Special attention to special education - Editor's Note

School Administrator, March, 2003 by Jay P. Goldman

I've always had a special fondness for any issues of The School Administrator over the years that have dealt with special education.

Perhaps that's due to the regular dinner table conversations with my wife, whose lifelong professional pursuits and personal interests have been committed to the disabilities field and particularly the self-advocacy movement. In addition, several of my more memorable writing assignments, as a young education reporter for a daily newspaper in Syracuse, N.Y., described the efforts of some pioneers at Syracuse University's School of Education to include children with autism in regular public school classrooms, a remarkable success story.

Our magazine's first significant foray into special education coverage during my tenure, the February 1992 issue, was also the most memorable. Recalled years later by some readers as the "blue eggs" edition for the unusual cover photo, that issue detailed some of the earliest school district efforts to include children with developmental disabilities in schools and classrooms with same-age peers--years before most were using the term "inclusion." It also earned AASA the national media award of a major disabilities rights organization.

We think this month's issue builds on our earlier efforts. It focuses on the misunderstanding of special education cost increases, how school districts are using flexible systems for delivering services and the fir of special education under the No Child Left Behind Act. Also, Tom Hehir, a proud product of Syracuse's education school, in a piece we have titled "Beyond Inclusion," describes how our assumptions about children with disabilities hamper the quality of instruction these children often receive.

I hope you will let me know what you think of our latest attention to this everchanging field.

Jay P. Goldman

Voice: 703-875-0745

E-mail: jgoldman@aasa.org