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Saturday, May 26, 2012

Undermining Special Education? « Diane Ravitch's blog

Undermining Special Education? « Diane Ravitch's blog:


Undermining Special Education?

I thought I was done with blogging for the day but then I read a comment on an earlier post. It was very disturbing. If true, it’s frightening to think that the Obama administration plans to “monitor” special education by test scores and to reduce the number of people on the ground.
For-profit higher education is a $30 billion industry, and it has the wherewithal to call off the regulators.” Exactly. DoEd will reform (translation: eliminate) OSEP’s compliance procedures assuring IDEA and special education IEPs are effectively working for children with disabilities. OSEP director Melodie Musgrove told us at the Council for Exceptional Children’s international convention (CEC) in April, 2012 that they will be monitoring “achievement data” (translation: standardized test scores) from Washington and cutting back on state compliance officers (translation: firing). Her “vision” for OSEP  is “results driven accountability” and to “reward teachers who work with sped students.” (translation: TfA exploiting the SPED teacher shortage).
OSEP’s shift from compliance to monitoring sets back 40 years of special education progress in assuring all