Special Education Today newsletter 4(44)
What transpired with SET during the week beginning 14 April 2025?
Welcome, Dear Readers, to this, the 44th issue of volume four of the newsletter for Special Education Today. A lot happened here at SET this past week, and you will find some of those goings-on in the familiar contents (photo, update, recap, and editorial) of this week’s newsletter. So, let’s get on with the contents.
Photo
Spring weather has come to Beautyville. By some measures, we may have skipped spring; it was really quite near hot a couple of days. Still, Pat and I got to eat out—by which I mean we took our dinners onto the back porch. This photo shows the view from my seat. Sadly, I failed to focus on the view, but amidst the fuzzy background one can see Montalto past the trees that are in our backyard. Montalto is the name that Thomas Jefferson, who lived on the smaller mountain—Monticello—at the left of the image (obscured by the lattice on our porch), gave to the Blue Ridge foothill next to his 1700s plantation.
Oh, the meal? Right, it was my night to cook. When it is Pat’s night, she usually makes some full-on vegetarian meal, but my menu for myself was simple: white rice, sautéed tuna with sesame seeds and soy sauce, steamed spinach (hidden bit of butter), with salad and water in the near background.
Status update
It was a week. Now, what in the world do I mean by that phrase? Well, there were changes in traffic, membership, and interactions.
Traffic
Overall traffic on the SET site approached 20,000 for the past month. That level of viewership is about 8000 fewer views than for the previous month. The previous month, of course, featured posts about high-interest topics like the widely publicized changes in US education policies and the passing of noted figures in special education.1
Membership
Welcome to the new subscribers and thank you to those readers who encouraged friends, colleagues, family members, and others to read SET. Howdy, to Megan H., Lynette R., Jill M., Yea, Jerome P., Danita M., Melinda S., Karin D., and Lori (and the multiple ghosts who subscribed by didn’t leave name or address—probably bots have invaded Substack…sigh).
And, especially important: Here are special shout outs to Nancy S. and Carol W. I’ve known Nancy since the 1980s when she was a student at Virginia. Although I feel like I’ve known Carol for many years, too, she and I have probably never met in real life. Regardless of personal relationships, we all share interests in promoting evidence-based practices for students with disabilities. It’s wonderful to have people with that perspective as supporters of SET.
In addition to Carol and Nancy, there are dozens of others who share that perspective and support SET. They include Ed. P., Clay K., Joel M., Dan H., Christine T., Mike N., Janet J., Anita A., Angelique W., Linda L., Larry M., Ed M., Michele M., Kristen S., Maryanne L., Pam S., Kimmy L., Michael K., Nancy C-W., Bryan W., Jean C., Bob P., Luann J., Jane B, Vicki W., and many more. Readers may recognize the names of many of these people because they are leaders in special education; I find it particularly validating that they—and you—read SET. Please join them with a paid subscription.
Interactions
Indeed, readers will likely recognize many of those folks because they interact with posts on SET frequently. Here’s to Clay K., Dan H., Ed M., Jane B., Jen W., Joel M., Michael K., Mike N., Tina C., and Tom Z. for their comments on SET posts.
Erstwhile table of contents
There were eight2 posts over the previous week. The following list has links to each of those eight posts. As usual, it is order chronologically.
Special Education Today newsletter 4(43): What about the week that began 7 April 2025?
Research organizations sue US ED: Why would AERA and SREE bring a suit against the US Department of Education?
Autism prevalence in the US in 2025: What do the latest data show (and how are they being interpreted)?
D. Bateman on § 504: How can SET readers learn more about this important civil rights protection?
RFK press conference about autism and an expert on epidemiology: What can people who advocate for better services learn from the comparison?
J. Umbreit research award-2025: What is this about an award for doctoral student research in applied behavior analysis?
C. M. Nelson travel grant-2025: What is this about a grant to support someone's travel to an EBD conference?
Fathers’ age as contributor to risk for autism: What did Leslie Feldman and I discuss about causes of autism in 2007?
And, please remember that any and all readers can go to the SET Web site to find current and previous posts (and paying subscribers can read all of 1270 of them!).
Personal observations
Dear Readers, I suspect many of you recognize that researching and writing these posts takes time…a lot of time.3 I have advantages in preparing these posts: (a) I’m olds, so I have been considering the issues since the 1960s, and (b) I’m retired so I have a lot of time to read about current events related to special education and disabilities.4 5
The post about de novo mutations in sperm illustrated the combination of these advantages. Because the topic of causes of autism was in the news, my previous experience gave me a head start on the subject. So, I could draw on work that I published years ago on EBDBlog. So there’s the Part-A aspect.
Of course, I wanted to make sure that the re-post was reasonably accurate, so I found and read probably a dozen articles on the topic. Then I composed the post-pended addendum to it. And that’s the Part-B aspect.
I am fortunate to have the privileges of Parts A and B (and other privileges, too). But, Dear Readers, I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to write about the products of those deeds for you. This may sound like I’m appealing to your emotions in a trite way—schmaltzy? —but there are real rewards for me in it. I get feedback from you. And I get to escape uncertainty: I learn stuff.
And, learning stuff is what our endeavor should be about, no? We want our kids to learn how to read, write, compute, and get along with peers; to be safe and give a damn about others…we want our kids to succeed. To make that happen, we have to take care of ourselves (and our neighbors), to employ evidence-based practices (and programs, procedures, etc.), and learn about our world. As you’ll likely guess, that means that we need to teach our students well.
Peace & love,
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 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
For y’all’s information, please understand that the data about views only represent the actions of about 40-50% of the readership. That is, about only 40-50% of the recipients of the email version of this message will actually open and read it.
For those who observe things closely, there was one other post. I sent a message to about a dozen new subscribers, but that one isn’t included in the posts listed here.
Thanks to DRs who have written to me about the amount of work involved in SET. I have to sacrifice some SET time to silly personal stuff…making dinner on my nights to cook, going for walks along the river, sleeping, watching basketball, and other activities—especially hanging out with my sweetie. I have also gotten a reputation for playing solitaire.
I also have the good fortune to have some computer skills. Remember that I took computer languages as the foreign-language “leg” of my Ph.D. program. I understand—not to crow—the ways the Internet works, so I can get lots of info quickly. That said (not my favorite of phrases), virtually none of what you read here is mediated by AI. There is not ChatGPT here. It’s my stupid 💩.
Yes, I realize that privileges A and B are correlated. Hahaha.
Thank you for the shout out! I am really enjoying reading your newsletters. Now I remember what it was like to be in graduate school with you as my advisor! I love it!