Dear Colleagues, Friends, and anyone else,

I’m sending you, faithful e-mail folks, the 16th issue of the first volume of Special Education Today. As usual, it refers to articles published on the Web site this past week. Thus, some folks who frequently check (haunt?) the site will find mostly familiar content in this issue of the newsletter. Others may find new (and I hope, valuable) content.

There is an updated status report for the site and the newsletter, a table of contents for the past week, and a bit of commentary at the end. Sound familiar?

Status update

As for the previous week, there was marginal growth in the number of e-mail subscribers. There are now greater than 300 e-mail subscribers. I appreciate all that you recipients of this newsletter do to promote the newsletter, the site, and its contents.

As before, I think a lot of this growth can be attributed to you e-mail members telling others about SET. Thank you! I want to acknowledge, especially, the activities of Clay K. in promoting the site on other media (e.g,. LinkedIn, where I’m no longer a “member”). Given Clay’s fantastic international ties, I’m very hopeful that SET will see growth from folks around the world.

Also as before, I see that some of you are forwarding the newsletter to lots (literally dozens) of others. Thanks! Please encourage those friends and colleagues to sign up for FREE now! If you can add a note to your forwarded message saying, “I recommend that get your own copy by joining the SET e-mail list,” Copy me on those messages! I’d be grateful!

The opening stats as well as the link-click stats are about the same (percentage wise) as previously. Some subscribers seem to have looked at zero posts on the Web. Others have viewed 40-88 posts! Thanks for reading!

Flashes of the electrons

This week’s probably incomplete list of SET pals who interacted with the magazine between 27 September and today (3 October as I finish the newsletter). Thanks to everyone:

• Jane B. (still holding her position as all-time hero!)

• Clay K.

• Ed M.

• Michael K. (repeatedly… and did I mention that I saw him finish a half-marathon at at pace of about 7:50 MPM?)

• And all those whom I missed.

Thanks, too, for tweets, retweets, and likes on Twitter. I didn’t see much activity there this week. Sigh. Probably I missed tweets from friends or others who liked or retweeted content. Sorry if I did. If you tweet about SET, please mention it or me (@JohnWillsLloyd) explicitly.

And This Week’s ToC

Well, I posted a lot of notes on SET since the last newsletter. I hope that they have been helpful. Remember that you can find the latest SET posts by simply going to the main page at https://www.specialeducationtoday.com.

Melody Musgrove died—She was Director of the US ED’s Office of Special Education a few years ago.

Twyman & Heward: Improving instruction now—Research-based practical procedures.

US 42nd Report to Congress is available—Who’s getting special education in the US, for what disabilities, where...etc.

APM series on reading instruction—A catalog of links to Emily Hanford’s excellent examination of reading instruction in the US.

Friday Photos 6—Melody and Tim!

Social media, anyone?—An insightful commentary on social media and science from the editor-in-chief of the influential journal, Science

Lynn and Doug Fuchs earned a major award—It’s an appropriate acknowledgement of the Fuchs’s contributions.

US ED: Return to School Roadmap—Why should people give a damn about maintaining legal protections for kids with disabilities?

US Centers for Disearse Control and Prevention SARS-Cov-19 guidance—Educators should pay attention!

Behavior management #3—The third in my installments about teaching behavior.

Phew! Golly, I hope those links are correct. It was a busy week. Please tell me what you did and didn’t find valuable.

Commentary

The idea of SET, at least to me, is to provide easily consumed news, information, commentary, and guidance to people concerned about special education. The idea is not to provide traditional academic content. I have ample evidence that I can do the research thing (ask me if you want documentation). Instead, I want to communicate directly and simply to intelligent consumers who are concerned about special education.

So I hope readers will let me know how it’s going. Send me a DM via Twitter @JohnWillsLloyd or write to me directly (my name and e-mail addresses are plastered on many walls around the intertubes).

I hope that with this 16th issue readers are getting a sense of what SET provides (and know that they can shape it). And I hope that what it provides is valuable. Please spread the word.

Two personal notes:

• I’m feeling quite recovered from the heart procedure I had a couple of weeks ago. Thank you to friends who sent me good wishes!

• I am soon to be back on the work about my great-great-grandparents’ provision of a space for enslaved people to be buried. I am working on finding the descendents of people who might be buried on property adjacent to the last little bit of property that is still in our family (four of 100s of acres; thanks to my mother’s gift and my brother’s help in making it happen). Meanwhile, I recommend Jill Lepore’s reporting for the New Yorker. There are many other good treatments; please mention any you know by dropping a comment on this post.

OKAY, here are the usual admonitions (please share them):

1. Wear your seatbelts: Remember to affix them when you get into your car!

2. COVID: Get vaccinated (I got a booster Friday!), keep safe social distance, wash your hands, and use masks.

3. And, please, please teach children well—they are our future!

JohnL
SET Editor guy
Charlottesville

SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that 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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