SpedPro

RTI presentations

By JohnL on May. 19, 2007.

For those who missed the series of talks about response to intervention at the 2007 meeting of the Council for Exceptional Children, the presenters’ slides are available from Teach Effectively. The presenters included

• Dixie Huefner (University of Utah) and Perry Zirkel (Lehigh University)
• Yvonne Bui (University of San Francisco), Jose Luis Alvarado (San Diego State University), & Rosalind Simpson (University of San Francisco)
• Diane Pedrotty Bryant (University of Texas) and Brian R. Bryant (Psycho-Educational Services, Austin, TX)
• Charles Hughes (Penn State University) and Donald Deshler (Kansas University)
• Kathleen Lane (Vanderbilt University)
• Lynn S. Fuchs (Vanderbilt University) and Douglas Fuchs (Vanderbilt University)

Kame’enui’s term expires

By JohnL on May. 16, 2007.

Here is the content of a statement by Grover J. Whitehurst, Director of the Institute of Education Sciences, announcing the expiration of Ed Kame’enui’s term as Commissioner of Special Education Research.

Dr. Kame’enui joined the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) from the University of Oregon in July 2005 under the provisions of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA). IPA agreements allow employees of educational institutions to be assigned to work in a Federal agency for terms up to two years. Dr. Kame’enui’s two-year IPA assignment expires at the end of June 2007, at which point he will return to his faculty position at the University of Oregon.

Upon arriving at IES in 2005, Dr. Kame’enui assumed leadership of National Center for Special Education Research, which had just been created within IES under provisions of the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. During Commissioner Kame’enui’s period of leadership, the National Center for Special Education Research was organized and staffed, engaged in extensive outreach to the special education community, fielded successful grant competitions in 11 different topics, and managed two major national longitudinal studies of the experiences of children with disabilities and the services they receive. These are significant accomplishments. I thank Dr. Kame’enui for his public service at IES and wish him well as he returns to his academic career.

Popped myth

By JohnL on May. 9, 2007.

The US National Center on Educational Statistics, a part of the Institute for Education Sciences, issued a report about special education. In the report, billed as an “issue brief” and published in March of 2007, Emily W. Holt, Daniel J. McGrath, and William L. Herring describe the results of a study based on the cohort of children who started kindergarten in 1998 and followed in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS-K). It’s worth reading, in part because it pops a common myth about special education.
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Gap

By JohnL on May. 4, 2007.

I thought this was pretty interesting combination of words and spaces. The image (click it for a larger version) shows part of an e-mail message that I received. It was pretty intriguing to compare the title of the article to the way that the title was displayed.

Teeheee.

Project Forum docs May-07

By JohnL on May. 4, 2007.

I received an announcement from the Project Forum folks that the following documents are now available for download:

• Response to Intervention as it Relates to Early Intervening Services: Recommendations
• Highly Mobile Children and Youth with Disabilities: Policies and Practices in Five States
• Reporting on State Assessment Data for Students with Disabilities: Synthesis of the 2007 NCEO Report
• Public and Parent Reporting Requirements: NCLB and IDEA Regulations
• Statewide Behavior Initiatives
• Special Education Vouchers: Four State Approaches
• Highly Qualified Teachers and Special Education: Several State Approaches

Project Forum also plans documents on these topics:

• Consumer and Parent Participation in State Monitoring;
• Crosswalk of INTASC principles and select specialty program association standards;
• Early Childhood Part C State Technical Assistance Systems: State of the States;
• Including Youth with Disabilities in Statewide Initiatives;
• Reading First and Special Education: Collaboration between General and Special Education;
• Standards-based IEP Exemplars;
• State Support for Mentoring of Special Education Teachers; and
• Statewide Electronic Data Collection