Monthly Archives: January 2008

Well, as regular readers know, I sometimes check on the cartoons at Weapons of Math Destruction. I learned about this one yesterday. It’s about some fellows discussing an exorcism of a crazy character who maintains that students do not need to learn multiplication tables.
I have actually heard some mathematics educators contend that students should learn [...] Continue reading →

In a column entitled “Teacher speaking out about beating,” Rick Badie (columnist for the Atlanta, GA, US, Journal-Constitution describes his reaction to a terribly unfortunate incident in which a middle school teacher was injured by a student. Here are the first few paragraphs of his column:

The swelling has subsided, but her head still throbs.
Her nerves [...] Continue reading →

After hearing Steve Inskeep of NPR’s Morning Edition perpetuate the myth that individuals with dyslexia suffer from reversals, I submitted the following comment via the NPR Web site.
Dear Mr. Inskeep,
I was sorry to learn that you have the mistaken idea that the Learning Disability called dyslexia is characterized by “seeing things backwards.” I was even [...] Continue reading →

Professor Lauren Weiss and colleagues form the Autism Consortium published a paper in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine today that provides further and stronger evidence about genetic problems underlying Autism. They have identified changes in genetic structure that appear in a small number of children but not in those children’s parents.
Continue reading →

BROOKLYN COLLEGE SCHOOL OF EDUCATIONFOUR TENURE-TRACK FACULTY POSITIONS 2007-2008 

Brooklyn College is widely regarded as one of the best public urban colleges in the United States.  As one of the eleven senior colleges of the City University of New York (CUNY), Brooklyn College shares the mission of providing access and academic … Continue reading →

A news story from the Salt Lake (UT, US)Tribune that ran prior to the defeat of the Utah initiative to implement a system of vouchers for K-12 education mentioned concern about private schools refusing to accept students with disabilities.

One thing Utah vouchers foes fear is that private schools will refuse … Continue reading →

In “Massive Funding Cuts to ‘Reading First’ Generate Worries for Struggling Schools,” Kathleen Kennedy Manzo of Education Week reports about the views of educators and policy analysts on recent reductions in funding for the US government’s Reading First program. Ms. Manzo, whose article includes the opinions of both those who consider the RF program to [...] Continue reading →

The US National Institutes of Health issued a call for recommendations about priorities for research on Autism. Under the title “Request for Information (RFI): Research Priorities for the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD),” the agency is seeking “input from ASD stakeholders such as individuals with ASD and their families, [...] Continue reading →

The US Department of Education Institute for Educational Science has published the January 2008 edition [3(1)] of its electronic newsletter. The newsletter has regular features as well as special foci.
Welcome to the IES Research e-News, the electronic newsletter of the Institute of Education Sciences. This issue highlights the Institute’s efforts to promote the development and [...] Continue reading →

Over on EBDBlog I posted an entry about a story recounting the use of theater to help children with Autism prepare for religious ceremonies. The reporter, James Ricci, has the following paragraph that serves as one of the indicators of the children’s success.
Over time, the initial goal of trying to “get him into our [...] Continue reading →