IEP
I’m Glad To Be Back in the Classroom. My Students Need Me.
November 12th was our first day of school in-person since March of last year. On my drive to school, I was excited and grateful—thinking about my students who (unlike most teachers in the country) I...
Special Education
You Don't Just 'Raise' A Reader, You Have to Teach Kids to Read, Too
When I give presentations about dyslexia, I often illustrate how neurodiversity works by showing a chessboard. Some people can easily see all the patterns of moves on a chessboard and can play out a...
IEP
We Need a Cooperative Approach to Improve Education for Students With Disabilities
Ten years ago last month, a team of advocacy organizations filed the New Orleans special education lawsuit (P.B. v. White) in federal court. The class-action suit laid out the harms caused by the...
Achievement Gap
Civil Rights Groups Insist on Testing: 'You Cannot Improve What You Do Not Measure.'
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, the clock is soon-to-be-Ex-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has told states that she won’t issue waivers for standardized tests this...
Special Education
Teachers Can Legally Hit Your Children in 19 States. Let's Talk About It.
This past year has tested more than our mettle as educators; it’s tested our investment in the causes we claim as ours. I mean, it’s one thing to have “liked” a post about anti-racism or...
IEP
I Thought Vouchers Were Wrong, But Now I Realize They Helped My Son
Recently I wrote that a residency hearing with two children, Kayla and Tasha, represented to me our deeply-embedded structural inequities in education that decades of initiatives, as well as...