Bom dia, tarde, noite, Dear Readers!1
I am pleased to bring you another issue of the weekly newsletter for Special Education Today. It is the 12th of this new volume year, so we are close to a fourth of the way through the fifth volume. This issue covers the week that began 15 September 2025. Almost all of you know what to expect from this newsletter, so let’s get to the usual contents: a photo, some updates, a catalog of recent contents, and a (disjointed) commentary.
Photo
I hope that I warned you that I would be spending hours gawking on Afton Mountain at this time of the year. It’s the season of the annual fall migration for raptors in the northern hemisphere, and one of the paths that they follow during migration goes along the Blue Ridge Mountains about 25 minutes west of where we live. I’ve been going to the Rockfish Gap area since ~1980 to observe the migrants on their way south (they winter in the Caribbean and South America).
Although the specific local location for watching hawks has changed over the years, I usually go to a counting station right at the intersection of US Interstate 64, US Highway 250, and the road that snakes along near the crest of the Blue Ridge; to the north it is known as Skyline Drive and to the south is called Blue Ridge Parkway.
The accompanying photo shows the view to the northwest from a spot where people who observe the hawks congregate. At the bottom right of the photo one can see the southern-most segment of the Skyline Drive going north. The view straight out from the photo is over the town or Waynesboro (VA) and across the Shenandoah Valley to the Appalachian Mountains on the horizon.
Sometimes the birds go by one or a few at a time. Sometimes there are 100s in the air at the same time. When there are lots of bid streaming by, gawkers often call it a “river of birds.” Other times, the birds gather over a spot on Earth and use a thermal uplift to gain altitude; in this case, when there are lots of birds riding the thermal, gawkers call it a “kettle of birds” (see photo showing about 30 birds kettling). The birds stream from one thermal to the next thermal, gradually losing altitude as they stream between them; then they ride another thermal, as if on a spiraling, up escalator. I find it inspiring to see 100s of birds in a river or kettle.
As one official counting station of the Hawk Migration Association, the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch keeps records of the birds passing by the site. The links to the dates in the following bullets go directly to a display of the data for the day.
On the 18th of September; I got to see a few 100 birds (including hawks. eagles, and falcons) during my visit; sadly I left the site too early and missed the ~1300 birds that colleagues counted in the last 60-90 minutes or so of the day.
On the 19th, about 2000 birds went by during the hours that I was able to attend.
On the 20th, a few 100 birds went by during the time that I was attending.
Lots of time spent monitoring the skies, looking for birds. I didn’t do a good job with my hat on Saturday, so my forehead is sunburned.
Give me a shout if you’re in the neighborhood in the fall. We can meet for some gawking.
Status update
The news from SET Central is pretty mundane. Perhaps because I was watching hawks and not subscriptions, things don’t seem to have changed much among subscribers. A few subscribers departed, and one joined (hello, Unique 1!). We are still a community of almost 1000…plenty of room to grow.
Thanks to everyone who has renewed his or her subscription lately. If you discover that you suddenly do not seem to have access to posts behind the paywall, it may be that your subscription lapsed. If it shouldn’t have lapsed (if you are paid up), then please check with the financial technology company (Stripe.com) that handles SET payments. Usually the slippage is something like a change in a credit card (new CVC, expiration date, or card number). There’s no need to be alarmed if you get such a notice. Just work with Stripe to fix things.2 Let me know directly if you have trouble, as I may be able to do something from my perch.
Shout outs to Dan H. Mike N., and Jane B. for dropping comments this week. Jane gets three cheers for dropping multiple comments in one week!
Likes seemed to be flowing readily this past week. Some posts got 6-7-8 likes! Thank you for dropping those “likes.” on posts.
Spedlettes
That heading is a variation on a suggestion by Joel M. (thanks!)—or maybe it was his actual recommendation. Any way, here are links to the posts published during the week beginning 15 September 2025. Initials in brackets identify the authors.
Special Education Today newsletter 5(11): So, who wants to review notes about last week's SET? [JWL]
Effective instruction in reading for students with EBD: Do studies of kids with EBD receiving reading instruction show that it helps their reading? [JLW}
Special contract for study of association of vaccinations and autism: Do we need another study of this topic? [JWL]
Even settling an institutional care case may be insufficient: What happens if demand for super-intensive care outstrips supply? [JWL] paid
Increasing active responding by polling: Could phones in schools actually be useful? [JWL] paid
The press about special education: What topics about special education are journalists focusing on covering? What should they cover? [JWL]
A case worth watching: What will happen with the suit by L.W. et al. v Nevada Department of Education et al.? [JWL]
Fred has FI notes (again): Isn't "The Fixed Interval" a wonderful resource about what's new in behavior analysis? [JWL]
All these posts except those marked as “paid” are available to the public at this time. The newsletters will continue to be available for free, but the others will slip behind the paywall over the next 10 days or so. Tell you family, friends, colleagues, and others that, if they want to read them for free, now’s the time. Of course, it would be delightful to have folks upgrade their subscriptions.
Commentary
The announcement of plans to let a sole-source contract for the study of vaccinations and autism this past week was one indicator that the unsupported idea of a causal relationship between the two still had not been abandoned. Another less direct pointer at the idea was the news that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Policy—the group that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., controversially remade by dismissing members who had served for years and installing people with questioned credentials in their stead—voted to cerratically about policies for government support of vaccinations. The seemed to have changed recommendations about some vaccination schedules. Initially it voted to allow government payment for measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (varicella is chickenpox) vaccinations for young children; the next day it voted not to allow payments via the Vaccines for Children program and delayed making recommendations about hepatitis B and COVID-19 vaccinations.
If you feel confused, I’m with you; I think I have it right, but here are links to reports from members of the news media who can explain better than I can: Corinne Purtill and Jenny Gold for the Los Angeles Times; Will Stone and Selena Simmons-Duffin for National Public Radio; Sophie Gardner and Lauren Gardner for Politico; Apoorva Mandavilli for the New York Times. Also, remembering that we have often gotten straight stuff from Katelyn Jetelina of Your Local Epidemiologist, I point to her two posts on the matters: Measles and Hep B vaccine changes: What it means for you (18 September 2025) and Covid-19 vaccine changes: What it means for you (19 September 2025).
Although the substance of these recommendations is important to those of us who care about kids with disabilities (because they are our kids, after all, and their risk for horrible disease should be of concern in its own right, but also because their disabilities may make them uniquely vulnerable to disease or the lack of vaccinations for their peers). To me, however, there are additional reasons for interest in the decisions to fund this new study and to make, reverse, and delay recommendations by the scientific panel.
These actions, in my view, promote doubt and distrust of efforts to use science to address questions of importance to society and to advance socio-cultural outcomes. Scientific progress is founded on doubt, to be sure, but that doubt is expressed and examined in accepted, time-honored ways that reflect systematic and careful reasoning. These actions seem much closer to socio-political doubt than scientific doubt.
Jim Kauffman, our late colleague, wrote about analogous disagreements in education and special education in his books, Toward a science of education: The battle between rogue and real science and Education deform: Bright people sometimes say stupid things about education. In Jim, I like to think we had a model of what to do when muddle-headed ideas run amok. We may need to look on in amazement, admit that we are not sure whether to laugh or cry. and then set about fixing things, set about getting things right for the future.
So, even with my eyes feeling crossed and glazed over, as usual, I close with familiar recommendations. For your own sake, and because it might be good for our kids, please take care of yourselves and each other. If we do take care of ourselves and our colleagues and neighbors, I hope that it will allow us to teach our children well.
Stay happy, please,
JohnL
John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D., UVA Professor Emeritus,
Founder & 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.
Footnotes
Man it was hard to get my editor to allow those greetings in Portuguese to appear correctly. The editor kept correcting the spelling…”Bom” became “bone” (interesting because it’s close to the pronunciation); “dia” kept being changed to “did”; “tarde” was fixed as “trade”; and you can imagine what it did with “noite.”
Note, however, that Stripe has robust fraud prevention features. If someone reports that his card has been lost, stolen, or misused, Stripe will not allow charges to it. Extra note: If you see a charge from Stripe for SET on your credit card, please do not report it was fraudulent; just go to Substack (or Stipe) and unsubscribe. When someone reports an SET charge as fraudulent, I get stuck with hours of work (grief) and dollars (and dollars) of penalty charges.