January 8, 2004

Education Week, Vol. 23, Issue 17
Education The State of the States 2004
States have added a wealth of data to report cards, giving the public a better idea of the state of education.
Ron Skinner & Lisa Staresina, January 8, 2004
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10 min read
Education Measuring by Other Means
Federal law requires states to provide "alternate assessments" for students with disabilities who cannot take regular state tests, even with accommodations. But the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provides few details about how such measures should look. The result is a wide variety of approaches.
Lynn Olson, January 8, 2004
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4 min read
Education Tempting Teachers to Paradise
One of the most daunting challenges Hawaii has faced in the 10-year effort to overhaul its special education system is finding enough adequately trained teachers to meet students’ needs.
Linda Jacobson, January 8, 2004
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2 min read
Education Special Intervention
The assignment looks simple for an 11th grader: Learn to use a weekly planner to write down homework assignments, with common abbreviations and teachers' shorthand. But this special education class, dubbed "Strategies for Success," may give the four Cabrillo High School students and their peers here the boost they need to perform well on state tests--and earn high school diplomas.
Joetta L. Sack, January 8, 2004
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8 min read
Education Accommodations in Oregon: A Juried Process
Students with disabilities often take state tests with accommodations, such as extra time, so that the exams more accurately measure what they know and can do.
Lynn Olson, January 8, 2004
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2 min read
Education Teaching in Tandem
Collaborative teaching, a resourceful approach to main streaming, is a keystone of this school's plan to raise the achievement of special education students and move them into the era of state standards-based education.
Lisa Goldstein, January 8, 2004
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8 min read
Education Put to the Test
States are making great strides in including students with disabilities in their standards-based systems.
Susan E. Ansell, January 8, 2004
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10 min read
Education Diversity in Funding: Strategies Vary by State
State strategies for financing special education are almost as diverse as the populations the programs are meant to serve. Moreover, the amount and sources of money provided for special education vary greatly from state to state.
Jennifer Park, January 8, 2004
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4 min read
Education The Funding Fix
States must deal with demands of higher academic standards and increasingly severe disabilities.
Joetta L. Sack, January 8, 2004
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10 min read
Education Highly Qualified?
Teaching students with disabilities to high standards will depend on the skills of their teachers.
Lisa Goldstein, January 8, 2004
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11 min read
Education Vouchers: The Florida Experiment
Florida’s one-of-a-kind voucher program for children with disabilities does not require participating private schools to give standardized tests. Ask Jay P. Greene if that should change, and he says he's of two minds.
Caroline Hendrie, January 8, 2004
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5 min read
Education Charters: An Uneasy Fit
Tailored for children with autism, the Princeton House Charter School in center-city Orlando is exempt from the A-to-F state system of school grading that strikes fear in so many Florida educators' hearts. But don't think Carol Tucker is unaccountable for results.
Caroline Hendrie, January 8, 2004
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8 min read
Education The Testing Dilemma
School never came easy to Jennifer Hunt. She needed extra time to write clearly and understand words on the page, but those hurdles never tripped up her ambition. Despite coping with the disorder known as aphasia, the Indianapolis native resolved early on that she would make it to college, and eventually, to a career in physical therapy.
Sean Cavanagh, January 8, 2004
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11 min read
Education All Means All
Under orders to test every student with a disability, states are pondering how to do so fairly and accurately.
Lynn Olson, January 8, 2004
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18 min read
Education No Separate Room
Special education classes have permanently closed shop at James Russell Lowell Elementary School.
Michelle Galley, January 8, 2004
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8 min read
Education Visions of the Possible
Special education students succeed with a general education curriculum.
The Editors, January 8, 2004
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1 min read
Education Basic Measures
Each weekday at W.G. Pearson Elementary School kicks off with more than two hours of reading instruction and activities. Pupils in kindergarten through 5th grade begin with basic word skills, work on spelling and vocabulary, take part in group- and individual-reading activities, and delve into frequent writing tasks.
Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, January 8, 2004
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8 min read
Education Disparately Disabled
With African-American students showing up in classrooms for children with mental retardation at 3.3 times the rate of white students, it was obvious in 1997 that Alabama had an equity problem with its special education programs. Ordered by a federal court that year to fix it, the state set to work.
Debra Viadero, January 8, 2004
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9 min read
Education Teachers: Spec. Ed. Students Should Meet Own Standards
Teachers agree in principle that students with disabilities should be taught to high standards, but their opinions stand in stark contrast to the more concrete policies embedded in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act as revised in 1997, according to an Education Week poll.
Melissa McCabe, January 8, 2004
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4 min read
Education Enveloping Expectations
Federal law demands that schools teach the same content to children they wrote off a quarter-century ago.
Lynn Olson, January 8, 2004
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28 min read
Education Special Needs, Common Goals
States are confronting how to help a diverse population meet the same standards expected of all.
The Editors, January 8, 2004
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7 min read