Special Education Today newsletter 4(34)
What happened with SET during the week of 10 February 2025?
Here begins the 34th issue of the newsletter (fourth year) for Special Education Today, which covers 10-16 February 2025. It’s the usual contents: A photo, status notes, a listing of posts from the previous week, and (if I can write it) an editorial observation or two. I hope it’s informative and valuable to you, dear readers.
On with the show!
Photo
As some readers surely know, there was a snowstorm in central Virginia this week. There were periods of intense snow in the afternoon on Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday. Fortunately, there wasn’t substantial ice accumulation in my neighborhood. Phew!
This photo shows the view Wednesday morning. The view is from the garage looking up the driveway to the street. The blob in the foreground is my blue car. I estimate that there was about 6 inches (~15 cm).
Because of the fractured bone in my hand,1 I wasn’t able to shovel a path to the street up the left side of the driveway (some of you may recall previous pictures showing a path through the snow). I had to get help and two men came with a snowblower, a leaf blower, and shovels. Combined with pretty rapid melting and their work, it was all clear by the late afternoon.
Status report
It was a mile-stone week for SET in more than one way. First, there were between 8500 and 9000 reads of posts on SET Web site last week. I don’t know how many visits were by separate readers, but that’s an unusually high number views. I shan’t go back and make formal comparisons, but I think it’s probably the highest readership for a week (or dang close to it). And I like it because I take readership to indicate influence, and I want SET to have increasing influence.
Second, SET has greater than 800 subscribers as of this week. When combined with ~200 people who follow me (but don’t necessarily subscribe to SET), that’s a total of greater than 1000 people who see at least some SET. Some of you readers can remember when there were only 250-300 of us. And, in case you're reading rapidly and miss the drift, that’s another indicator of growing influence.
I hope you share my enthusiasm for building readerships and subscriptions. Please share SET.
I strongly suspect that the growth in follow-subscribe numbers is a consequence of you, dear readers, sharing, restacking, and discussing what you read on SET. I thank you for that support.
Meanwhile, let me pass along some other thanks:
Welcomes: New subscribers and followers include Tino, Erin E., Nieves F., Catherine S., Lauren, Breanna McN., Michelle S., Mohan M., Michael Y., and Pat L.
Comments: Thanks to Allison L., Jane B., Yellow H., Laura McK., Jenn W., and Miss W. I’m especially. pleased to report the repeated comments by Jane When readers start commenting on each others’ comments, that will be a wonderful indicator of community growth.
Stack up the thanks for restacks by Katie D., Allison L., Laura McK., Paula, Sandra D., and Miss W. Restacking a post is a wonderful way to let your pals know about something on SET.
And one more special thanks: Pat and I had the delightful opportunity to visit with a couple of long-time pals this week. Susan Z. and Tom Z. were in town, and we got to spend damn-near 90 minutes at breakfast. We’ve known each other since our kids were way little—single digits in years. The Zs have had marvelous careers, preparing students via the Target Community & Educational Services (a group that supports personal and professional care for individuals with disabilities and their families) and advanced professional preparation for service providers), teaching, coaching reading teachers, and lots more. The bad news (really bad for my collection of photos) is that I failed to get a photo of the four of us together. Maybe next time?
Erstwhile ToC
Okay, let me provide something substantive. The previous week these nine posts appeared on SET:
Special Education Today newsletter 4(33): How about a little drivel with your recap for the week?
US ED research contracts cancelled: Will government support of special education research be eliminated?
Cuts to US education research: update: What more have I learned about the cancellation of contracts and grants funded by IES?
Left AND right brain: What did I post in 2010 about Dan Willingham's observations about this perennial theory about learning and behavior?
US secretary of education hearings: Will US senators raise questions about students with disabilities and special education in hearings with Linda McMahon 13 February 2025?
US secretary of education interview—follow along: What happened in the hearings in the US Senate?
Heart day: One of the other things I learned from Teddee B.
Sorta keeping up with the Joneses...and the turmoil in US education: What more is happening?
Bennett's Village preview (with photos): What's up with this local effort to create accessible play spaces?
I hope you dear subscribers got to read these as they appeared. However, if you ever think you might have missed a post, you can always simply go to the Web site at https://www.SpecialEducationToday.com/ and see a catalog of all the posts from all time (and rememeber that number is > 1200). The newsletters are always set to free, so readers can look to them for lists of the weekly content. And you, Especially Dear Paying Readers, can pass right through the pay wall.
Comments
I am happy that SET is strong enough to keep on growing. I hope at this time next year, we’re a community of 10,000. Thanks again to all you readers who have contributed in many different ways to helping the community become something close to a fixture in discussions of special education and disabilities. For serious: Thank you.
As those who follow news about political happenings in the US are well aware, there have been events that have bearing on our kids, families, teachers, researchers, professors, advocates, and others in our little corner of the universe. Indeed, SET documented some of those events this past week (see the quasi table of contents).
And it is those very events on which I’d like remark in this section of the newsletter. I understand that the events are particularly US-centric, but I think they also have Earth-wide implications. To the extent that services. research, and (essentially) concern about individuals with disabilities are being diminished, it is once again time for we advocates for individuals with disabilities—whether we are parents, friends, or educators—to speak. Our forebears did so repeatedly during the past. It seems that it is our turn.
There are multiple ways for us to speak. Of course, we USers can—and should—petition our legislators. Regardless of our geographic-political position, we should be alert to actions such as policies, procedures, speech, and other actions that limit our kids (adults, families). We all should step forward when there is a group that is diminishing individuals with disabilities, a group that is not including individuals with disabilities in community planning (say park design), a group that is bullying our friends.
You, dear readers, have probably heard these themes enough times here and in other sources to feel a little boredom with me repeating them. Sorry. But let’s be sure we remember that sometimes our kids can’t stand up for themselves (even if we’ve taken herculean efforts to teach them to do so). Sometimes people simply don’t remember that people with disabilities are…well…people, and we simply need to remind those folks that there’s no need to ignore or denigrate them. And, sometimes—actually probably really often—individuals with disabilities need to know that there are people who “have their back”— that there are tens, dozens, scores, hundreds, thousands, millions of us who want them to know that they are not alone (we’re in this together), that others are “watching out for them,” that friends and family are “willing to go to the mat for them.”
To be sure, there are plenty of situations or reasons when it’s important to advocate for individuals with disabilities. Oh, yes, there are debates about what qualifies as a disability, some of which are predicated on perspectives espoused by those in the very community for whom I’m proposing we SET folks advocate. That’s not important here. We need to remember (again) that we are in this together. Some may want to say “neurodivergence” instead of “disability.” OK. All of us should want to say, “Don’t do doodoo to us or our friends.”
Along with remembering that we are all in this together, that our kids and friends deserve to have the same opportunities that any other humans have, I hope we also take care of ourselves. Please remember to watch out for your pals, get the big picture about humanity, and monitor that we are progressing toward better outcomes for our kids…. that we are teaching our kids (and the public) well.
JohnL
John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
UVA Professor Emeritus
Founder & Editor, Special Education Today
Please do not confuse SET 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
The hand is recovering nicely. I’m so happy to have increasing use of it.
Thank you, John. It was great seeing you and Pat during our visit to C’Ville, our home away from home. We will be back. Meanwhile, thank you for this community. As you said, we are all in this together.