“Much progress has been made in the past eight years, but much work remains to ensure all children enjoy equitable access to excellence in American education,” said U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. “These two reports highlight the ongoing vital necessity of OCR’s work to eliminate discriminatory barriers to educational opportunity so our nation’s students may realize their full potential.”

Lhamon added, “We thank our school communities for palpable progress toward realizing the promises Congress has made decade after decade to our nation’s students that their educational experiences should be fundamentally equal.  Our investigations confirm ongoing need to safeguard those rights, as well as daily commitment from educators across the country to our core democratic value of fairness.  We celebrate student victories and continue to stand ready to safeguard rights of students who need us.”

Over the last eight years, one of the Obama Administration’s highest priorities has been to protect the access of all students to a world-class education. As a result, the Department and OCR have seen significant progress in increasing educational equity nationwide and reducing discriminatory barriers that students face.

From FY 2009 to 2016, OCR:

• Received 76,022 complaints, with each year breaking the previous year’s record of complaint receipts;
• Resolved 66,102 cases;
• Proactively initiated 204 investigations known as compliance reviews;
• Issued 34 policy guidance documents;
• Monitored, on average, about 2,000 resolved cases per year to ensure compliance with resolution agreements; and,
• Conducted three major national, state, school- and district-level Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) surveys.

The FY 2016 annual report details the work of OCR over the past year to secure equal educational opportunity by Education Law Prof Blog:

Big Education Ape: Experts Discuss Office for Civil Rights Future Under Trump - The Atlantic - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/experts-discuss-office-for-civil-rights.html

Jeff Bryant’s “Tar Heel Heist” Traces Disaster of Charter School Growth in North Carolina | janresseger

Jeff Bryant’s “Tar Heel Heist” Traces Disaster of Charter School Growth in North Carolina | janresseger:

Jeff Bryant’s “Tar Heel Heist” Traces Disaster of Charter School Growth in North Carolina

Everyone should read Jeff Bryant’s report for Alternet from North Carolina on the impact of rapid charter school growth on the public schools in a state that spends less on education than it did prior to the 2008 recession. “What’s unclear is how a state hell-bent on financial austerity can afford to create what is essentially a new parallel school system of taxpayer supported charter schools.”

Residents of Massachusetts, which just rejected a bid to lift the cap on the authorization of new charter schools, should feel very smug. By contrast, Bryant tells us what happened back in 2011 after North Carolina eliminated its charter school growth cap: “In 2011, North Carolina state lawmakers lifted the cap on the number of charters allowed to operate in the state, which had been limited to 100—a move not only backed by Republicans but also encouraged by the Obama administration’s requirement for Race to the Top grant money, which the state won. In the first three years, 53 new charters opened their doors in the state, raising the charter school population in the state by 65 percent.”

To make matters more complicated, the state’s population—including the number of school children—is rapidly growing.  North Carolina’s public schools now serve serve 76,000 more students than they did back in 2008.  Wake County school board member Christine Kushner tells Bryant that, “Responding to growth is at the top of the list. ‘Wake County adds nearly a kindergarten class every day,’ she estimates.'”

Charter schools in North Carolina pose many of the same challenges to the public schools as they have been shown to do in other states: “Much of the fervor for charters in Jeff Bryant’s “Tar Heel Heist” Traces Disaster of Charter School Growth in North Carolina | janresseger:

Beyond the Classroom and School: District Technology Integration | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Beyond the Classroom and School: District Technology Integration | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Beyond the Classroom and School: District Technology Integration

Over the years, I have written about differences between complicated and complex (see here). I pointed out the differences in those top-down, command-and-control organizations that launch rockets into space and keep cities safe and those open, loosely-coupled organizations that provide health care, administer criminal justice, and offer public schooling that are vulnerable to their political and social environments,  heavily dependent upon relationships, and individual discretion.

For the past year, I have described best cases of classrooms that I have visited where technology integration was in the background, not the foreground (see here, here, and here). I have also posted descriptions of schools identified as exemplary in integrating technology across all of their classrooms such as the Summit network of charter schools.

But I have not yet profiled districts that have integrated technology on a systematic basis. In Silicon Valley, including most of the Bay area, there are 77 school districts. All have technology plans for their schools. These districts buy lots of hard- and software, wire and WiFi schools, provide classroom carts of laptops and tablets, offer teacher workshops and then cross their fingers that teachers will step up and use what the district has provided for daily lessons.Voluntary participation is the rule which means that great variation exists not only in every single school but across these districts heralded as embracing high-tech.

Only a few districts, however, have gone beyond a plan, buying devices, and crossing their fingers that teachers will use all of the available hardware and software. Only a few districts adopted policies that nudged all teachers in every school to use new technologies, blended learning, and personalized lessons.  Only a few districts have built a systematic infrastructure of broadband and WiFi, incorporated newly-developed software, sponsored professional development, Beyond the Classroom and School: District Technology Integration | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: