Special Education Today newsletter 4(50)
What happened during the week that just passed?
Hello, Dear Readers! I hope that you followed Special Education Today for the week that began 2 June 2025. If you missed something, this newsletter, which is the 1321st since the rebirth of our little publication, will provide a chance to review it. If you just want a refresher, the newsletter will provide that, too. This issue covers the week that began 28 April 2025. If you’re familiar with the newsletters, you probably expect a photo, some updates, a list of recent posts, and an editorial…and your expectations would be met. Check, and away we go!
Photo
Ten years ago this month, Pat and I visited with my niece Jo and her husband Jeff at their place a bit west-southwest of Asheville, North.Carolina. Although Asheville and environs are about five hours south of Beautyville, it is a place with lots of lovely geographic features.
We walked to the crest of some mountain near Jo’s and Jeff’s place and had spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. Much more recently, in September of 2024 the areas around the bald from which I took this shot were inundated with tremendous amounts of rain from Hurricane Helene. The result was historic flooding in the volleys below these mountains.
As hurricane season begins for 2025, the affected areas are still working to recover, according to news reports in the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News and Observer. I suspect that the season comes with a lot of sad memories—but I hope few anxious moments—for all the residents of the area, especially our friends who are part of the SET community. When y’all read my admonition to stay safe at this end of this newsletter, please prompt the understanding I’m thinking of you.
Status
As of this past week, Substack indicated that there are 963 subscribers and 1229 followers for SET. Welcome to the folks who began subscriptions over the past week. Thanks for joining us.
Subscriptions: About 80 subscribers provide financial support for SET with their paid subscriptions. Three sustaining subscribers (Mike G., Li-Yu H., and Kathy M.) are the stalwarts among us; it’s their on-going support that is helping SET to reach people around Earth who are concerned about students with disabilities. Also, I want to acknowledge other very Dear Readers’ support: Ed. P., Bob P., Ed M., Pam S., Lucinda S., Mike N., Pei Jung H., Jane N., Mary R., Jen W., Jim P., Christy A., Jean S., Vicki W., Amanda H., Jim S., Riley M., Kristen M., Anna O., Clary K., Joel M., Dan H., Larry M., and Candace S. Thank you!
Interactions: I greatly appreciated a comment by Dan H.—you win the Lone Commentator Award for the week! Also, thanks to those who clicked the “like” button on posts. And, DRs, please keep on sharing SET in whatever ways you can. Copy the URL, forward messages, talk about it around in the lounge or around the water cooler, or just click the share button. And please be sure to include your colleagues on parts of Earth other than Virginia, the US, North America.
Sorta-kinda table of contents
There were seven new posts on SET durning the just-passed week.1 I didn’t publish as many posts as some DRs may hope to receive and maybe too many for others’ taste…pleasing only some of the people some of the time. Still the number of non-newsletter posts (6) is within the range y’all said was OK in the poll a month or two ago. (Unless otherwise noted, I wrote the posts.) Here’s the usual list:
Special Education Today newsletter 4(49): Are you ready for yet another rundown on the last week on SET?
Latest ASAT Online is available: Why would I ever think that readers should know about this resource?
Restoring Gold Standard Science: Could special education benefit from the US president's executive order?
B. Bateman's legal corner: Educational malpractice: What was Barbara Bateman discussing in the original SET of 1985 and what do know about malpractice in 2025?
By David Bateman, Mitchell Yell, and John Wills Lloyd...And the answer is? What should we say when asked, “Could phonics solve California’s reading crisis?”
What Research Hath Wrought: Have kids with disabilities benefitted from research?
Advocates for teaching math whiffed: Anyone for research-based instruction?
So, there we have it. That’s what appeared last week on SET. Each of these posts was read between 600 and 900 times during this first week while out in the wild. They’ll each pick up more reads before they got to rest behind the paywall (though you paid subscribers can continue to read this over there in the garden.
Notes & comments
This commentary will be a bit different from most that I’ve included in these newsletters over the years. As this volume year comes to an end, I want to take a few minutes of your time to share with you my appreciation for your readership and my aspirations for the future of SET.
I am honored and pleased that SET has grown to the readership that it has. When I started SET, I didn’t have much of an idea about how many people would subscribe. I am pretty sure that the old paper-mail version of SET, published in the 1980s, had about 1500 subscribers (Dan correct me if that’s a mistake). It would be great to see SET grow to greater than 1500 subscribers in the near future. We’ll see what happens in the next year.
I am rally pleased that this week’s published posts included one that was co-authored by David Bateman and Mitchell Yell. They have published pieces on SET previously and their work has been well received. I hope to publish other posts by Mitch and David (together and separately), along with posts by Mandy Rispoli (she has one up and we have others “in the works”). I’m sorry that the late Jim Kauffman only published one post on SET, but I am filled with joy to know that it is here and will always be a part of SET.
Also please realize that contributing something to SET takes time. Real time. And, Mandy, David, and Mitch actually have real jobs. The teach, research, write, and edit other sources (for-real, serious academic ones). Their contributions to SET have come “out of their hides.” I thank them for that, and I hope you Dear Readers, will also.
Researching, drafting, editing, and publishing articles takes some work. Thank you to those Dear Readers who have written to me expressing your understanding of the demands of creating these posts. As I have mentioned to more than one of you, I’m regularly intrigued by how something that takes me 2-3 hours to write turns into something that folks can read in 5-10 min. I shouldn’t be surprised, of course, because it’s true of other tasks, too; for example, planning, shopping for, and preparing a meal often takes much longer than it does to eat that meal (even at a leisurely pace with lots of visiting).
I hope that posts by David, Mandy, and Mitch (and others) will become common features in SET. There is work on-going behind the scenes (e.g., I’m inviting contributions) that will, I hope, advance SET to a situation where I am gradually a smaller and smaller part of the project.
Why would I hope that my contributions will decrease? Part of the reason isn’t actually hope; it’s just reality: I’m not getting any younger! If SET is going to persist, it’s got to be less dependent on me. Said another way, my grand goal is that SET will actually become the Earth-wide, self-sustaining product of a community of people concerned about promoting appropriate education for students with disabilities and their families.
With this volume ending, we have the opportunity to see what comes next. There are frequent events that can affect education of children and youths with disabilities, and they are transpiring around Earth. We need to monitor them and share about them with others in our community.
Throughout these—and the future events, as well—please take care of yourselves and of the others in your lives. Prevent your colleagues from silly mistakes like forgetting to wear seatbelts or forgetting vaccinations. Eat well and healthily. Drive carefully. And, it should go without saying, teach your students well.
Peace & love,
JohnL
John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
Founder and Editor, Special Education Today
SET should not be confused with a 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 nor should the views expressed here be considered to represent the views or policies of that organization.
Footnote
That does include the newsletter for last week. As usual, I’m only counting posts that were published on the Web page at SpecialEducationToday.com. I dropped “notes,” which one sees when she logs into the Web site and clicks on “Notes.”