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Northeast Parent Centers' Assistance & Collaboration Team
Region 1 E-News
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| Celebrating 35 Years of IDEA
On Nov. 29, 1975, the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), guaranteed access to a free, appropriate, public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment to every child with a disability. Look back at what conditions were like before IDEA, and how its passage has changed the educational landscape for students with disabilities today. Watch the video on  .
See also The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) Celebrate 35 Years of the IDEA and the Statement by the President on the 35th Anniversary of IDEA released by the White House on November 29, 2010.
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English Language Development
Issues & Implementation at Grades 6 - 12
Wednesday, Feb. 9
1:30 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Ms. Susana Dutro, of E.L. Achieve, and Dr. Kate Kinsella, San Francisco State University's Center for Teacher Efficacy will present an approach on rethinking English language development (ELD) instruction for adolescent English language learners based on current research and promising practices. Sign up for this Webinar!!!
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download fact sheet
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Kids Could Face Even Deeper Funding Cliff in 2011
First Focus used data from "Children's Budget" and "Kids' Share" to ascertain the level of cuts that programs impacting children could face on an inflation-adjusted basis.
This fact sheet answers the question of what would happen to children's programs if federal funding reverts to 2008 levels, as proposed by incoming House leadership.
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 Bullying & Harassment
Schools Where Everyone Belongs: Practical Strategies for Reducing Bullying / Edition 2 by Stan Davis & Julia Davis. This new edition is packed with practical guidelines and proven strategies for implementing a whole-school approach for reducing bullying. The author draws on theory and research, as well as over two decades of experience as a school counselor and consultant to provide educators with his creative ideas and successful techniques. Interventions to help aggressive youth internalize rules and develop conscience are paired with methods for helping targets of bullying. Chapters cover a wide range of topics, including myths about bullying, acknowledging positive behavior, effective discipline, working with parents, relational aggression, empowering bystanders, and preventing disability harassment.
 And Words Can Hurt Forever: How to Protect Adolescents from Bullying, Harassment, and Emotional Violence, James Garbarino, the bestselling author of Lost Boys, and Ellen deLara uncover the staggering extent of emotional cruelty and its ramifications and counter the nursery rhyme that words don't hurt. Through hundreds of interviews, the authors provide a direct word-for-word view into the thinking of adolescents and the strategies they use to keep themselves safe during the school day. Despite the best intentions of school administrators, educators, and parents, many high schools -- even those that have addressed bullying and are considered safe -- unwittingly support and enable hostile and threatening environments. As a society, we are only just beginning to understand the degree of damage that bullying inflicts on teenagers and on their relationships in life.
 Bullying, Peer Harassment, and Victimization in the Schools: The Next Generation of Prevention by Joseph Zins, Maurice Eliasaddresses the serious problem of bullying, peer harassment, and victimization in our schools. It greatly affects the climate for learning and productivity and the emotional health of students and staff. This book presents empirical data and theoretical and legal case reviews to show how pervasive and serious these problems are and how they threaten both academic achievement and mental health within many of our schools. Taking a longitudinal and developmental perspective, the authors begin to outline the next generation of research in this field that will shape knowledge and practice for the next few decades. For practitioners, the book is a call to action, particularly at the school-wide level, focusing on reducing the substantial social/emotional harm done to perpetrators, bystanders, and especially, victims.
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Data
Project Forum at the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) recently published a report entitled State Longitudinal Data Systems for Tracking Outcomes for Students with Disabilities through Postsecondary Activities (November 2010), by Eve Muller. President Obama's administration has made the development of longitudinal data systems that are able to track individual students from prekindergarten through their postsecondary activities a key component of education reform. This brief describes the number and status of states that are at varying levels of development and implementation of these data systems, how they are tracking the progress of students with disabilities, and the barriers and benefits to this development.
State Performance: Education Week has released its 15th Quality Counts report, evaluating the status of states' educational performance and policymaking. Subtitled Quality Counts 2011: Uncertain Forecast, it gives summative scores and letter grades to each state, as well as providing analysis of its Chance-for-Success Index and K-12 Achievement Index. Its overall findings point to relatively few large-scale education policy changes at the state level that can be attributed to the economic downturn, which officially began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. Many states have enacted modest policy modifications to give districts greater flexibility, such as broadening eligible uses of funds previously reserved for particular programs or groups, or loosening regulations on length of the school year, week, or day. Yet by and large, reforms have not been fundamental and structural. In terms of letter grades, for the third year in a row, Maryland was top-ranked, earning an overall grade of B-plus. Massachusetts and New York each followed with a B. Most states fell somewhere in the middle, with 36 states earning grades between a C-minus and a C-plus. At the bottom end, the District of Columbia, Nebraska, and South Dakota received a D-plus. The nation overall earned a C, same as last year. |
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Early Childhood
 Toddlers with Autism Show Improved Social Skills Following Targeted Intervention - Targeting the core social deficits of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in early intervention programs yielded sustained improvements in social and communication skills even in very young children who have ASD, according to a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health. Read the full press release. An abstract of the study is also available. Full citation: Landa, R. J., Holman, K. C., O'Neill, A. H., & Stuart, E. A. (2010). Intervention Targeting Development of Socially Synchronous Engagement in Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(1):13-21. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02288
Q&A documents for the Part C Settings and Exiting data collections: These documents can be located on IDEAdata.org, under the TA materials tab, 618 Data Collection Information. We are working on additional questions for these Q&As and will update the documents once the questions have been answered and approved by OSEP. If you have questions about these revised Q&As, please contact Danielle Crain, Technical Assistance Specialist, Data Accountability Center, (301)610-8805.
States' Use of Early Learning Guidelines for Infants and Toddlers: The ZERO TO THREE Policy Center has published a new paper, Putting Standards into Practice: States' Use of Early Learning Guidelines for Infants and Toddlers (2010), which describes the status of implementing Early Learning Guidelines (ELGs) for infants and toddlers in eight states. It includes suggestions and examples related to disseminating and training on the ELGs and embedding them into professional development and quality improvement systems.
See also, the Early Learning Guidelines Implementation Toolkit compiled by the National Infant & Toddler Child Care Initiative @ ZERO TO THREE (NITCCI). It is intended to assist States and Territories in engaging in a strategic planning process to support the implementation of Early Learning Guidelines for Infants and Toddlers (ELG for IT). |
| Employment
 The 411 on Disability Disclosure: A Workbook for Youth with Disabilities is designed for youth and adults working with them to learn about disability disclosure. This workbook helps young people make informed decisions about whether or not to disclose their disability and understand how that decision may impact their education, employment, and social lives. Based on the premise that disclosure is a very personal decision, the Workbook helps young people think about and practice disclosing their disability.
Getting Support, Supporting Others: A Handbook for Working with Non-Visible Disabilities published by Ernest & Young s a resource for individuals with disabilities, their co-workers and supervisors, and HR professionals to help all stakeholders understand issues of disclosure and how to handle interpersonal challenges that may arise when an employee has a non-visible disability. |
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Family Engagement/Parent Involvement
Beyond Random Acts: Family, School, and Community Engagement as an Integral Part of Education Reform, by Heather Weiss, M. Elena Lopez, and Heidi Rosenberg of the Harvard Family Research Project, served as the foundation for panelists' discussions at the National Policy Forum for Family, School, and Community Engagement held on November 9, 2010. Beyond Random Acts provides a research-based framing of family engagement; examines the policy levers that can drive change in promoting systemic family, school, and community engagement; and focuses on data systems as a powerful tool to engage families for twenty-first century student learning. Because education reform will succeed only when all students are prepared for the demands of the twenty-first century, the paper also examines the role of families in transforming low-performing schools. Read Beyond Random Acts to learn more about how the changing policy landscape is making room for more systemic, integrated, and sustainable family, school, and community engagement.
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 Mental Health Mental Health Needs Seen Growing at Colleges - National surveys show that nearly half of the college students who visit counseling centers are coping with serious mental illness, more than double the rate a decade ago. More students take psychiatric medication, and there are more emergencies requiring immediate action. (The New York Times, 12/19/10) |
| Response to Intervention
Response to Intervention (RTI): Funding Questions and Answers This document provides written responses from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) on the use of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds for the implementation of RTI and answers eight commonly asked questions on funding RTI. For more information from the U.S. Department of Education on RTI funding, see the talking presentation, "Implementing RTI Using Title I, Title III, and CEIS Funds: Key Issues for Decision-Makers." |
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Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS): Local Education Agency Programs Required to Withhold IDEA Funds
This in depth policy analysis describes the legislative background and OSEP supports for CEIS. Project Forum interviewed seventeen states that have required local education agencies (LEAs) to withhold IDEA funds for CEIS. Findings from these interviews are reported in the areas of: state changes to identification criteria for disproportionality and resulting changes in the number of LEAs required to withhold funds; services supported with IDEA funds for CEIS; other funding sources used for CEIS; guidance and training provided to LEAs; monitoring activities; and local and state outcomes. A summary and discussion is provided. Click here to review.
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 Teacher Assessment A new policy brief Getting Teacher Assessment Right: What Policymakers Can Learn From Research on teacher assessment systems says useful evaluation depends on a balanced system where value-added models using student standardized test scores play only a limited role. The research review was prepared by Pennsylvania State University professor of education Patricia Hinchey for the National Education Policy Center (NEPC).
The brief describes several different teacher evaluation methods and explains that no single method of teacher evaluation is sufficient by itself. Each has weaknesses that can be compensated for when combined with others. It also notes that most current discussions about improving teacher quality tend to be imbalanced, focusing disproportionately on student test scores. "While there are important questions about what exactly achievement scores can-and cannot-indicate about individual teachers, there is no question that placing extreme emphasis on test scores alone can have unintended and undesirable consequences that undermine the goal of developing an excellent teaching force," says Hinchey. Read more |
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ABOUT THE REGION 1 PARENT TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE CENTER
The NE Parent Assistance and Collaboration Team (NE-PACT), the Region 1 Technical Assistance Center, provides technical assistance to federally-funded parent centers -- Parent Training and Information Centers (PTIs) and Community Parent Resource Centers (CPRCs) -  located in the states of CT-CPAC, ME-MPF, MA-FCSN, MA-Urban Pride, NH-PIC, NJ-SPAN, NJ-ASCF, NY-AFC, NY-UWS, NY-TAC, NY-RCSN, NY-Sinergia, NY-PNWNY, RI-RIPIN, and VT-VFN. These Parent Centers are independent non-profit organizations. We also provide support to emerging parent centers and parent organizations serving families of children with or at risk of being identified as having disabilities. In addition, we work with early intervention and education agencies (local, state and federal level) seeking information regarding best practices in involving parents of children with disabilities in systems improvement. The center activities are specifically designed to:
- Enhance the capacity of parent centers to provide effective services to families of children with special needs and to work effectively with their states to improve special education and early intervention systems; and,
- Facilitate their connections to the larger technical assistance network that supports research-based training, including educating parents about effective practices that improve results for children with disabilities. For more information click here.
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