1. This was said to me by a Baltimore special education teacher who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution by administrators.
2. Here is one general statement of the law across the states: “When a child is negligently, recklessly, intentionally, or knowingly injured by an act or mission by any person, then that person can be charged with felony child abuse.” “Felony Child Abuse,” FreeAdvice, n.d., https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/violent_crimes/felony-child-abuse.htm. And see, for example, “the term ‘child abuse’ means a crime committed under any law of a State that involves the physical or mental injury, sexual abuse or exploitation, negligent treatment, or maltreatment of a child by any person.” 34 U.S. Code, Sec. 40104(3).
3. Throughout the book, struggling learners are sometimes described as being “in” special education. That is not technically true because special education is not a place but a continuum of services, and most of those services are in fact delivered in “inclusionary” general education settings. Still, it sometimes strengthens the book’s narrative if reference is made to students “in” special education—particularly to contrast students in special education who are mislabeled as disabled with those who are truly disabled.
4. Janie Scull and Amber M. Winkler, “Shifting Trends in Special Education,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, May 25, 2011, https://edexcellence.net/publications/shifting-trends-in-special.html; Daniel Koretz, Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 283–86.
5. Alan Gartner and Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky, “Beyond Special Education: Toward a Quality System for All Students,” Harvard Educational Review 57, no. 4 (November 1987): 367–95, 372.
6. Claire Raj, “The Misidentification of Children with Disabilities: A Harm with No Foul,” Arizona State Law Journal 48 (Summer 2016): 373–437, esp. 374; Thomas M. Skrtic, “The Special Education Paradox,” in Special Education for a New Century, ed. Lauren I. Katzman et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review, 2005), 204; Rebecca O. Zumeta et al., “Identifying Specific Learning Disabilities,” Topics in Language Disorders 34, no. 1 (January–March 2014): 8–24, esp. 21.
7. See Scull and Winkler, “Shifting Trends”; also Raj, “Misidentification of Children,” 382.
8. “Number and Percentage of Children Served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B, by Age Group and State or Jurisdiction: Selected Years, 1990–91 through 2013–14,” National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), December 2015, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_204.70.asp?current=yes.
9. Candace Cortiella and Sheldon H. Horowitz, The State of Learning Disabilities: Facts, Trends and Emerging Issues, 3rd ed. (New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2014), https://www.ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-State-of-LD.pdf.
10. 34 CFR 200.1(d). Students with the “most significant cognitive disabilities” are not defined under IDEA. Those intended to be covered are students whose “cognitive impairments may prevent them from attaining grade-level achievement standards, even with the very best instruction.” Eric D. Lomax and Ann Lordeman, The Education of Students with Disabilities: Alignment between the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2011), 5.
11. Wade F. Horn and Douglas Tynan, “Time to Make Special Education ‘Special’ Again,” in Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, ed. Chester E. Finn Jr. et al. (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Progressive Policy Institute, 2001), 40.
12. For a breakdown of students in disability categories, see “Children and Youth with Disabilities,” NCES, last updated April 2018, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp.
13. G. Reid Lyon et al., “Rethinking Learning Disabilities,” in Rethinking Special Education, ed. Finn Jr. et al., 260. See also expert estimates that between 50 and 75 percent of struggling learners end up unnecessarily in special education. Allan R. Odden and Lawrence O. Picus, School Finance: A Policy Perspective, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014), 97.
14. Martha L. Thurlow et al., “Meeting the Needs of Special Education Students: Recommendations for the Race to the Top Consortia and States,” National Center on Education Outcomes, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2011, https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/OnlinePubs/Martha_Thurlow-Meeting_the_Needs_of_Special_Education_Students.pdf, 5.
15. Arne Duncan, “Fulfilling the Promise of IDEA,” U.S. Department of Education, November 18, 2010, http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/fulfilling-promise-idea-remarks-35th-anniversary-individuals-disabilities-act.
17. E. D. Hirsch Jr., The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 15.
18. The study is reported in Pamela Darr Wright, “The Blame Game! Are School Problems the Kids’ Fault?,” Wrightslaw (blog), 2010, http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/ALESSI1.html.
19. Margaret J. McLaughlin, “Closing the Achievement Gap and Students with Disabilities: The New Meaning of a ‘Free and Appropriate Public Education’” (paper presented at the Second Annual Symposium on Educational Equity, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, November 13–14, 2006), http://www.equitycampaign.org/events-page/equity-symposia/2006-examining-americas-commitment-to-closing-achievement-gaps-nclb-and-its-a/papers/McLaughlin_Edited[1].Closing-the-Achievement-Gap-11-29.pdf, 34.
20. Cited in Gartner and Lipsky, “Beyond Special Education,” 384.
21. Student A v. the Berkeley Unified School District, U.S. District Court (Northern District of California), complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief, May 2, 2017, https://dredf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dredf-busd-complaint-5-2-17.pdf.
22. Gary B. v. Richard D. Snyder, U.S. District Court (Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division), civil action no. 16-CV-13292, class action complaint, September 13, 2016.
23. Ryan Felton, “Detroit Civil Rights Lawsuit Attempts to Assert a Constitutional Right to Literacy,” Guardian, September 14, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/detroit-civil-rights-lawsuit-constitutional-literacy-education.
1. G. Reid Lyon et al., “Rethinking Learning Disabilities,” in Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, ed. Chester E. Finn Jr. et al. (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Progressive Policy Institute, May 2001), 260.
2. Jack M. Fletcher et al., Learning Disabilities: From Identification to Intervention (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 5.
3. Allan R. Odden and Lawrence O. Picus, School Finance: A Policy Perspective, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014), 97; Lyon et al., “Rethinking Learning Disabilities,” 260.
4. Claire Raj, “The Misidentification of Children with Disabilities: A Harm with No Foul,” Arizona State Law Journal 48 (Summer 2016): 373–437, esp. 374; Thomas M. Skrtic, “The Special Education Paradox,” in Special Education for a New Century, ed. Lauren I. Katzman et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review, 2005), 204; Rebecca O. Zumeta et al., “Identifying Specific Learning Disabilities,” Topics in Language Disorders 34, no. 1 (January–March 2014): 8–24, esp. 21.
5. CFR 3000.550.
6. James McLeskey and Nancy L. Waldron, “Educational Programs for Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities: Can They Be Both Effective and Inclusive?,” Learning Disabilities Research & Practice 26, no. 1 (February 2011): 48–57, esp. 49. See also Nathan Levenson, “Something Has Got to Change: Rethinking Special Education” (working paper 2011-01, American Enterprise Institute), 7. For a positive perspective on inclusion, see generally “The Segregation of Students with Disabilities,” National Council on Disability, February 7, 2018, https://ncd.gov/sites/default/files/NCD_Segregation-SWD_508.pdf.
7. Zumeta et al., “Identifying Specific Learning Disabilities,” 11.
8. “President Gerald R. Ford’s Statement on Signing the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975,” Ford Library and Museum, last updated August 3, 2000, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/750707.htm.
9. Wade F. Horn and Douglas Tynan, “Time to Make Special Education ‘Special’ Again,” in Rethinking Special Education, ed. Finn Jr. et al., 23.
10. “Children 3 to 21 Years Old Served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B, by Type of Disability: Selected Years, 1976–77 through 2014–15,” National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), July 2016, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_204.30.asp.
11. See, for example, Richard Peterson, “The Persistence of Low Expectations in Special Education Law Viewed through the Lens of Therapeutic Jurisprudence,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry (November–December 2010): 2, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20923716.
12. See the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-117, 115 Stat. 1425 (2002), https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf.
13. George W. Bush, “Executive Order 13227: Presidents Commission on Excellence in Special Education,” October 2, 2001, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=61508.
14. 34 CFR 300.307–11.
15. “Number and Percentage of Children Served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B, by Age Group and State or Jurisdiction: Selected Years, 1990–91 through 2013–14,” NCES, December 2015, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_204.70.asp?current=yes.
16. “Fostering Motivation in Kids with Learning and Attention Problems,” Great Schools Staff, March 14, 2016, https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/motivating-kids-learning-attention-problems/.
17. Bryan Goodwin, “Reading: The Core Skill,” Educational Leadership 69, no. 6 (March 2012): 80–81, esp. 81.
18. Keith Stanovich, “Matthew Effects in Reading: Some Consequences of Individual Differences in the Acquisition of Literacy,” Reading Research Quarterly 22 (Fall 1986): 360–407, https://rsrc.psychologytoday.com/files/u81/Stanovich__1986_.pdf.
19. The phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations” is generally attributed to President George W. Bush. “Excerpts From Bush’s Speech on Improving Education,” New York Times, September 3, 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/03/us/excerpts-from-bush-s-speech-on-improving-education.html.
20. Candace Cortiella and Sheldon H. Horowitz, The State of Learning Disabilities: Facts, Trends and Emerging Issues, 3rd ed. (New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2014), https://www.ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-State-of-LD.pdf, 11.
21. G. Alessi, “Diagnosis Diagnosed: A Systemic Reaction,” Professional School Psychology 3, no. 2 (1988): 145–51, esp. 149, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0090554.
22. Dr. Alessi’s study is highlighted in an excellent article by Pamela Darr Wright, “The Blame Game! Are School Problems the Kids’ Fault?,” Wrightslaw (blog), 2010, http://www.wrightslaw.com/blog/?tag=galen-alessi. The quotes above are from page 3 of the article. See the full study at http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/alessi.article.pdf.
23. Kalman R. Hettleman, The Invisible Dyslexics: How Public School Systems in Baltimore and Elsewhere Discriminate against Poor Children in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Early Reading Difficulties (Baltimore, MD: Abell Foundation, 2003), https://www.abell.org/sites/default/files/publications/ed_invisible_dyslexics.pdf.
24. For a convenient summary, see “The Thirty Million Word Gap,” School Literacy and Culture, Rice University, 2011–12, http://childrenshousepreschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Rice-University-School-Literacy-and-Culture-The-Thirty-Million-Word-Gap-1.pdf.
25. Janie Scull and Amber M. Winkler, “Shifting Trends in Special Education,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, May 25, 2011, https://edexcellence.net/publications/shifting-trends-in-special.html; Daniel Koretz, Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 283–86.
26. Alan Gartner and Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky, “Beyond Special Education: Toward a Quality System for All Students,” Harvard Educational Review 57, no. 4 (November 1987): 367–95, esp. 372.
27. Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, Pub. L. No. 94-142, 89 Stat. 773 (1975), https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-89/pdf/STATUTE-89-Pg773.pdf.
28. Fletcher et al., Learning Disabilities, 20.
29. “Children 3 to 21 Years Old.”
30. Fletcher et al., Learning Disabilities, 20.
31. Catherine E. Snow, M. Susan Burns, and Peg Griffin, eds., Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998), 91. See also Lyon et al., “Rethinking Learning Disabilities,” 260.
32. Sally E. Shaywitz, “Dyslexia,” Scientific American, November 1996, 98–104, esp. 103.
33. Joseph K. Torgesen, “Catch Them before They Fall,” American Educator, Spring–Summer 1998, 32–39, esp. 34.
34. Lyon et al., “Rethinking Learning Disabilities,” 266. For an excellent and more recent review of the evidence debunking the discrepancy gap, see North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Exceptional Children Division, Proposed Policy Revisions: Specific Learning Disabilities, report from the Specific Learning Disability Task Force, April 2015, https://ec.ncpublicschools.gov/gcs04-taskforce-report.pdf, 2.
35. Gartner and Lipsky, “Beyond Special Education,” 383.
36. Vance L. Austin, “Learning Disabilities Today: An Examination of Effective and Not-So-Effective Interventions,” Journal of the American Academy of Special Education Professionals, Spring–Summer 2015, 7–28, esp. 7.
37. Lyon et al., “Rethinking Learning Disabilities,” 264.
38. John D. E. Gabrieli, “A New Synergy between Education and Cognitive Neuroscience,” Science 325 (July 2009): 280–83, esp. 281.
39. Gabrieli, 282.
40. CFR 300.309(a)(2)(ii).
41. Fletcher et al., Learning Disabilities, 48.
42. Sharon Vaughan and Sylvia Linan-Thompson, “What Is Special about Special Education for Students with Learning Disabilities?,” Journal of Special Education 37, no. 3 (2003): 140–47, esp. 141.
43. Daniel J. Reschly, “Response to Intervention and the Identification of Specific Learning Disabilities,” Topics in Language Disorders 34, no. 1 (2014): 39–58, esp. 53.
44. Fletcher et al., Learning Disabilities, 5.
45. See the definitions of the disability categories in CFR 300.8(c).
46. Letter from acting director, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education, November 28, 2007, https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/letters/2007-4/redact112807eligibility4q2007.pdf.
47. The special education legal expert Perry A. Zirkel shed some light on this in a 2017 journal article. The specific case he discusses focuses on whether students who are succeeding academically in general education can be found eligible for special education because of nonacademic problems such as behavior and mental health. In other words, do the nonacademic problems have an “adverse affect” on the student’s “educational performance” that justifies eligibility for special education? Zirkel, “A Major New Court Decision: Are Blurred Boundaries Worth the Price on the Eligibility Side?,” Exceptionality 25, no. 1 (2017): 1–8.
48. Perry A. Zirkel, “The Legal Dimension of RTI: Part II. State Laws and Guidelines,” RTI Action Network, 2013, http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/ld/the-legal-dimension-of-rti-part-ii-state-laws-and-guidelines, 2.
49. Maryland State Department of Education, “Using the Response to Intervention (RtI) process for Identifying Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD),” Technical Assistance Bulletin 16 (2009): 6.
50. “Related Disorders of a Learning Disability: What You Should Know,” Learning Disability Association of America, October 2013, https://ldaamerica.org/what-you-should-know-about-related-disorders-of-learning-disability/. The conditions that most commonly occur with dyslexia include speech and language disorders and ADHD. Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done about It (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 166.
51. Fletcher et al., Learning Disabilities, 7.
52. Cortiella and Horowitz, State of Learning Disabilities, 5.
1. Caleb Stewart Rossiter, Ain’t Nobody Be Learnin’ Nothin’: The Fraud and the Fix for High-Poverty School (New York: Algora, 2015).
2. Thomas M. Skrtic, “The Special Education Paradox: Equity as the Way to Excellence,” in Special Education for a New Century, ed. Lauren I. Katzman et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review, 2005), 204. See also Claire Raj, “The Misidentification of Children with Disabilities: A Harm with No Foul,” Arizona State Law Journal 48 (Summer 2016): 373–437, esp. 374. I know of no study that compares the achievement of struggling learner who winds up in special education with those who don’t, but we know that there is often no great difference in the nature and degree of their learning struggles. So the enormous disparity between the test scores of students who do and don’t receive special education services—later documented—is at least a rough marker that the students who don’t receive special education services are relatively better off.
3. Lee Funk, “Stats Show That Few Special Ed Students Fully Re-enter General Education,” Cabinet Report, August 29, 2011, https://www.cabinetreport.com/special-education/stats-show-that-few-special-ed-students-fully-re-enter-general-education.
4. “2017 NAEP Mathematics and Reading Assessments: Highlighted Results at Grades 4 and 8 for the Nation, States, and Districts,” National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), April 2018, https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2018037.
5. “Mathematics and Reading Assessments,” Nation’s Report Card, 2015, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#?grade=4.
6. Candace Cortiella and Sheldon H. Horowitz, The State of Learning Disabilities: Facts, Trends and Emerging Issues, 3rd ed. (New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2014), https://www.ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-State-of-LD.pdf, 15.
7. David R. Johnson et al., Diploma Options, Graduation Requirements, and Exit Exams for Youth with Disabilities: 2011 National Study, National Center on Educational Outcomes, technical report no. 62, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2012.
8. Unpublished documents. Please contact the author to obtain copies.
9. Emily Workman, “Third-Grade Reading Policies,” Education Commission of the States, Denver, Colorado, December 2014, https://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/01/16/44/11644.pdf, 2.
10. Workman, 2.
11. Motoko Rich, “A Summer of Extra Reading and Hope for Fourth Grade,” New York Times, August 4, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/us/a-summer-of-extra-reading-and-hope-for-fourth-grade.html.
12. Robert E. Slavin, “Reading by Third Grade—or Else,” HuffPost (blog), updated December 6, 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-slavin/reading-by-third-grade_b_5677958.html.
13. Catherine Gewertz, “Pressure to Graduate Failing Students Is Felt Nationwide,” Education Week, February 28, 2018, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/02/09/dcs-scandal-and-the-nationwide-problem-of.html.
14. Rossiter, Ain’t Nobody Be Learnin’, 42.
15. Gewertz, “Pressure to Graduate”; and see Mark Dynarski, “Is the High School Graduation Rate Really Going Up?,” Brookings, May 3, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-the-high-school-graduation-rate-really-going-up/.
16. Valerie Strauss, “Why High School Exit Exams Are a Waste of Time,” Washington Post, April 18, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/04/18/why-high-school-exit-exams-are-a-waste-of-time/?utm_term=.96ee633759fc.
17. Donna St. George and Lynh Bui, “Probe Finds Late Grade Changes for 5,500 in Prince George’s,” Washington Post, November 3, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/probe-finds-late-grade-changes-for-5500-in-prince-georges/2017/11/03/5e54e10c-be62-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.8523921efd68l.
18. Perry Stein, “Report Calls into Question Validity of Hundreds of Diplomas,” Washington Post, January 29, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/report-calls-into-question-validity-of-hundreds-of-diplomas/2018/01/29/d86e5c82-0513-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.e28d88f82325.
19. Maryland State Department of Education, Bridge Plan for Academic Validation Administrative Manual, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Maryland State Department of Education, 2017), http://mdk12.msde.maryland.gov/share/pdf/bridge_final.pdf.
20. School officials told me this off the record; I couldn’t obtain an official count.
21. Robert E. Slavin, “On High School Graduation Rates: Want to Buy My Bridge?,” Robert Slavin’s Blog, February 15, 2018, https://robertslavinsblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/on-high-school-graduation-rates-want-to-buy-my-bridge/.
22. 34 CFR 300.26(b)(3); 34 CFR 300.347(a)(2). A good primer on accommodations is Joanne Karger and Charles Hitchcock, Access to the General Curriculum for Students with Disabilities: A Brief Legal Interpretation (Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessible Instructional Materials, 2003).
23. Sandra J. Thompson et al., Accommodations Manual: How to Select, Administer, and Evaluate Use of Accommodations for Instruction and Assessment of Students with Disabilities, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers, 2005), https://osepideasthatwork.org/sites/default/files/AccommodationsManual.pdf, 15.
24. Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, “Special Education: Its Ethical Dilemmas, Entitlement Status, and Suggested Systemic Reforms,” University of Chicago Law Review 79, no. 1 (2012): 13, http://lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/lawreview.uchicago.edu/files/Freedman.pdf.
25. “Suspicious Test Scores across U.S. Raise Questions of Cheating,” Washington Post, March 25, 2012, A11; Greg Toppo, “Schools Marred by Testing Scandals in 2011,” USA Today, December 29, 2011, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-29/schools-test-scandal/52274708/1.
1. That’s what a group of researchers on RTI say they heard from teachers. Amanda VanDerHeyden et al., “Four Steps to Implement RTI Correctly,” Education Week, January 5, 2016, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/06/four-steps-to-implement-rti-correctly.html.
2. Two websites devoted essentially to RTI principles and practices are the National Center on Intensive Intervention, https://www.intensiveintervention.org, and the RTI Action Network, https://www.rtinetwork.org. For a sample of the literature that overviews RTI, see “Response to Intervention, Next Generation,” Education Week, December 14, 2016, https://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2016/12/14/index.html; “Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention (RtI) and Multi-tier Intervention in the Primary Grades,” What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2009; and Paula Burdette and Pontea Etemad, “Response to Intervention: Select State Programs,” National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Forum Policy Analysis, September 2009. See also Russell Gersten et al., “What Is the Evidence Base to Support Reading Interventions for Improving Student Outcomes in Grades 1–3?,” National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, April 2017, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED573686.pdf. A particularly provocative critique of RTI is Douglas Fuchs et al., “Smart RTI: A Next-Generation Approach to Multilevel Prevention,” Exceptional Children 78, no. 3 (Spring 2012): 263–79, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3380278/.
Many state departments of education have issued RTI manuals. Two examples are “Implementation Guide: Response to Instruction and Intervention Framework,” Tennessee Department of Education, updated February 2016, https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/education/special-education/rti/rti2_implementation_guide.pdf; and “A Tiered Instructional Approach to Support Achievement for All Students: Maryland’s Response to Intervention Framework,” Maryland State Department of Education, 2008, http://marylandpublicschools.org/NR/rdonlyres/D182E222-D84B-43D8-BB81-6F4C4F7E05F6/17125/Tiered_Instructional_ApproachRtI_June2008.pdf. Much of the recent literature has been prompted by the connection between RTI and determination of eligibility for the special education classification of “specific learning disability.” See, for example, Daniel J. Reschly, “Response to Intervention and the Identification of Specific Learning Disabilities,” Topics in Language Disorders 34, no. 1 (2014): 39–58; and Joseph F. Kovaleski et al., The RTI Approach to Evaluating Learning Disabilities (New York: Guilford Press, 2013).
3. VanDerHeyden et al., “Four Steps to Implement RTI.”
4. G. Reid Lyon, “Learning Disabilities and Early Intervention Strategies” (testimony before the Subcommittee on Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives, June 2, 2002), http://www.cdl.org/wp-content/uploads/2003/01/Testimonies-to-Congress.pdf, 7.
5. See generally the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) website, https://www.pbis.org/.
6. For a short overview, see Stacy Hurst, “What Is the Difference between RTI and MTSS?,” Reading Horizons (blog), January 6, 2014, https://www.readinghorizons.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-rti-and-mtss.
7. Russell Gersten et al., Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools, NCEE 2009-4060 (Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, 2009), https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/PracticeGuide/rti_math_pg_042109.pdf.
8. Susanna Loeb, “A Counterintuitive Approach to Improving Math Education: Focus on English Language Arts Teaching,” Brookings, April 6, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-counterintuitive-approach-to-improving-math-education-focus-on-english-language-arts-teaching/.
9. Martin R. West, “From Evidence-Based Programs to an Evidence-Based System: Opportunities under the Every Student Succeeds Act,” Brookings, February 5, 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/research/from-evidence-based-programs-to-an-evidence-based-system-opportunities-under-the-every-student-succeeds-act/.
10. West.
11. CFR 300.309(a)(1)(2)(3).
12. West, “Evidence-Based Programs.”
13. Joseph K. Torgesen, “Avoiding the Devastating Downward Spiral: The Evidence That Early Intervention Prevents Reading Failure,” American Educator, Fall 2004, 6.
14. Torgesen, 17.
15. Allan R. Odden and Lawrence O. Picus, School Finance: A Policy Perspective, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014), 97.
16. For an overview of prekindergarten programs in top-performing countries and U.S. states, see Center on International Benchmarking, How Does Maryland Stack Up: Gap Analysis Comparing Maryland to International and Domestic Top Performers (Washington, DC: National Center on Education and the Economy, 2018), 13–15.
17. For a convenient summary, see “The Thirty Million Word Gap,” School Literacy and Culture, Rice University, 2011–12, http://childrenshousepreschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Rice-University-School-Literacy-and-Culture-The-Thirty-Million-Word-Gap-1.pdf.
18. Ariane Baye et al., “A Synthesis of Quantitative Research on Reading Programs for Secondary Students,” Best Evidence Encyclopedia, 2018, http://www.bestevidence.org/word/Secondary-Reading-01-31-18.pdf. And see Philip J. Cook et al., “Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Youth,” Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, 2015, https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/publications/docs/workingpapers/2015/IPR-WP-15-01.pdf.
19. See chapter 4, note 2.
20. Center on International Benchmarking, How Does Maryland Stack Up, 25–37.
21. David Steiner, “Curriculum Research: What We Know and Where We Need to Go,” StandardsWork, March 2017, https://standardswork.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/sw-curriculum-research-report-fnl.pdf.
22. Chester E. Finn Jr., “Curriculum Becomes a Reform Strategy,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, April 5, 2017, https://edexcellence.net/articles/curriculum-becomes-a-reform-strategy.
23. James R. Delisle, “Differentiation Doesn’t Work,” Education Week, January 7, 2015, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/01/07/differentiation-doesnt-work.html.
24. David Griffith, “Differentiated to Death,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, February 4, 2015, https://edexcellence.net/articles/differentiated-to-death.
25. “What Is Universal Design for Learning?,” SWIFT Center, n.d., http://www.swiftschools.org/sites/default/files/What%20is%20Universal%20Design%20%20for%20Learning.pdf.
26. For example, see “ESSA: Key Provisions and Implications for Students with Disabilities,” Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), July 20, 2016, https://ccsso.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/ESSA_Key_Provisions_Implications_for_SWD.pdf, 5.
27. Michael B. Horn, “Now Trending: Personalized Learning, Can a Buzzword Deliver on Its Promises?,” Education Next 17, no. 4 (Fall 2017), https://www.educationnext.org/now-trending-personalized-learning-buzzword-promise-innovation/.
28. APA Consulting, Final Report of the Study of Adequacy of Funding for Education in Maryland, prepared for the Maryland State Department of Education, November 30, 2016, http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/Documents/adequacystudy/AdequacyStudyReportFinal112016.pdf.
29. A sampling of the research and literature includes Robert E. Slavin et al., “Effective Programs for Struggling Readers: A Best-Evidence Synthesis,” Education Research Review 6 (2011): 1–26; Allan Odden and Lawrence O. Picus, Appendix F: Full Report and School Case Studies for the Evidence-Based Approach to Estimating a Base Spending Level and Pupil Weights for Maryland, prepared for the Maryland State Department of Education, November 30, 2016, http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/Documents/adequacystudy/AppendixFSchoolCaseStudies113016.pdf; R. Barker Bausell, Too Simple to Fail: A Case for Educational Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Roseanna Ander, “Improving Academic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Students: Scaling Up Individualized Tutorials,” Hamilton Project, March 2016, http://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/improving_academic_outcomes_for_disadvantaged_students_scaling_up_individua; and Roland G. Fryer, “The Production of Human Capital in Developed Countries: Evidence from 196 Randomized Field Experiments,” Scholars at Harvard, March 2016, https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/handbook_fryer_03.25.2016.pdf, 38–42.
30. Slavin et al., “Effective Programs.”
31. Bausell, Too Simple to Fail, 190.
32. Noah Smith, “Want to Fix Education? Just Give a Kid a Tutor,” Bloomberg View, April 20, 2016, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-give-kids-tutors-to-fix-education-20160420-story.html.
33. Odden and Picus, Appendix F, 34.
34. Recent research, called “shocking” by a leading scholar, found “tutoring by paraprofessionals (teaching assistants) was at least as effective as tutoring by teachers.” Robert E. Slavin, “New Findings on Tutoring: Four Shockers,” Robert Slavin’s Blog, April 5, 2018, https://robertslavinsblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/new-findings-on-tutoring-four-shockers/.
35. See chapter 4, note 29.
36. “Tiered Instructional Approach.”
37. A recent expert opinion on the most effective tutoring models and their tutor-to-student ratios is Robert E. Slavin, “Achieving Proficiency for All: Maryland’s Opportunity” (presented to the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, October 2017), http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/pubs/commtfworkgrp/2017-innovation-excellence-in-education-commission-2017-10-12.pdf.
38. Reschly, “Response to Intervention,” 44–47; Douglas Fuchs, “The ‘Blurring’ of Special Education in a New Continuum of General Education Placements and Services,” Exceptional Children 76, no. 3 (Spring 2010): 301–23, esp. 309–15.
39. Ander, “Improving Academic Outcomes,” 6.
40. Fuchs et al., “Smart RTI,” 13.
41. A sharp insight into effective implementation is provided by leading reading expert Louisa Moats, “Can Prevailing Approaches to Reading Instruction Accomplish the Goals of RTI?,” Perspectives on Language and Literacy 43, no. 3 (Summer 2017): 15–22, https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=425075&article_id=2836403&view=articleBrowser&ver=html5#{“issue_id”:425075,“view”:”articleBrowser”,”article_id”:”2836403”}.
42. “Assessing Progress: Four Years of Learnings from RTI2 Implementation in Tennessee,” Tennessee Department of Education, February 2018, https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/education/reports/rpt_rti_report_assessing_progress.pdf.
43. “Implementation Guide.”
44. Education—Specialized Intervention Services—Reports, S. Bill 1, Chap. 728 (2017), https://legiscan.com/MD/text/SB1/2017, accessed August 1, 2018.
45. “Tiered Instructional Approach.”
46. Emily Workman, “Third-Grade Reading Policies,” Education Commission of the States, Denver, Colorado, December 2014, https://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/01/16/44/11644.pdf, 1.
47. See a summary of Beverley Holden Johns, James M. Kauffman, and Edwin W. Martin, “The Concept of RTI: Billion-Dollar Boondoggle,” January 26, 2017, at “Response to Intervention: Response from Bev Johns, Jim Kauffman, and Ed Martin,” Learning Disabilities Association of SC, March 26, 2017, http://ldasc.blogspot.com/2017/03/rti-discussion.html. See also “Alternative Facts Are Alive in Education as Well: A Response to Johns, Kaufman and Martin,” Consortium for Evidence-Based Intervention, n.d., https://www.hdc.lsuhsc.edu/tiers/docs/Alternative%20Facts%20Are%20Alive%203-23B.PDF, 1.
48. “Alternative Facts.”
49. Rekha Balu et al., Evaluation of Response to Intervention Practices for Elementary School Reading, NCEE 2016-4000 (Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, 2015), https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20164000/pdf/20164000.pdf.
50. Balu et al., 1.
51. Balu et al. 3.
52. Johns et al., “Concept of RTI,” 5.
53. Johns et al., 5.
54. “Alternative Facts,” 1.
55. “Alternative Facts,” 2.
56. Sarah D. Sparks, “Study: RTI Practice Falls Short of Promise,” Education Week, November 11, 2015, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/11/11/study-rti-practice-falls-short-of-promise.html. For a much longer version of his views on the study and RTI in general, see Douglas Fuchs and Lynn S. Fuchs, “Critique of the National Evaluation of Response to Intervention: A Case for Simpler Frameworks,” Exceptional Children 83, no. 3 (April 2017): 244–54.
57. See generally National Center for Learning Disabilities, “RTI-Based SLD Identification TOOLKIT,” RTI Action Network, http://www.rtinetwork.org/toolkit.
58. Cecil R. Reynolds and Sally E. Shaywitz, “Response to Intervention: Ready or Not? Or, from Wait-to-Fail to Watch-Them-Fail,” School Psychology Quarterly 24, no. 2 (June 2009): 130–45.
59. Matt Cohen, “Response to Intervention Policy Statement,” Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, adopted June 16, 2016, https://www.copaa.org/general/custom.asp?page=RTI.
60. Melody Musgrove, memorandum to the state directors of special education, OSEP 11-07, January 21, 2011, https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/memosdcltrs/osep11-07rtimemo.pdf.
61. Tina Marlene Hudson and Robert G. McKenzie, “The Impact of RTI on Timely Identification of Students with Specific Learning Disabilities,” Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal 21, no. 2 (2016): 46–58, esp. 55, https://js.sagamorepub.com/ldmj/article/view/7722.
62. Tina M. Hudson and Robert G. McKenzie, “Evaluating the Use of RTI to Identify SLD: A Survey of State Policy, Procedures, Data Collection, and Administrator Perceptions,” Contemporary School Psychology 20, no. 1 (March 2016): 31–45, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1090019.
63. Martha L. Thurlow et al., “Meeting the Needs of Special Education Students: Recommendations for the Race to the Top Consortia and States,” National Center on Education Outcomes, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2011, https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/OnlinePubs/Martha_Thurlow-Meeting_the_Needs_of_Special_Education_Students.pdf, 5.
For the number of students in special education by disability, see “Digest of Education Statistics,” National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017094.pdf, 115.
64. “2017 NAEP Mathematics and Reading Assessments: Highlighted Results at Grades 4 and 8 for the Nation, States, and Districts,” NCES, April 2018, https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2018037.
65. “NAEP Mathematics and Reading Assessments,” Nation’s Report Card, 2017, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2017_highlights/.
1. Said by an angry parent at a community meeting I attended in January 2017.
2. 34 CFR 300.320(a)(2)(i).
3. 34 CFR 300.39(a)(3)ii.
4. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-117, 115 Stat. 1425 (2002), https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf.
5. Sandra J. Thompson et al., Accommodations Manual: How to Select, Administer, and Evaluate Use of Accommodations for Instruction and Assessment of Students with Disabilities, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers, 2005), 10, https://osepideasthatwork.org/sites/default/files/AccommodationsManual.pdf.
6. Eileen Ahearn, Standards-Based IEPs: Implementation Update, Forum Brief Policy Analysis (Alexandria, VA: NASDE, 2010), 1, 2.
7. Daniel J. Losen and Kevin G. Welner, “Legal Challenges to Inappropriate and Inadequate Special Education for Minority Children,” in Racial Inequity in Special Education, ed. Daniel J. Losen and Gray Orfield (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2002), 167–94, esp. 185.
8. Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 (1982), pp. 176–218.
9. Rowley, 202.
10. Martha L. Thurlow et al., “Meeting the Needs of Special Education Students: Recommendations for the Race to the Top Consortia and States,” National Center on Education Outcomes, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2011, https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/OnlinePubs/Martha_Thurlow-Meeting_the_Needs_of_Special_Education_Students.pdf, 5.
11. Perry A. Zirkel, “The Aftermath of Endrew F. One Year Later: An Updated Outcomes Analysis,” West’s Education Law Reporter 352 (April 2018): 448–55, esp. 454, https://docplayer.net/87540335-A-special-section-of-west-s-education-law-reporter-sponsored-by-the-education-law-association-the-aftermath-of-endrew-f.html.
12. I received the memorandum in 2006, when I was a member of the Baltimore school board.
13. For a full discussion of the development and content of the One Year Plus policy, see Kalman R. Hettleman, Students with Disabilities Can Succeed! How the Baltimore City Public Schools Are Transforming Special Education (Baltimore, MD: Abell Foundation, 2013).
14. Email communications to me, published in Hettleman, 5.
15. “Dear Colleague Letter,” U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, November 16, 2015, https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/memosdcltrs/guidance-on-fape-11-17-2015.pdf.
16. Arne Duncan, “Fulfilling the Promise of IDEA,” U.S. Department of Education, November 18, 2010, http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/fulfilling-promise-idea-remarks-35th-anniversary-individuals-disabilities-act.
17. “Dear Colleague Letter,” 1.
18. “Dear Colleague Letter,” 5.
19. Maryland State Department of Education, “Improving Outcomes for Students with Disabilities: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment,” technical assistance bulletin, updated April 2018, http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/programs/Documents/Special-Ed/TAB/MarylandTABImprovingOutcomesforSWD.pdf.
20. Anna Medaris Miller, “A Patient’s Guide to ADHD,” U.S. News, n.d., https://health.usnews.com/health-conditions/brain-health/adhd/overview.
21. 34 CFR 200.1(d)(3), U.S. Department of Education Non-regulatory Guidance, August 2005, 21.
1. About two-thirds in one poll. Valerie Strauss, “Poll: What Americans Say about Public Education,” Washington Post, August 22, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/poll-americans-views-on-public-education/2012/08/22/37203c5a-ebcf-11e1-aca7-272630dfd152_blog.html?utm_term=.eea943d6f3b2. And see Dana Goldstein and Ben Casselman, “Teachers Find Public Support as Campaign for Higher Pay Goes to Voters,” New York Times, May 31, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/us/politics/teachers-campaign.html.
1. Adapted from a familiar bumper sticker advocating more money for schools.
2. Maria Danilova, “Teachers Dig Deep into Their Own Pockets to Pay for Supplies, Study Finds,” Christian Science Monitor, May 16, 2018, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2018/0516/Teachers-dig-deep-into-their-own-pockets-to-pay-for-supplies-study-finds.
3. See, for example, Bruce Baker et al., Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card, 6th ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Education Law Center and Rutgers Graduate School of Education, 2017), http://www.edlawcenter.org/assets/files/pdfs/publications/National_Report_Card_2017.pdf; and Matthew M. Chingos and Kristin Blagg, “Do Poor Kids Get Their Fair Share of School Funding?,” Urban Institute, May 2017, https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/90586/school_funding_brief.pdf.
4. Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (New York: Crown Press, 1991).
5. Coleman, James S. Equality of Educational Opportunity (COLEMAN) Study (EEOS), 1966. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2007-04-27. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06389.v3.
6. San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973).
7. For a historical perspective, see Allan R. Odden and Lawrence O. Picus, School Finance: A Policy Perspective, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014).
8. Baker et al., Is School Funding Fair?, 4.
9. Baker et al., 5. See also Chingos and Blagg, “Poor Kids,” 7.
10. William S. Koski, “Beyond Dollars? The Promises and Pitfalls of the Next Generation of Educational Rights Litigation,” Columbia Law Review 117 (November 2017): 1898–1931.
11. Kevin Carey and Elizabeth A. Harris, “It Turns Out Spending More Probably Does Improve Education,” New York Times, December 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/nyregion/it-turns-out-spending-more-probably-does-improve-education.html.
12. Eric Hanushek, “Money Matters After All?,” Education Next Blog, July 7, 2015, https://www.educationnext.org/money-matters-after-all/.
13. Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, Preliminary Report, January 2018, chap. 1, “A Call to Action,” http://dls.maryland.gov/pubs/prod/NoPblTabMtg/CmsnInnovEduc/2018-Preliminary-Report-of-the-Commission.pdf.
14. Robert E. Slavin, “Achieving Proficiency for All: Maryland’s Opportunity” (presented to the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, October 2017), http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/pubs/commtfworkgrp/2017-innovation-excellence-in-education-commission-2017-10-12.pdf.
15. Baker et al., Is School Funding Fair?, 7.
16. David P. Gardner et al., “A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform,” National Commission on Excellence in Education, Wash. D.C., 1983. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED226006.pdf.
17. Kalman R. Hettleman, It’s the Classroom, Stupid: A Plan to Save America’s Schoolchildren (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2010), 9.
18. Maryland Commission, Preliminary Report, 89.
19. Hettleman, It’s the Classroom, 87–136.
20. Charles M. Payne, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2008), 192.
21. David Tyack, “School Reform Is Dead (Long Live School Reform),” American Prospect, November 7, 2001, http://prospect.org/article/school-reform-dead-long-live-school-reform.
1. Tom Watkins, “Everyone Has a Plan for Education Reform, Except Educators,” Education News, February 5, 2013, http://www.educationviews.org/everyone-has-a-plan-for-education-reform-except-educators/.
2. Robert Epstein, “Why High School Must Go: An Interview with Leon Botstein,” Phi Delta Kappan 88, no. 9 (May 2007): 659–63, esp. 663.
3. Maggie Severns, “How Congress Finally Killed No Child Left Behind,” Politico, December 11, 2015, https://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/paul-ryan-congress-no-child-left-behind-216696.
4. Emma Brown, “What Should America Do about Its Worst Public Schools? States Still Don’t Seem to Know,” Washington Post, August 7, 2017.
5. Brandon L. Wright and Michael J. Petrilli, “Good News for Students and Federalism: Most States Step Up on Accountability under ESSA,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, November 15, 2017, https://edexcellence.net/articles/good-news-for-students-and-federalism-most-states-step-up-on-accountability-under-essa.
6. Institute for a Competitive Workforce, Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness (Washington, DC: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2007), 7.
7. Richard M. Ingersoll, Who Controls Teachers’ Work? Power and Accountability in America’s Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 168.
8. Mary Kennedy, Inside Teaching: How Classroom Life Undermines Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 186–90.
9. Stacy Childress, Richard Elmore, and Alan Grossman, “How to Manage Urban School Districts,” Harvard Business Review 84 (November 2006): 55–68, esp. 58.
10. National Council on Teacher Quality, “What Education Schools Aren’t Teaching about Reading and What Elementary Teachers Aren’t Learning,” executive summary, revised June 2006, 8.
11. Dana Goldstein, The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession (New York: Doubleday, 2014), 242.
12. Douglas Fuchs, Lynn B. Fuchs, and Pamela Stecker, “The ‘Blurring’ of Special Education in a New Continuum of General Education Placements and Services,” Exceptional Children 76, no. 3 (2010): 301–23, esp. 309.
13. Richard F. Elmore, “The Limits of Change,” Harvard Education Letter, January–February 2002, 2.
14. Marc Tucker, “Differences in Performance within Schools: Why So Much Greater Than in Other Countries?,” Education Week, September 6, 2017, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/top_performers/2017/09/differences_in_performance_within_schools_why_so_much_greater_than_in_other_countries_1.html.
15. Robert Pondiscio, “Failing by Design: How We Make Teaching Too Hard for Mere Mortals,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, May 10, 2016, https://edexcellence.net/articles/failing-by-design-how-we-make-teaching-too-hard-for-mere-mortals.
16. Arthur Levine, Educating School Leaders (Washington, DC: Education School Project, 2006), 13.
17. Jane Hanaway and Andrew J. Rotherham, eds., Collective Bargaining in Education: Negotiating Change in Today’s Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2006), 263.
18. Chester E. Finn Jr. and Michael Petrilli, foreword to The Leadership Limbo, Teacher Labor Agreements in America’s Fifty Largest School Districts, by Frederick M. Hess and Coby Loup (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2008), 6.
19. Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 303.
20. Anthony S. Bryck et al., Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2015), ix.
21. Bryck et al., x.
22. Arthur Levine, Educating School Teachers (Washington, DC: Education School Project, 2006), 19.
23. National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), 2014 Teacher Prep Review (Washington, DC: NCTQ, 2014), 3.
24. NCTQ, 2011 State Teacher Policy Yearbook: National Summary (Washington, DC: NCTQ, 2012), https://www.nctq.org/publications/2011-State-Teacher-Policy-Yearbook:-National-Summary.
25. NCTQ.
26. Fuchs, Fuchs, and Stecker, “‘Blurring’ of Special Education,” 318.
27. Fuchs, Fuchs, and Stecker, 305–8.
28. Robert Pondiscio, “The Problem with Current Efforts to Fix Teachers’ Professional Development,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, June 22, 2016, https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-problem-with-current-efforts-to-fix-teachers-professional-development. See also Mark Dynarski and Kirsten Kainz, “Why Federal Spending on Disadvantaged Students (Title I) Doesn’t Work,” Brookings, November 20, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-federal-spending-on-disadvantaged-students-title-i-doesnt-work/; Melissa Tooley and Kaylan Connally, “No Panacea: Diagnosing What Ails Teacher Professional Development before Reaching for Remedies,” New America, June 2016, https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/policy-papers/no-panacea/.
29. Chester E. Finn Jr., “Curriculum Becomes a Reform Strategy,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, April 5, 2017, https://edexcellence.net/articles/curriculum-becomes-a-reform-strategy.
30. Cited in Ted Mitchell and Jonathan Schorr, “Federal Education Innovation: Getting It Right,” Education Week, October 29, 2008, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/11/19/13letter-b1.h28.html.
31. Catherine E. Snow, M. Susan Burns, and Peg Griffin, eds., Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998).
32. Peter Baker, “Mikhail Gorbachev Brought Democracy to Russia and Was Despised for It,” review of Gorbachev: His Life and Times, by William Taubman, New York Times, September 6, 2017, Sunday Book Review, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/books/review/william-taubman-gorbachev-his-life-and-times.html.
33. Childress, Elmore, and Grossman, “Urban School Districts,” 58.
34. Robert E. Slavin, “Reading by Third Grade—or Else,” HuffPost (blog), updated December 6, 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-slavin/reading-by-third-grade_b_5677958.html.
35. “Hire Expectations: Big-District Superintendents Stay in Their Jobs Longer Than We Think,” Broad Center, May 2018, https://www.broadcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/TheBroadCenter_HireExpectations_May2018.pdf.
36. David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 10.
1. David P. Driscoll, Commitment and Common Sense: Leading Education Reform in Massachusetts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2017), 4.
2. Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974), 741.
3. Cited in Patrick J. McGuinn, No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 166.
4. Maggie Severns, “Congress Set to Dump No Child Left Behind,” Politico, November 30, 2015, https://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/no-child-left-behind-education-bush-congress-216291.
5. William J. Bennett, “Feds’ Role in Your Child’s Education May Be Shrinking. Finally!,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, May 11, 2017, https://edexcellence.net/articles/feds-role-in-your-childs-education-is-shrinking-finally.
6. Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, Preliminary Report, January 2018, http://dls.maryland.gov/pubs/prod/NoPblTabMtg/CmsnInnovEduc/2018-Preliminary-Report-of-the-Commission.pdf, 79–82.
1. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 222 (1982).
2. Student A v. the Berkeley Unified School District, U.S. District Court (Northern District of California), complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief, May 2, 2017, https://dredf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dredf-busd-complaint-5-2-17.pdf.
3. “Students with Reading Disorders Sue Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) for Failing to Educate Them,” Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, May 2, 2017, https://dredf.org/2017/05/02/students-with-reading-disorders-sue-berkeley-unified-school-district/.
4. “Title I: Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged,” U.S. Department of Education, last modified September 15, 2004, https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html.
5. “ECAA Must Require Intervention When Students Struggle to Meet Reading and Math Goals,” Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA), June 16, 2015, http://www.copaa.org/news/236976/ECAA-Must-Require-Intervention-When-Students-Struggle-to-Meet-Reading-and-Math-Goals.htm.
7. Margaret J. McLaughlin, “Closing the Achievement Gap and Students with Disabilities: The New Meaning of a ‘Free and Appropriate Public Education’” (paper presented at the Second Annual Symposium on Educational Equity, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, November 13–14, 2006), http://www.equitycampaign.org/events-page/equity-symposia/2006-examining-americas-commitment-to-closing-achievement-gaps-nclb-and-its-a/papers/McLaughlin_Edited[1].Closing-the-Achievement-Gap-11-29.pdf, 34.
8. Robert Garda, “A Fresh Look at IDEA Eligibility Criteria,” AASA, April 26, 2016, http://www.aasa.org/idea-blog.aspx?id=39492&blogid=84005.
9. Alan Gartner and Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky, “Beyond Special Education: Toward a Quality System for All Students,” Harvard Educational Review 57, no. 4 (November 1987): 367–95, esp. 387.
10. Gartner and Lipsky, 367. See also Thomas M. Skrtic, “The Special Education Paradox: Equity as the Way to Excellence,” in Special Education for a New Century, ed. Lauren I. Katzman et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review, 2005), 204–10; Douglas Fuchs, Lynn B. Fuchs, and Pamela Stecker, “The ‘Blurring’ of Special Education in a New Continuum of General Education Placements and Services,” Exceptional Children 76, no. 3 (2010): 301–23, esp. 307–8.
11. “Every Student Succeeds Act and Students with Disabilities,” National Council on Disabilities, February 7, 2018, https://ncd.gov/sites/default/files/NCD_ESSA-SWD_Accessible.pdf, 19–22.
12. Wade F. Horn and Douglas Tynan, “Time to Make Special Education ‘Special’ Again,” in Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, ed. Chester E. Finn Jr. et al. (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Progressive Policy Institute, 2001), 40.
13. Student A v. the Berkeley Unified School District.
14. Gary B. v. Richard D. Snyder, U.S. District Court (Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division), civil action no. 16-CV-13292, class action complaint, September 13, 2016.
15. Gary B. v. Snyder, 15.
16. Gary B. v. Snyder, 41.
17. Gary B. v. Snyder, 2.
18. John Wisely, “Detroit School Lawsuit: Does U.S. Constitution Guarantee Literacy?,” Detroit Free Press, October 1, 2016, https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2016/10/01/literacy/90902874/.
19. Ryan Felton, “Detroit Civil Rights Lawsuit Attempts to Assert a Constitutional Right to Literacy,” Guardian, September 14, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/detroit-civil-rights-lawsuit-constitutional-literacy-education. The Berkeley and Detroit class action cases are also part of a trend in which state courts as well as federal courts are being called on to decide other challenges to equal opportunity, ranging from the adequacy of funding to the role of teachers unions. See Dana Goldstein, “How Do You Get Better Schools? Take the State to Court, More Advocates Say,” New York Times, August 21, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/us/school-segregation-funding-lawsuits.html.
20. Hope Gray, “New Life for Educational Malpractice: Decades of Policy Revisited,” Loyola University Chicago, Childlaw and Education Institute Forum, spring 2010, http://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/law/centers/childlaw/childed/pdfs/2010studentpapers/Hope_Gray.pdf.
21. Gray, 3.
22. Gray, 3.
23. Gray, 4, 6.
24. Terri A. DeMitchell and Todd A. DeMitchell, “A Crack in the Educational Malpractice Wall,” School Administrator Article, December 18, 2017, http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=6516. See also Mark Dynarski, “Can Schools Commit Malpractice? It Depends,” Brookings, July 26, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/research/can-schools-commit-malpractice-it-depends/.
1. The primal scream of the fictional anchorman in the 1976 movie Network.
2. “Learning Disabilities: Kids and Families Struggle beyond the Academics,” Science Daily, June 28, 2018, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180628120039.htm.
3. Rachel Quenomoen, “Civil Rights, No Child Left Behind, Assessments, Accountability, and Students with Disabilities,” written comments, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, February 6, 2003, https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/Presentations/usccr.pdf.
4. See generally M. Hannah Koseki, “Meeting the Needs of All Students: Amending the IDEA to Support Special Education Students from Low-Income Households,” Fordham Law Journal 44 (July 2017): 793–831; Elisa Hyman et al., “How IDEA Fails Families without Means: Cause and Corrections from the Frontlines of Special Education,” Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 20, no. 1 (2011): 107–62; Eloise Pasachoff, “Special Education, Poverty, and the Limits of Private Enforcement,” Notre Dame Law Review 86 (2011): 1413; Nicholas Gumas, “Socioeconomic and Racial Disparities in Public Special Education: Alleviating Decades of Unequal Enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in New York City,” Columbia Journal on Race and Law 8 (2018): 398.
5. See generally Koseki, “Meeting the Needs”; Hyman et al., “How IDEA Fails Families”; Pasachoff, “Special Education”; and Gumas, “Socioeconomic and Racial Disparities.”
6. Claire Raj, “The Misidentification of Children with Disabilities: A Harm with No Foul,” Arizona State Law Journal 48 (Summer 2016): 373.
7. Kosecki, “Meeting the Needs,” 6.
8. Pasachoff, “Special Education,” 1417.
9. “Broken Promises: The Underfunding of IDEA,” National Council on Disability, February 7, 2018, https://ncd.gov/sites/default/files/NCD_BrokenPromises_508.pdf, 35.
10. The problem has plagued parental rights under IDEA from the start. Alan Gartner and Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky, “Beyond Special Education: Toward a Quality System for All Students,” Harvard Educational Review 57, no. 4 (November 1987): 367–95, esp. 378.
11. “Federal Monitoring and Enforcement of IDEA Compliance,” National Council on Disability, February 7, 2018, https://www.ncd.gov/sites/default/files/NCD_Monitoring-Enforcement_508_0.pdf.
12. “IDEA Special Education Resolution Meetings: A Guide for Parents of Children and Youth (Ages 3–21),” Resolving Disputes with Parents Series, National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET), n.d., https://www.naset.org/4890.0.html.
13. Unpublished data, Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities at Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, 2018, available from the author upon request.
14. Schaffer v. Weast, 546 U.S. 49 (2005).
15. Schaffer v. Weast, 62.
16. Schaffer v. Weast, 64.
17. See generally Koseki, “Meeting the Needs”; Hyman et al., “How IDEA Fails Families”; Pasachoff, “Special Education.”
18. Pasachoff, “Special Education,” 1417.
19. Logan Casey and Elizabeth Mann, “New Survey of Minorities Adds Dissenting View to Public Satisfaction with Schools,” Brookings, January 11, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/01/11/new-survey-of-minorities-adds-dissenting-view-to-public-satisfaction-with-schools/.
20. “$14 Million Awarded for 40 Special Education Parent Training and Information Centers,” U.S. Department of Education, August 7, 2015, https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/14-million-awarded-40-special-education-parent-training-and-information-centers. And see the Center for Parent Information and Resources website, http://www.parentcenterhub.org/.
21. Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education (CADRE), Individualized Education Program (IEP) Facilitation: A Guide for Parents of Children and Youth (Ages 3–21) (Eugene, OR: CADRE, 2014), https://www.cadreworks.org/sites/default/files/IEP_Facilitation_ParentGuide_11.3.14.pdf.
22. Erin Phillips, “When Parents Aren’t Enough: External Advocacy in Special Education,” Yale Law Journal 117, no. 8 (June 2008): 1568–1957; Gumas, “Socioeconomic and Racial Disparities,” 440.
23. Chester E. Finn Jr., “John Merrow’s Flawed Plan to Rescue Public Schools,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, October 4, 2017, https://edexcellence.net/articles/john-merrows-flawed-plan-to-rescue-public-schools.
24. Sasha Pudelski, “Rethinking the Special Education Due Process System,” School Superintendents Association, April 2016, https://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Policy_and_Advocacy/Public_Policy_Resources/Special_Education/AASARethinkingSpecialEdDueProcess.pdf.
25. “AASA Document Nothing More Than a Shameful Attack on Parent and Student Civil Rights,” Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA), April 4, 2013, https://www.copaa.org/news/121292/AASA-Document-Nothing-More-Than-A-Shameful-Attack-on-Parent-and-Student-Civil-Rights-.htm.
26. Christina A. Samuels, “Ed. Dept. Finds Texas Suppressed Spec. Ed. Enrollment,” Education Week, January 17, 2018, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/01/11/ed-dept-finds-texas-suppressed-enrollment-of.html.
27. Aliyya Swaby, “Special Education Caps Were the Texas Legislature’s Idea, Educators Say,” Texas Tribune, January 14, 2018, https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/14/school-groups-special-education-texas-legislators/.
28. Diane Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade: American Education 1945–1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 306.
29. Susan Etscheidt, “‘Truly Disabled’? An Analysis of LD Eligibility Issues under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act,” Journal of Disability Policy Studies 24, no. 3 (2013): 81–192, esp. 182.
30. Christina A. Samuels, “Parent-Driven Group Wields Influence on Dyslexia Issues,” Education Week, December 9, 2015, https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/12/09/parent-driven-group-wields-influence-on-dyslexia-concerns.html.
31. “Week in Review: February 16, 2018,” NASET 4, no. 7 (2018), https://www.naset.org/index.php?id=4855.
32. Leila Fiester, “Don’t ‘Dys’ Our Kids: Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency,” Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, 2012, http://www.colettiinstitute.org/resources/4.4_Don%27t_Dys_our_kids.pdf, 53–54.
33. Kalman R. Hettleman, The Invisible Dyslexics: How Public School Systems in Baltimore and Elsewhere Discriminate against Poor Children in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Early Reading Difficulties (Baltimore, MD: Abell Foundation, 2003), https://www.abell.org/sites/default/files/publications/ed_invisible_dyslexics.pdf.
34. For an overview of the division of liberals, see Kalman R. Hettleman, It’s the Classroom, Stupid: A Plan to Save America’s Schoolchildren (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2010), 196.
35. Richard Rothstein, Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003), 5.
36. Diane Jean Schemo, “It Takes More Than Schools to Close Achievement Gap,” New York Times, August 9, 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/education/09education.html.
37. Perry A. Zirkel, “Shift in Education Policy under the Trump Administration,” Perry Zirkel Files (blog), January 15, 2018, https://perryzirkel.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/trump-shift-in-education-policy.pdf.