Special Education Today newsletter 5(20)
Does anyone care what transpired on SET over the last week?
It is that time again. You are about to be subjected to yet another issue of the weekly rendition of the newsletter for Special Education Today. This issue (the 1494th in the history of SET1) is for the week that began 10 October 2025. It was a week in which I was a bit slack, as you’ll learn when you get to the erstwhile table of contents that is the third section of this post—you do remember, I hope, that you will see a photo, some “about” updates, the list of posts, and a comment or two,
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Photo
One of the two cats who lives with us is a big male. His name is Bill. He is so big he does not fit in the cat beds. His mother, who also lives with us, is about 11/15ths of Bill’s size. She fits in the bed just fine.
I did not rotate this photo. It shows Bill just the way I found him, falling out of the bed head first. He is a handsome young dude, no? Now if he would just be nice to his mother, that would make things better at our house. Who would know that this cat would bully his mother?
Status
This week Substack told me that there are > 1040 subscribers who have joined our community. The group grew by greater than 10 members during the week covered by this newsletter. Hooray!
Special welcome to Gerry W. and Mike C., who became supporters this week. They joined Vincent C., Kristin S., Clay K., Callie O., Joel I., Riley M., Sally B., Vicki W., Bear A., Alix H., Angelique W., Anna O., Pam S. (two of you), Xu F., Amanda H., Nancy S., Jim F., Jean S. Judy V., Christy A., Linda L., Marilyn F., Georgia, George S., Mary R., Meg D., Nancy S., Ann R., Paige P., Ed P., Ed M., Joel M., Dan H., Larry M., and Mike N. who are also among the supporters of SET. Thank you, one and all.
In addition, here is a wave to the Patrons of SET, the founding supporters: Anita A., Mike G., Li-Yu H., and Kathy M. These folks make it possible for SET to help potential readers who might not otherwise know about the community, to cover costs, and to undertake initiatives. They also tolerate me asking them for advice. They deserve many thanks.
Welcome, Maysaa A., Robert P., L. Kelly, Jayden W, Rebecca B., Rebecca F., Kerry K., Dominique L., Annmarie, Lewis, and Ashley H. (and anyone whom I overlooked)! It’s wonderful to have folks as new subscribers. I hope you become advocates—even proselytizers—for SET.
Flashes of the old high beams to Mike N. (twice) and Jane B. for their comments this week. It seems like sorta-kinda fewer contributions from readers this past week than usual. I understand, of course, that only about 100 readers are eligible to comment, so that’s part of the explanation for the lower number. And, obviously, I didn’t provide many targets for comments this past week…as you’ll see in the next section!
Spedlettes of the week
Here is the aforementioned catalog of posts (authors in brackets) from the week that began 10 November 2025.
Special Education Today newsletter 5(19): How much of the past week’s activity slipped by you? [JWL]
IDEA and Section 504 trump state’s “Anti-DEI” laws: What did a US federal judge find in a case in which recently passed state laws conflicted with education’s IDEA obligations? [DB & JWL]
ED RIFs update: # 5: What has happened in sped world since the US Department of Education reductions in force? [JWL]
R. Pondiscio Xs out the “teachers are bad” meme: Why is Mr. Pondiscio calling “BS” on the oft-heard idea that educators are the enemy? [JWL]
Alice Wong, 1974-2025: People with disabilities lost a powerful advocate, but her effects will persist [JWL]
Commentary
There were some stories that I had hoped to cover this past week, but I failed. I’m going to post snippets here so that readers can get a glimpse of them and follow links for those the readers find of interest.
Anna Merod of K12 Dive published an article 13 November 2025 entitled “Will Trump policies exacerbate the special education teacher shortage?: Special education and teacher preparation experts warn that federal efforts to shrink the Education Department put the special educator pipeline at risk. As one can infer from the title, she examined the potential effects of current events in the US federal government on the preparation of special educators and, thus, on the teacher workforce. Ms. Merod reported that distributing teacher preparation funding to states as part of block grants is not favored by people in the US legislature who write the laws governing funding. And, she noted that even so, the level of funding probably would be insufficient. {Thanks to SET reader Shanna H. for alerting me about this story.]
Over on Science of Reading Classroom, the collective author at that site and Kata Solow (yes, the very same Kata S. that one sees hanging around the water cooler here at SET) posted a valuable discussion entitled “Dead LETRS: What good is a mandate without great PD?” They express concern about the risk of failure for advocacy promoting scientifically founded reading instruction because the policy-level promotion of effective reading instruction is not accompanied by effective support. Too often, the professional development provided to teachers focuses on understanding the research on reading (five components…early intervention…alphabetic principle…etc.) but the training does not show teachers how to teach. Kata and her colleagues provided principles that they say should guide PD. And they don’t stop at PD; they also have recommendations about evaluating and selecting curricula. There’s a lot of worthy content here. I can’t say that I endorse all of it, but it’s definitely moving in valuable directions.
Writing for the New York Times, Sonia A. Rao published the story of a man whose older brother was institutionalized as an infant in 1955. In “He Died at a School for Disabled People. Decades Later, His Brother Sought Answers,” Ms. Rao chronicled how David Scott learned about his brother named John who had spina bifida and was raised, and died as a 17-year-old, at The Fernald School. David Scott later had a son who was born with cerebral palsy; he raised his son at home using local public schools. With his son at his side he doggedly pursued information about his brother. His persistence and the assistance of others ultimately allowed him to locate his brother’s grave and some records from The Fernald School. Many readers of SET will, I suspect, find this story about family, nearly forgotten services, and history to be poignant and compelling.
There were plenty of other stories SET didn’t cover this past week. Sorry if one of those I missed was important to you. Please alert me to if you come across something your think it worth sharing with other members of the community. Drop a note into the chat or simply send me an email message.
As we work to sustain special education, we cannot forget to do what we need to do for students with disabilities today and tomorrow. I hope readers will get lots of rest, take care of themselves and those around them, take inspiration for reports about others who are promoting advances and success for our kids, and that you are teaching your children well.
JohnL
John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
UVA Professor Emeritus
Founder & Editor, https://www.SpecialEducationToday.com/
SET should not be confused with a product that uses essentially the same name and is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades; I wonder if CEC put “today” in all capitals to distinguish its product from SET. 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. A membership in CEC does not get one a subscription to SET and vice versa!
Footnote
Wow! I wonder if SET will publish the 1500th post during the week of 17 November 2025. Should there be fireworks 🎆🧨 when that happens?