James M. Kauffman, 1940-2024

On the passing of a powerful advocate for kids with disabilities, their families, and their teachers—and a friend of mine

James Milton Kauffman, tireless advocate for compassionate and effective special education for children and youth with disabilities, died 25 September 2024 in Afton, Virginia.¹ He was born 7 December 1940 in Hannibal, Missouri, to Christmas Carol (nee Miller) and Nelson E. Kauffman. He grew up in a religious home as the son of a Mennonite preacher and a mother raised the family—and whom Jim described as diminutive and physically attractive; from them he absorbed a dedication to helping others.

James M. Kauffman in a posed professional image from approximately 2003.

Jim obtained an undergraduate degree at Goshen College and then, after working as a teacher in both general and special education classrooms, attended the University of Kansas for graduate work. After obtaining an Ed.D., mentored by Richard Whalen, he took a faculty appointment at Illinois State University for one year before moving to the University of Virginia in 1970.

At the University of Virginia, Jim began a long and productive collaboration with Danial P. Hallahan. They joined together to conduct and report research projects, mentor advanced graduate students, and, especially, to write textbooks. Their first big hit was Introduction to Learning Disabilities: A Psycho-behavioral Approach, published in 1976. They followed that book with an even-bigger hit, Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education in 1978.

Jim retired from Virginia in 2003, but he continued to collaborate with Dan Hallahan—and later with Paige Pullen—as co-authors of widely used textbooks (Exceptional Learners) and scholarly volumes (Handbook of Special Education). He also continued to write textbooks with others, including revisions of his texts and scholarly volumes on emotional and behavior disorders with Tomthy J. Landrum.

A tireless conversationalist, Jim spoke at scores of professional conferences and lectured in many countries around the world. He was well known for providing critical—even challenging—appraisals of widely accepted policies and views on disabilities and education. He rarely shied away from challenging fellow scholars, scientists, policy makers, and (particularly) self-proclaimed mucky-mucks. His penchant for thinking systematically about issues and asking probing questions left some members of the academy irritated with him, but drew the admiration of many.

One part of Jim’s academic efforts was promoting opportunities for people from non-majority groups to engage in special education research, teaching, and policy at the highest levels. Along with colleagues Donna Ford Harris and Stanley Trent, Jim and Dan proposed and executed two substantial projects from 1997-2004 that supported mentoring and training for special educators concerned about multi-cultural issues: Center of Minority Research in Special Education (COMRISE) and Multicultural Special Education Leadership Training (MSELT).

Jim conducted research, particularly early in his career. He co-authored many reports of studies about behavior management and educational procedures as well as teachers’ perspectives on educational matters. Later in his career, joined by a host of co-authors, he turned almost exclusively to writing about education policy. Even as he was dying, he had publications appearing in journals. The curriculum vita on his Website provides many references to these works.

In addition to articles, chapters, and textbooks about special education, disabilities, behavior management, and related topics, Jim published single-author books for the general audience. In them he explained his views on educational issues, especially reform movements (e.g., Education Deform: Bright People Sometimes Say Stupid Things About Education, 2002, The Tragicomedy of Public Education: Laughing and Crying, Thinking and Fixing, 2010, and Toward a Science of Education: The Battle Between Rogue and Real Science, 2011).

After he completed undergraduate studies in elementary education, Jim took teaching jobs in Virginia and Kansas. He taught at the Southard School, a part of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, KS, at the same time he studied for a master’s degree; his teaching there satisfied the US government’s requirement that conscientious objectors provide “alternative service” in lieu of service in the military.

Jim Kauffman visiting with friends in North Garden, VA, 2010. Photo by John Wills Lloyd, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

While Jim was an undergraduate at Goshen College, he married Myrna Ellen Miller (who passed away in 2018), whom he had known since high school. As Jim explained, Myrna put her own career in nursing on hold to support them so he could pursue undergraduate studies. They had two children, James Timothy Kauffman (Michelle Miniutti) of North Carolina and Missy Schrock (John Schrock) of Indiana.

Jim subsequently married Patricia Louise Pullen of Charlottesville, Virginia. Patty passed away in 2012 after they had been married for 25 years. He and Patty co-authored a book for parents of children with disabilities. Jim shared lots of his life with Patty’s children, Lesley Myers and James Myers.

He later married Jeanmarie Bantz of Afton, Virginia, who not only collaborated with him—together they wrote books and scholarly works as well as endowing the Bader-Kauffman Conference at Kent State University—but also made a home for him as he aged. Jeanmarie provided loving care for Jim during his rapid decline at the end of his life. She survives him.

Jim Kauffman at his home in Afton, VA, in March, 2024. Photo by John Wills Lloyd, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Perhaps the most famous publication attributed to Jim was not one he actually wrote. A letter to Laura Schlessinger, radio personality noted for providing self-help advice, was falsely attributed to Jim. It was widely circulated on the Internet in the first two decades of the 2000s. The letter questioned “Dr. Laura’s” use of scripture to condem homosexuality. The “Jim” of the letter explained how religious criticisms of contemporary life could be mistakenly attriuted to Biblical standards. The author of “the letter” took on Jim’s voice and repeatedly challenged ideas, asking if it was OK, for example, to own a Canadian becasuse Biblical text discussed enslaving neighbors, what price one should ask when selling his daughter into slavery, and whether one is morally obliged to put to death a neighbor who works on the sabbath. Althought Jim didn’t write the original letter, he got lots of correspondence about it; true to form, he organized the correspondence and reprinted it with commentary in his book, Cyber Abuse: The Dr. Laura Letter.²

Just a personal note here: I hope this post doesn’t come over as fawning or obsequious, but I admired Jim. I was fortunate to know, work with, play with, and have many intimate times with him (see photos). I have known many prominent special educators, and when I think about their compassionate, dedicated, persistent, and intellectually honest efforts to help kids with disabilities, their families, and educators, Jim has few peers and even fewer—if any—superiors.

Footnotes

1. On 1 October I learned that two obituaries have been posted, one via a the funeral undertaker used by Jim’s family and the other via an aggregator or a re-publishing service—JohnL.

2. Earlier than the publication of the book, Jim and I created a Web site where he published a preliminary version of it. Although that Web site is lost to history now, The Way Back Machine (bless its electronic heart) still has it archived.