Ms. Mullen captures some he-said, he-said in her story as well as some human interest (a case of a child with substantial special education needs whose parents contend say he was not provided appropriate services). You can read Ms. Mullen’s report of this sad special education story in its original form (or snag this single-page version).

Deborah L. Speece was named as the Commissioner of the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) on 23 August 2011. NCSER is the leading branch of the US government’s effort to study educational innovation in special education and, as its head, Commissioner Speece will oversee a program that funds scores of research efforts including projects, evaluations, and multi-site centers throughout the US. She is the second commissioner of NCSER, and her appointment was greeted with substantial approval by the special education research community.

IES Director John Q. Easton announced the appointment of Deborah Speece as Commissioner of the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) effective August 23, 2011. Known for her innovative studies of the classification and diagnosis of learning disabilities, Speece is a national leader in special education research and response to intervention strategies.

“We are so pleased to have such a well regarded and well known special education researcher join the IES senior leadership as Commissioner of the National Center for Special Education Research,” said Easton. “Debbie will reach out broadly to the field to continue building the NCSER research portfolio.”

Speece has had a stellar academic career. After taking a bachelors degree (magna cum laude) from Bowling Green State University and teaching special education in Ohio public schools for several years, she completed a masters degree in special education at Bowling Green in special education in 1978. A few years later, she enrolled in graduate studies in the University of North Carolina in educational psychology and began intensive research work in studies about learning disabilities. Her research gained immediate and sustained attention, appearing in top-tier journals and vaulting her into collaborations with leading experts in reading, cognitive psychology, and research methods. When she graduated in 1984 from UNC, she took her first and only academic position at the University of Maryland. Since then she has developed a vita that one person described in this way: It’s “as long as a basketball center’s arm, but what’s more important than its length is its strength.”

In addition to the praise from her new supervisor, other leaders in special education had similarly strong comments.

• Edward Kame’enui, Dean-Knight Professor of Education at the University of Oregon and the person who served as the first Commissioner of NCSER: “I’m supremely pleased that Debbie Speece has agreed to serve as Commissioner of NCSER. She brings an enormously impressive set of leadership and research skills to the position and I am more than eager to assist her in anyway I can.”
• Barbara Keogh, Emerita Professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences, and Professor in the Sociobehavioral Group in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry: “This is an excellent appointment. Dr. Speece has a thorough knowledge of the special education field, including its needs and its limitations. She is herself a rigorous and productive researcher who will bring critical analytic skills and experience to the leadership of NCSER. She is well qualified to plan and lead a comprehensive and relevant research agenda. Importantly, she also has the personal attributes necessary to work effectively with both researchers and policy makers to implement such a program.”
• Lynn Fuchs, Professor and Nicholas Hobbs Chair in Special Education and Human Development at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University: The field is fortunate to have Debbie Speece as Commissioner of IES’s special education portfolio of research. She is a productive scholar, whose contributions have helped shape the field of learning disabilities over the past decades theoretically as well as in practice. She has the skills and credibility to shape the direction of future research, because her own work serves as a model for the field.
• Sharon Vaughn, H. E. Hartfelder/Southland Corp. Regents Chair in Human Development and Executive Director of The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at the University of Texas at Austin: “Deborah Speece’s appointment as Commissioner of NCSER could not come at a better time. She is an exceptional researcher whose scholarship related to special education has been top notch. Furthermore, she has the personal attributes to lead the National Center on Special Education Research including the technical skills, the scientific knowledge, the commitment to special education, and the personal attributes to guide a center that would benefit from the leadership she can provide.”
• Jack Fletcher, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor, University of Houston: “Debbie Speece is a wonderful selection for the Commissioner of NCSER. She is a strong and experienced researcher with a commitment to enhanced outcomes for people with disabilities. She will be able to bring these joint strengths to NCSER and provide leadership and direction in developing a strong research portfolio for special education research.”
• Bryan Cook, Professor special education at the University of Hawaii and President of the Division for Research of the Council for Exceptional Children: “I’m very pleased that IES has appointed a respected special educator to this critical position. Dr. Speece has experience as a public school special education teacher, is widely respected for her high quality research in areas such as language and reading intervention for students with disabilities, and has managed successfully numerous federal grants. With the reauthorization of IDEA and ESEA looming, as well as the threat of serious budget limitations, we’ll need a devoted special educator advocating for the continued importance of special education research. I’m confident that Dr. Speece will provide leadership to the field in continuing and improving upon the established tradition of relevant and rigorous research in special education.”

NCSER is one of four centers in the Institute of Education Science (IES). John Q. Easton, Director of the IES nominated Professor Speece after an extensive search. Profssor Speece is only the second commissioner for NCSER. The first was Edward Kame’enui, who served from 2005 through 2007. Since Kame’enui’s departure, the position of NCSER Commissioner has been filled on an interim basis by Lynn Okagaki, who also simultaneously served as Commissioner of another of the centers.

Read the full announcement at the IES Web site.

Note: Content updated 20110825 to add affiliations of authorities who offered quotations.

Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children, 1997–2008

OBJECTIVE: To fill gaps in crucial data needed for health and educational planning, we determined the prevalence of developmental disabilities in US children and in selected populations for a recent 12-year period.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: We used data on children aged 3 to 17 years from the 1997–2008 National Health Interview Surveys, which are ongoing nationally representative samples of US households. Parent-reported diagnoses of the following were included: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; intellectual disability; cerebral palsy; autism; seizures; stuttering or stammering; moderate to profound hearing loss; blindness; learning disorders; and/or other developmental delays.

RESULTS: Boys had a higher prevalence overall and for a number of select disabilities compared with girls. Hispanic children had the lowest prevalence for a number of disabilities compared with non-Hispanic white and black children. Low income and public health insurance were associated with a higher prevalence of many disabilities. Prevalence of any developmental disability increased from 12.84% to 15.04% over 12 years. Autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other developmental delays increased, whereas hearing loss showed a significant decline. These trends were found in all of the sociodemographic subgroups, except for autism in non-Hispanic black children.

CONCLUSIONS: Developmental disabilities are common and were reported in ~1 in 6 children in the United States in 2006–2008. The number of children with select developmental disabilities (autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other developmental delays) has increased, requiring more health and education services. Additional study of the influence of risk-factor shifts, changes in acceptance, and benefits of early services is needed.

Changes in Prevalence of
Low-incidence Conditions

The research methods for this study are very strong, but it is important to note that these data are based on parental reports. Some will criticize that aspect of the study, but one must simply understand it, in my estimation; that’s simply the way the data are. When the parents were surveyed, they were asked, “Has a doctor or health professional ever told you that [survey child] had any of the following conditions?” Here’s the list of conditions: ADHD/attention deficit disorder (ADD), autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and other developmental delay.

Over all areas of disability, Boyle et al. found a prevalence rate of 13.87% across the years. That is, nearly 14% of parents reported having been told at one time or another that their child had some form of developmental disability or had had seizures, stuttered, or any of the other issues listed in the health survey. Working with some of the data reported by Boyle and colleagues in their tables, I created the accompanying figures. (I didn’t include all of the conditions they listed; for example, I omitted seizure disorders from the charts.) As this first image shows, the most remarkable change is in the prevalence of Autism. In contrast to other low-incidence conditions (e.g., blindness), Autism increased significantly. These reports may under-report the increase in comparison to other data sources, but note that they only reflect data as recent as 2008.

Changes in Prevalence of
High-incidence Conditions

The high-incidence conditions, which are really only Learning Disabilities and ADHD (I included “other developmental delay” here to make the two charts display more clearly) remained steady during the survey period. One might be tempted to say that both increased by looking at the graph, but Boyle reported that only ADHD statistically significantly increased when they compared the levels of the two at 1997-99 and 2006-08. ADHD increased 33% and LD increased 5.5%; the former is significant, but the latter is not. The data on LD staying steady are intriguing given the decrease in identification of LD reported by the US Department of Education during the first decade of the 2000s. Certainly much of the discrepancy between the two would be the result of different reporting methods; more capable scientists than I would need to resolve how much of the difference can be explained in that way and what other explanations (e.g., time of data collection) would be important in any comparison of those data.

Boyle, C. A., Boulet, S., Schieve, L. A., Cohen, R. A., Blumber, S. J., Yeargin,-Allsopp, M.,… & Kogan, M. D. (2011). Trends in the prevalence of developmental disabilities in US children, 1997-2008. Pediatrics, 127, 1034-1042. doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-2989

Journalists reported that the parents of children with disabilities in Milwaukee (WI, US) and the American Civil Liberties Union have complained to the US Deaprtment of Justice that a Milwaukee school program permitting parents to choose schools discriminates against students with disabilities. According to the complaint, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program “discriminated against students with disabilities and segregated those students in one portion of the publicly funded educational system.” The statistical basis for the argument is that 1.6% of students in the voucher-supported schools have disabilities, but nearly 20% of the students in the public schools have disabilities.

Twenty years ago, Wisconsin passed laws creating, and DPI began implementing, a private school voucher system in the city of Milwaukee. The program provides public tax dollars for low-income students who live in the city to attend private religious and non-sectarian schools, at an estimated cost of $130.8 million for the 2010-11 school year. In 1990, when the voucher program began, it had only seven schools, enrolling just 337 students. In the last two decades it has grown to include more than 100 schools and now enrolls approximately 20% of the city’s students.

Today, nearly 21,000 Milwaukee students attend private schools with these public vouchers. Although an average of 83% of the students in voucher schools attend with a tuition voucher, and in many private schools all of the students attend on taxpayer-funded vouchers, the State of Wisconsin asserts that the voucher schools are “private” schools. The state’s implementing agency, DPI, fails to meaningfully enforce anti-discrimination laws against these schools; as a result, the voucher schools tend not to admit or accommodate students with disabilities in a non-discriminatory manner. The two individual parent complainants are examples of the voucher schools’ discrimination against students with disabilities. D.E. attempted to enroll her two children with disabilities in a voucher school this year and they were never admitted. D.J.’s daughter, who has been diagnosed with a disability, was enrolled in a voucher school but expelled after her disability was not accommodated.

In addition to reading the full complaint (from which I drew the extract), see this coverage:

• Tom Held of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is covering the story; read his reports: “School choice program shuts out disabled, federal complaint says: Parents, civil rights groups request probe, seek to halt program’s proposed expansion” and “Choice school leader denounces ACLU lawsuit.”
• Under the headline “ACLU Alleges Milwaukee Voucher Program Discriminates Against Disabled Students,” Ed Week is covering a story about The story is behind Ed Week’s paywall, so it will be inaccessible to most readers, however, over at On Special Education, Nirvi Shah has a post entitled “Complaint: Milwaukee Vouchers Segregate Students With Disabilities” that provides some observations about the same story.)
• Michelle Diament has coverage on Disability Scoop under the headline “Disability Advocates Call For Federal Probe Of School Vouchers.”
• eSchool News also is carrying a story “Milwaukee’s voucher program discriminates based on disabilities, ACLU says” (behind it’s paywall).
• Even the Huffington Post is in on the fun, and reporter Joy Resmovits has some additional info in her story, “Milwaukee’s Voucher Program Discriminates Based On Disabilities, ACLU Says.”

Easter Seals Ad

Under the headline “Tell President Obama To Help Kids With Disabilities Realize Their Full Potential,” Change.org promoted a petition encouraging support for early intervention for children with disabilities. It’s got to be difficult to sell people on the idea of increasing government expenditures in a time of substantial concern about federal deficits, but the Easter-Seals-sponsored petition is seeking to accomplish just that end. Here’s the pitch.

On the first day of kindergarten this fall, some families had more worries than others.

That’s because their new kindergartener has an undiagnosed disability. On the first day of school their pride and joy is already behind all the other children.

It’s a sad reality for too many parents. Every year, we fail to identify 1.45 million children under the age of 5 who have a disability or are at risk for a developmental delay.

With Easter Seals in their lives, kids get the early treatment and therapy they need to start school on par with their peers, succeed and achieve their dreams. But today, it’s harder than ever for families to access care, and essential programs to treat young children with disabilities are chronically underfunded and in danger of being scaled back even further in 2011.

Tell President Obama: Include $100 million in increased funding for early disability diagnosis and treatment of young children in your FY12 budget request.

Go here to sign the petition at Change.org. Visit and support the Easter Seals organization; it’s been doing a lot of good things for a very long time.

Update: From perusing C. Samuels’ On Special Ed, I see I was pretty slow in noting this. She posted about it 8 November.