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U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan confronted difficult questions asked by special educators who are members of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), in a document released today.  Ask Arne: A Conversation with CEC Members and the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (found here) addresses the inclusion of students with disabilities and the professionals who work on their behalf in controversial education reform initiatives supported by the Obama Administration, including pay-for-performance and measuring student growth over time for accountability purposes.

An effort by the Obama administration to overhaul the troubled federal agency that is responsible for the education of tens of thousands of American Indian children is getting major pushback from some tribal leaders and educators, who see the plan as an infringement on their sovereignty and a one-size-fits-all approach that will fail to improve student achievement in Indian Country. As Barack Obama makes his first visit to Indian Country as president this week, the federal Bureau of Indian Education—which directly operates 57 schools for Native Americans and oversees 126 others run by tribes under contract with the agency—is moving ahead with plans to remake itself into an entity akin to a state department of education that would focus on improving services for tribally operated schools. A revamped BIE, as envisioned in the proposal, would eventually give up direct operations of schools and push for a menu of education reforms that is strikingly similar to some championed in initiatives such as Race to the Top, including competitive-grant funding to entice tribal schools to adopt teacher-evaluation systems that are linked to student performance. The proposed reorganization of the BIE comes after years of scathing reports from watchdog groups, including the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and chronic complaints from tribal educators about the agency’s financial and academic mismanagement and failure to advocate more effectively for the needs of schools that serve Native American students. It also comes a year after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called the federally funded Indian education system “an embarrassment.” The BIE is overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is housed within the U.S. Interior Department. Pushback From Tribes The proposal, released in April, was drafted by a seven-person “study group” appointed jointly by Ms. Jewell and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Five of the panel’s members currently serve in the Obama administration. Some of the nation’s largest tribes, however, are staunchly opposed to the proposal, including the 16 tribes that make up the Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association, which represents tribal leaders in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. “It’s time for us to decide what our children will learn and how they will learn it because [BIE] has been a failure so far,” Bryan V. Brewer, the chairman of the 40,000-member Oglala Sioux tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D., said last month in a congressional hearing on the BIE. In the same hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Charles M. Roessel, the director of the BIE and a member of the panel that drafted the plan, said the agency’s reorganization “would allow the BIE to achieve improved results in the form of higher student scores, improved school operations, and increased tribal control over schools.” (Despite multiple requests from Education Week, the BIE did not make Mr. Roessel or any other agency official available for an interview.)

How can special education teachers be more effective? The federal Education Department is funding a new center to find out. The department's office of special education said Thursday it will spend up to $5 million on the creation of the Center to Support the Development of Effective Educators to Serve Students with Disabilities. The new center—applications are due Sep. 4—will provide technical assistance to state education departments that are reviewing and reforming certification and licensing standards for teacher preparation programs. It will be expected to work with school districts and colleges and universities.

State education leaders will make changes to a set of proposals designed to shift student discipline practices in Maryland toward a more “rehabilitative” approach that would reduce suspensions, keep students in school and teach positive behavior. The Maryland State Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to withdraw proposed regulations and amend them in a way that officials said would not alter the spirit of the reforms but would address some complaints voiced in recent months.

The changes will revive regulatory language that recognizes “an environment of order and discipline necessary for effective learning” and add a preamble that points out the authority of local school boards to create district discipline policies.The board held firm in its emphasis on rehabilitative practices, as well as its revised definitions for out-of-school suspensions and its requirement that schools provide educational services for suspended students.

The State of Learning Disabilities: Facts, Trends and Indicators provides the authoritative national and state-by-state snapshot of learning disabilities (LD) in the United States, and their impact on the ability of students and adults to achieve educational success and employment. This publication also clarifies what a learning disability is and explains the common misperceptions associated with LD.

The Obama administration's blueprint to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will support state and local efforts to help ensure that all students graduate prepared for college and a career. Following the lead of the nation's governors and state education leaders, the plan will ask states to ensure that their academic standards prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace, and to create accountability systems that recognize student growth and school progress toward meeting that goal. This will be a key priority in the reform of NCLB, which was signed into law in 2002 and is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).

Click here to download the brochure and learn more information about sessions, speakers, the hotel, tentative schedules, and ideas about funding! We can’t wait to see you in February! Click here to register online. We've made your best value even better with REDUCED early rates! Rates haven't been this good since 2007! Register before January 14, 2011 and SAVE with early registration rates! Inclusive education is a process of school reform that creates equality in education and increases achievement for ALL students, including students with disabilities. PEAK Parent Center’s Conference on Inclusive Education holds the tools you need to reinvent schools to be places where all students can achieve success! With the most POWERFUL line up of speakers you’ll find at one conference, PEAK’s 2011 Conference on Inclusive Education is the place to be!

Gates, through his philanthropic foundation, has invested billions of dollars in education experiments and now has a pivotal role in reform efforts. Ravitch, the author of the bestselling The Death and Life of the Great American School System, has become the most vocal opponent of the Obama administration's education policy. She says Gates is backing the wrong initiatives and harming public schools.

At its core, the American educational system is about democratization of knowledge for all students, regardless of their circumstances. In 2011, 22 percent of non-institutionalized adults with disabilities had less than a high school education. If this statistic was applied to the general population, my suspicion is that there would be an outcry to reform K-12 education to have better graduation results. But for students with disabilities, there is no shock or outrage and that is something that has to change. The key to improving the educational experience for students with disabilities is better accommodations in schools and continued improvements in assistive technology.

Click here to register for this event What: Ensuring School Readiness will explore how and why smooth transitions among early learning environments are critical for school readiness and are the first step toward preparing students for success in college and career. Presenters will focus on what it takes to foster continuity as children move from early learning programs to preschool to kindergarten, and will discuss the specific roles of early learning programs, schools, and families in preparing young children to enter school ready for success. This webinar will highlight innovative practices, explore the range of supports and services offered to young children and their families, and emphasize how to help families understand how to remain involved in their child’s education as the child moves into the early school grades. Jacqueline Jones from the U.S. Department of Education will discuss the importance of successful early transitions to education reform. Sharon Ritchie from FirstSchool, a research-based preK–3rd grade initiative, will discuss “seamless education” and how to use data to improve practice. Judith Jerald from Save the Children will talk about developing early childhood programming with an eye toward facilitating transitions. And Whitcomb Hayslip will discuss how a Los Angeles-based transitional kindergarten initiative uses deliberate collaboration between teachers and families to prepare children for school success. When: April 14, 2011 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. Mountain Featured speakers include: Moderator: Tom Schultz, Project Director for Early Childhood Initiatives, Council of Chief State School Officers Jacqueline Jones, Senior Advisor to the Secretary for Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education Sharon Ritchie, Senior Scientist, FPG Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Judith Jerald, Early Childhood Advisor, Save the Children Whitcomb Hayslip, Early Childhood Education Consultant and Former Assistant Superintendent, Los Angeles Unified School District Click here to view the webinar archive for this event series

There's been a lot of buzz lately about ventures such as High Tech High's Graduate School of Education in San Diego and Relay Graduate School of Education in New York City. These private schools of education, associated with charter schools and other reform efforts, are issuing master's degrees and promoting a clinical model of teacher education in which most learning occurs in the same place where teachers do their jobs—a classroom full of kids—rather than through traditional college coursework.

The new healthcare reform laws have immediate and long-term impacts on Montana businesses and citizens. Please join us for an education session and discussion regarding how you can make the new health care reform laws work for you and your community. Please RSVP at HealthCareLaws@bcbsmt.com Refreshments will be served.

Washington, DC (April 2, 2010) – Autism Speaks, the nation’s largest autism science and advocacy organization, today joined with grassroots advocates to celebrate the passage of three more state autism insurance reform bills this week in Iowa, Kansas, and Kentucky. The effort to end autism insurance discrimination nationwide has gained new momentum with these recent victories, combined with President Obama’s enactment this week of the Health Care Education and Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, which contains a provision including behavioral health treatment as part of the essential benefits package required in certain health plans.

Today, the Obama Administration outlined how states can get relief from provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – or No Child Left Behind (NCLB) – in exchange for serious state-led efforts to close achievement gaps, promote rigorous accountability, and ensure that all students are on track to graduate college- and career-ready. “To help states, districts and schools that are ready to move forward with education reform, our administration will provide flexibility from the law in exchange for a real commitment to undertake change. The purpose is not to give states and districts a reprieve from accountability, but rather to unleash energy to improve our schools at the local level,” President Obama said. What this means for you:   For Teachers: A collaborative learning culture where teachers can target instruction towards the needs of students and offer a well-rounded curriculum. Fair and responsible evaluations that are based on multiple measures including peer review, principal observation, and classroom work.  For Principals: Greater flexibility to tailor solutions to the unique educational challenges of their students and recognition for progress and performance.  For Parents: Accurate and descriptive information about their children’s progress and honest accountability that recognizes and rewards success – where schools fall short – targeted and focused strategies for the students most at risk.  For Students: A system that measures student growth and critical thinking to inspire better teaching and greater student engagement across a well-rounded curriculum. For more information on how this flexibility package may affect you, read our blog post: What NCLB Flexibility Means for You

Kentucky's public teachers and principals would see their yearly evaluations tied partly to their students' performance, under a proposal that state education officials hope will boost the state's chances of receiving up to $175million in federal education funding, according to a draft obtained by The Courier-Journal.