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At a dinner party, you're not supposed to talk politics or religion. Although Miss Manners never forbid it, chatting about how to save money in special education may as well have been included in that list of taboo topics, too. After all, cost can't be a consideration when deciding what services a student with a disability needs.

Few people define themselves as being a member of a special interest. That term applies to the folks on the other side -- the people you disagree with. New Yorkers got more evidence of that this month with the formation of StudentsFirstNY. In a nutshell, the group wants to preserve and extend the education policies of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and battle the teachers union, which has had an increasingly rancorous relationship with Bloomberg. In its mission statement, the group declares, StudentsFirstNY will be New York's leading voice for students who depend on public education for the skills they need to succeed, but who are too often failed by a system that puts special interests, rather than the interests of children, first. Nice sentiments. But the people behind this statement hardly qualify as disinterested observers anymore than the United Federation of Teachers does. The New York StudentsFirst group is an offshoot of the national organization StudentsFirst, created by former Washington, D.C. schools superintendent Michelle Rhee. It includes many who have backed the Bloomberg administration's education policies over the years -- people who even their foes have come to call reformers. The name persists after 10 years of "reformers" running the city's schools and racking up a decidedly mixed record. Whatever they have or have not done for students in New York City and beyond, though, these policies have helped make some people rich and successful.

A new letter from the Office for Civil Rights at the federal education department details how school districts should act on some changes to federal law regarding people with disabilities. The way I'm reading it, the letter expands the range of students to whom school districts' may have to provide special education services and accommodations, including some who in the past may have been found not to need those services.

As a reporter from the Voice of San Diego quickly found, no one was critical of the idea of inclusion at the time the district wanted to make the shift. In fact, inclusion is widely regarded as the attitude districts should have and what is best for students, and when districts segregate too much, they may be punished. But San Diego parents, who had advocated for more inclusion, were alarmed by the district's approach, which has turned out to be problematic in practice. Now three years into the shift to inclusion, parents and educators are wondering: Did San Diego move too fast? One parent, who oversees special education in a nearby district, reacted by plucking his young son with autism out of the district before the switch.

Some of the 91 special education parent training and information centers around the country learned Friday that they have won more than $5 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Education.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria focused on education during his Sunday morning show GPS and had a prime time special with expanded coverage.  The prime time show kicked off with a video review of South Korea's pressure-cooker test-driven system.  Fareed contrasted the Korean system with Finland's lack of testing and focus on great teachers Fareed interviewed Bill Gates who discussed the foundation's focus on teacher effectiveness. There was a little footage of teachers from grantee district Hillsborough FL that appreciated improved performance feedback. The morning show (CNN's FAREED ZAKARIA GPS) and the evening special featured a great interview with Secretary Arne Duncan.

...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.

Disability advocates are upset that some Wisconsin school districts want to be able to cut special education spending without being punished.

Everyone working in a schools knows the hardest job is teaching special education - especially to the most challenging children. Like all elementary music teachers, I work with special education teachers every day, and I have to tell you that they constantly amaze me with their sympathy, intelligence, insight, and patience. As far as I am concerned, anyone who devotes their career to teaching these deserving but demanding children is an angel on earth. And people who casually dismiss their work ought to be ashamed of themselves. Which is why this next story bugs the hell out of me

Most of the coverage about the Department of Education's role as a charter authorizer in recent weeks has focused on the management scandals at the Believe Network and the decision to close Peninsula Prep after three years of C's (although interestingly enough, the role of for-profit charter manager Victory Schools has mostly been left out of the Peninsula Prep story, despite quotes from current Victory executive and past DOE Charter Office head Michael Duffy in the Times coverage of the school's closing). Equally important, however, was the DOE's decision to grant a two-year renewal to the third school it had placed on the closure list this year - Opportunity Charter School, a charter founded to serve students with special education needs. The DOE's threat to close Opportunity had inspired a passionate response from the school's community, including powerful presentations of evidence from the district's own progress reports showing its success in helping students with intense special education needs achieve academically and graduate from high school at rates well above other schools in the city.

After a long summer involving layoff notices and late placements, Detroit Public School teachers are now faced with improper classroom assignments. In addition to the previous assignment of special education students to general classrooms, Emergency Manager Roy Roberts has placed special needs teachers in general education classes, where they are forced to provide instruction in areas where they don't have any experience.

Proposed changes by some Republican senators to the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now called No Child Left Behind, could push more children with disabilities away from taking the same kinds of tests as their classmates. That could limit how many students with special needs are included when schools and districts are held accountable for their students' progress, the National Center on Learning Disabilities told several senators in a letter this week.

The U.S. Department of Education has evaluated states since the 2005-06 school year based on their ability to meet certain "measurable and rigorous targets" related to educating students with disabilities. This map shows the most current rating for each state's performance under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which covers students from ages 3 to 21.

For years, the plaintiffs in the case have argued that charter schools are not serving their share of special education students and that the Illinois State Board of Education has found compliance problems. Lawyers for ISBE and CPS (the defendants in the case) have recently argued that the situation has improved enough that monitoring is no longer needed. But a response filed in February by a lawyer for the plaintiffs notes that a detailed look at the disability population in charters shows some broad differences. Among the points made by the lawyer is that the overall percentage of students with disabilities in charter elementary schools is 25 percent lower than in regular elementary schools.

Steve Whitten has had two careers - the first as a non-certified special-education teacher, the second as an administrator and counselor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Now, he is embarking on a third profession as an English and special-education teacher in a public school. Typically, Whitten would have to complete a two-year certificate program at an education school. Instead, he has enrolled in an intensive, six-week program run by the Rhode Island Teaching Fellows that promises to prepare him to fly solo this fall.

While the number of charter schools is growing rapidly, questions have been raised about whether charter schools are appropriately serving students with disabilities. GAO was asked: (1) How do enrollment levels of students with disabilities in charter schools and  traditional public schools compare, and what is known about the factors that may contribute to any differences? (2) How do charter schools reach out to students with disabilities and what special education services do charter schools provide? (3) What role do  Education, state educational agencies, and other entities that oversee charter schools play in ensuring students with disabilities have access to charter schools? GAO analyzed federal data on the number and characteristics of students with disabilities; visited  charter schools and school districts int hree states selected on the basis of the number of charter schools in the state, among other things; and interviewed representatives of federal, state, and other agencies that oversee charter schools.

"Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott is blaming the Department of Education's $79 million overhaul of special education programs for costly delays in finding seats for disabled kindergartners. The agency missed its June 15 deadline for finding slots for about 2,500 kindergartners with special needs - and now the city could be liable for the kids' tuition in private schools."

The recent agreement to clarify and refine the New York teacher evaluation law took up an issue that has a special importance for New York City public school educators- the appeals process for ineffective ratings on end-of-the-year summative evaluations. Readers of Edwize know that last December the ship of teacher evaluation negotiations for the 34 Transformation and Restart schools sunk on the rocky shoals of this very issue, when Mayor Bloomberg and the NYC Department of Education refused to negotiate a meaningful and substantive appeals process. For there to be renewed progress on those negotiations, as well as on the negotiations for the evaluations of all New York City public school educators, the issue of the appeal process had to be resolved. The agreement settled the issue of the appeals process for New York City by guaranteeing vital and indispensable due process rights in the teacher evaluation process. With these rights, the educational integrity and fairness of the teacher evaluation process are secure. To understand the importance of the appeals process, and why the agreement secured what New York public school teachers need from due process in such a process, we must first examine the background and context of this issue.

With NBC airing a second "Education Nation" special that resembles an infomercial for charter schools and online learning, the media watchdog group FAIR held an event Tuesday to clear the air. The panelists at the MisEducation Nation forum in New York City said the coverage offered by NBC was, at best, misguided-a noble but seriously uninformed effort, said Leonie Haimson, a New York City public school parent and leader of Class Size Matters, which advocates for reducing the number of students per teacher. At worst, "Education Nation" is a sounding board for the corporate education "reform" movement driven by the billionaires' agenda, said Brian Jones, a Brooklyn teacher.

With NBC airing a second "Education Nation" special that resembles an infomercial for charter schools and online learning, the media watchdog group FAIR(Fairness & Accuracy in reporting) held an event on Sept. 27, 2011 to clear the air. The goal according to FAIR was to offer a more reasonable conversation about public education than the corporate-interest perspective featured in "Education Nation." The panelists at the MisEducation Nation forum in New York City said the coverage offered by NBC was, at best, misguided-a noble but seriously uninformed effort, said Leonie Haimson, a New York City public school parent and leader of Class Size Matters, which advocates for reducing the number of students per teacher.