Journalist – Historian – Speaker
From Alabama: Is it against the law for us to establish perhaps an academy on special education or something on that order,” asked Bell, “so that our scores that already are not that good would not be further cut down by special-ed’s test scores involved?” When Bell’s colleagues mentioned LRE, she didn’t seem to understand. …
It’s almost impossible right now to keep up with all the stories circulating. Congress is defunding the ACA. The Republicans voted down an amendment against mandating coverage of people with pre-existing conditions, condemning millions of people to an early death, if that actually ends up being law. Donald Trump’s banana republic press conference demands a …
There’s a disability-related twist in the Wisconsin Senate race. Ron Johnson, as I understand it, has advocated both for special-ed private-school vouchers and keeping the federal government from inspecting such programs. Russ Feingold is against vouchers and, if we’re going to have them, at least advocates for them being regulated. Wisconsin U.S. Senate campaign rivals …
I’ve been following a case in Ardmore, Oklahoma, about parents who suspected that their child was being mistreated in school, so they enabled recording on the child’s “talker” device. Abusive language was, in fact, recorded, and the parents sued. The school has tried to block the use of the recorded content, but so far has …
This is a must read piece on the use of “psychoeducational” schools to segregate predominantly black children in Georgia from their peers. At age 7, David was too much for his teachers to handle. So they decided to send him to a special program — unique to Georgia — called a psychoeducational school. He was …
A teacher in this video knocks a child with “special needs” over with her knee, because he was pausing at the door to the classroom and she wanted him to get inside. It was probably an accident, she just wanted to prod him along. When he gets up, she talks above his head to the …
A local story went national yesterday. A mother arrived at school to find her child separated from the other kids and wearing a garbage bag. According to the mother one official defended the practice by saying since there was no rule explicitly against it, it wasn’t actionable. Meanwhile, Chicago Public Schools is cutting vast sums …
In Georgia, a 6 year old with special needs was placed in handcuffs: When a Georgia mother arrived at her 6-year-old son’s school last week in response to a call that he was misbehaving, she was greeted by a shocking surprise: Her first grader was in handcuffs. Lakaisha Reid’s 6-year-old son Patrick is a special …