NJ Education Report

Via Dr. Miriam Kurtzig Freedman in the University of Chicago Law Review (hat tip Joanne Jacobs):

It is time to end special education as we know it. Special education should focus on teaching and learning, not winning and losing. Teachers should spend precious professional development time on improving their craft, not compliance training. We need to substitute the current adversarial input-and-procedures-driven law with a pedagogically driven outcomes system. The costly and dysfunctional adversarial system distorts schooling for all students. At the very least we should appoint a commission to study the feasibility of ending this entitlement and creating alternate means to assure appropriate services for [Students with Disabilities]. While undoubtedly this step is politically implausible, merely raising the possibility can help us frame the issues and start us on a positive path.