Today, in a meeting reserved solely for members of the Council for Exceptional Children and the National Center for Learning Disabilities, CEC members met with top officials within the Obama Administration to discuss critical issues confronting special education across the nation.
At a time when the economy is impacting schools across the country and as the Obama Administration is pursuing reforms in education through the Race to the Top program and granting waivers from some of NCLB’s most stringent requirements, CEC members asked officials questions that are on the minds of many special educators, such as:
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Today, the President released his budget for FY 2013. CEC is pleased that the President clearly is committed to education and has offered an alterative vision for the automatic cuts set to take place January 1, 2013 if Congress doesn’t act. But, CEC is concerned with the emphasis on new programs at the expense of core programs. Read Deborah Ziegler, CEC’s Associate Executive Director for Policy and Advocacy Services statement below and see a chart highlighting the President’s proposals for special and gifted education at the bottom.
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Over the past year, the U.S. House of Representatives Republican lead Education and Workforce Committee has introduced a series of bills, meant to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind (ESEA/NCLB). In the beginning of 2012, Chairman John Kline (R-MN) released the final two bills, The Student Success Act and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act. While CEC is hopeful that Congress will complete a full reauthorization of the law, CEC cannot support these bills.
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Today, CEC’s Deb Ziegler attended a White House event where President Obama and Secretary Duncan announced that 10 states received waivers from the requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act currently known as No Child Left Behind (ESEA/NCLB). The waivers allow states to replace ESEA/NCLB targets with targets of their own. To get the waivers states had to demonstrate that they adopted college and career-ready standards in addition to comprehensive systems of teacher and principal development, evaluation and support.
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For the past few years, George Van Horn, Special Education Director at the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (BCSC) in Colombus, Indiana and current Indiana CEC President has implemented a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework across the district. As a result, BCSC has lowered its number of students eligible for special education, eliminated many discipline issues and seen student achievement gains. This week, U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), highlighted the district’s accomplishments during a hearing in before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Senate.
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The application process for the Fulbright Scholar Program opened is now open. The program is designed to give participants the opportunity to pursue teaching, research or a combination of the two in one of over 125 countries for the 2013-2014 academic year. In addition to awards designed for university faculty and administrators, there are awards designed for other professions including artists, journalists, scientists, lawyers, independent scholars. The awards span 45 academic disciplines as well as 167 general awards open to applicants of all disciplines.
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Are you already using Universal Design for Learning and want to expand it within your district? The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), a non-profit educational research and development organization, is inviting school districts to apply to participate in a year-long project focusing on the application of Universal Designs of Learning Professional Development System (UDL PDS). This program is designed to help school districts apply universal designs of learning concepts across content areas in reading and writing. The initial focus of the project will be middle school literacy practices and fostering success for all learners by drawing on best practices in adolescent literacy instruction.
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