Here we have the seventh issue of volume 2 of the weekly newsletter for Special Education Today. Regular readers will find the headings (structure) quite familiar. There is (a) a status report, (b) some notes of appreciation to readers, (c) a table listing the contents from the past week, and (d) a little commentary.
Please feel free to read it all on the Web.
Status update
This past week, SET lost three subscribers and gained four new subscribers. Up one! Now, if we can only grow by, say, 100, we'd be on the way! Thanks to everyone who's sharing, forwarding, talking about, and otherwise promoting SET with your friends and fellow administrators, teachers, parents, and others.
All readers can see posts available for free (e.g., this newsletter). They will also see some posts that only show the first few paragraphs before displaying a paywall. Paid subscribers will see everything immediately. Although free subscribers get to comment on some posts, paid subscribers get to comment on all posts.
You, dear subscribers, are almost certainly the reason for growth. I don’t think people new to SET just found it rolled up and stuffed inside a plastic bag, lying on their driveway. To the extent that you share SET posts and recommend SET to colleagues, you help boost the base. Thanks!
Recognition (AKA: Flashes of the electrons)
Leading with the commenters: Mike N. scores as the one and only commenter for the week. Winner! Winner! Thanks Mike for your notes on previous posts as well as this past week's illustration of illogic in evidentiary reasoning! Folks, you can create a paying subscription to ensure you can add your own comments.
Thanks for the “likes” this past week from Michael K., Dan H. (2), Tina C., Ronnie D., Betsy T., Jane B., and Clay K. (4). One doesn’t have to be a paid subscriber to drop a like (though many of the regular likers have paid subs). It’s great for me to know which posts resonate with folks and thanks for letting other readers know what you consider valuable. Like on!
Thanks to all y’all who have followed @specialedtoday (and @spedpro and @JohnWillsLloyd, too) over on Twitter. A special flash to Betsy T., who keeps mentioning SET on Twitter. Please help SET by retweeting those notices and posting your own tweets about content even when I don’t.
Table of contents
Last week, I posted five messages to the Web site, one of which was (no surprise!) last week's newsletter. Sometimes, I push one of those posts out via the email list, but you can see them all if you visit the site regularly. The week's content for SET included the following posts. I hope readers found them interesting and useful.
Make sure you go to the Web site to see the most current content. New posts drop throughout the coming week. You’ll find a Web-styled version of this newsletter as well as any newer posts.
Commentary
The Rivanna River was rather muddy and flowing strongly when Melvin, my buddy of > 40 years, and I were walking along its banks Friday. As we looked across a riffle, we were treated to the sight of a Great Blue Heron. Classic pose! Lovely bird. We watched it for several minutes and then went on our way. Who knows how long it stayed there?
There were other things that caught my interest recently, and I considered posting about them here. I'll comment on only one. I was interested in the dissent that Justice Sonia Sotomayor posted regarding a decision not to hear the case of Danny Hill. Mr. Hill was convicted of murder in the years before the U.S. Supreme Court held that executing individuals with intellectual disability was unconstitutional.
He appealed his death sentence, but a state court found he did not deserve relief because he didn't have intellectual disabilities, despite his disability having been recognized since he was six years old. An appeals court held that the state court decision was mistaken and ordered that Hill get relief. Then the appeals court reconsidered; with all the judges hearing the case, the court decided that the original state court decision should stand.
The U.S. Supreme Court was asked to consider the case. It refused, but Justice Sotomayor wrote an opinion dissenting from that decision. Here is a link to her opinion. It is relatively brief, so reading it will not be taxing. This is just one paragraph from it:
As the seven dissenting judges [in the appeal that denied relief] observed, “[n]o person looking at this record could reasonably deny that Hill is intellectually disabled under Atkins.” 11 F. 4th 373, 400 (CA6 2021) (opinion of Moore, J.). Before Hill filed his state peti- tion for postconviction relief, he had been diagnosed with intellectual disabilities approximately 10 times, beginning at age six. He scored 70 or below on every IQ test he took during his school years. The record before the state courts also revealed significant limitations in Hill’s functional academics, self-care, social skills, and self-direction. He could not sign his own name, never lived independently, was “‘functionally illiterate’” at school and in prison, could not read or write above a third-grade level, and could not per- form a job without substantial guidance from supervisors. Id., at 407. He has never been able to take care of his own hygiene independently; even in the rigidly organized environment of prison, he will not shower without reminders. All three medical professionals who testified at the mitigation phase of Hill’s trial concluded that he was within the range of intellectual disability, see State v. Hill, 177 Ohio App. 3d 171, 177, 2008-Ohio-3509, ¶¶ 8–11, 894 N. E. 2d 108, 112, and the trial court found the record indicated that Hill was “ ‘mildly to moderately retarded.’ ” 11 F. 4th, at 381 (majority opinion).
I find legal decisions that subject individuals with disabilities to severe punishment to be particularly concerning. Let me start with my objection to the death penalty, itself. I'll add that I object to it in cases where it is employed when the perpetrator of a capital crime almost surely would not have been deterred from committing the crime by knowing that it might lead to his death. And, let me also add that I object to the idea that protecting people with intellectual disability from such legal consequences is paternalistic, that it prevents those people from exercising their personal autonomy.
So, that’s my take. Some people may disagree with me. That’s fine. I’d like to hear the arguments favoring an alternative view.
Anyway, as usual, I recommend that you wear your seatbelts, be considerate of others by wearing masks in situations that put yourself or others at risk, and teach our children well.
JohnL
SET Editor guy
Charlottesville
SET should not be confused with a product with the product that uses the same name and is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Despite my appreciation for CEC, this product is not designed to promote that organization.
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