Special Ed Special

After all these years, I still know precious little about special education besides the fact that, looking back, I should probably have had an IEP. But it's an incredibly important venture, and one that's more and more closely linked to the rest of education reform now that NCLB has made it clear among other things that special education students must be included in school assessment/report card systems.

How the new IDEA and the three year-old NCLB are going to interact is a mystery to me, but is by all accounts touched on in most of the following articles: House, Senate negotiators agree to changes in special-education law (The Washington Post/Associated Press), Congress ready to update special ed law (Boston Globe), Lame-Duck Session of Congress to Address IDEA, Budget (Education Week), Conferees Pass Compromise for 6.5 Million Special Education Pupils (New York Times), Negotiators in Congress OK revisions for special ed (Houston Chronicle), Education Bill Is Backed (Washington Post), Congress to approve special education law (Washington Times).