http://www.ldonline.org/ en-us LD OnLine Administrator hourly 1 http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%27Bully%27_Movie_to_be_Released_%27Unrated.%27_Will_that_Allow_More_Kids_to_See_It%3F Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:00:20 GMT The award-winning documentary "Bully" will open in theaters Friday as "unrated." The movie, which tells the stories of five children and their families, had been given an "R" rating by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The rating was publicly challenged by Katy Butler, a bullied high school student from Michigan, who launched an online petition at Change.org that garnered the signatures of 500,000 people. But the MPAA refused to change the rating, unless several bursts of crude language were removed. Katy argued that such a rating was likely to prevent viewing by the very people she says need to see it most. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%27Bully%27_Movie_to_be_Released_%27Unrated.%27_Will_that_Allow_More_Kids_to_See_It%3F http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Learning_Issues_and_the_Arts Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:00:10 GMT It's minutes before the curtain is set to rise for this year's production of the Black History Month play at Henderson Inclusion Elementary School on a late February morning. Students are excitedly tending to last-minute costume fixes and teachers are busy issuing their last tidbits of advice. But there's one teacher here who's clearly in charge: the play's director, Darlene Jones-Inge. She's been a special education teacher for more than three decades. At Henderson, she works side-by-side with her partner general education teacher. Their elementary school in Dorchester, Mass., is unique. A third of the students have learning issues, and they're educated in the same classroom as students who don't. And the arts are an important part of engaging Henderson's diverse student body. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Learning_Issues_and_the_Arts http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%22What_Kind_of_Special_Needs_Does_Your_Daughter_Have%3F%22 Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:00:00 GMT When another parent instantly recognized Natalie's differences, it hit me hard that no matter how much we practice social skills, ADHD is always front and center. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%22What_Kind_of_Special_Needs_Does_Your_Daughter_Have%3F%22 http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Five_Misconceptions_about_Learning_Disabilities_ Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:00:20 GMT In the classroom, it starts simply — sometimes with a struggle to sound out simple words; sometimes with trouble telling time, memorizing the times tables or learning left from right. It often ends simply, too: with a troubling statistic. One in five of the American students identified as having a learning disability will walk away from their education. That's compared to a dropout rate of 8 percent in the general population. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Five_Misconceptions_about_Learning_Disabilities_ http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/One_Man%92s_Mission_to_Save_Struggling_Students Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:00:10 GMT You could call his classroom a rescue mission. Each September, Tyson Schoeber takes under his wing 15 fourth through seventh graders that normal classrooms have left behind, defeated and too often, deflated. Schoeber's program, called THRIVE, at Nootka Elementary School helps to bring a select group of kids, many of them dyslexic, back from the brink of academic stagnation. It boosts their reading and writing skills using individualized programs, multisensory learning techniques, lots of repetition—and most importantly, encouragement. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/One_Man%92s_Mission_to_Save_Struggling_Students http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/What_Do_You_Mean_You%27re_All_Out%3F%21%3F Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:00:00 GMT Two months ago, the sky was falling in for parents of children with attention deficit disorder. ADHD medication shortages — Ritalin and its generic equivalents, as well as the amphetamine Adderall and its generic forms — popped up in several states. This forced parents to speed-dial doctors and dozens of pharmacies to find the medication their child depends on to manage symptoms. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/What_Do_You_Mean_You%27re_All_Out%3F%21%3F http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Data_Reveal_Disparities_in_Schools%27_Use_of_Restraints Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:00:20 GMT New federal data that for the first time attempt to catalog how many times students were isolated or restrained—by a school employee or with a device—show that, in many cases, those techniques are applied disproportionately to students with disabilities, particularly black students with disabilities. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Data_Reveal_Disparities_in_Schools%27_Use_of_Restraints http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%3Ci%3EBully%3C/i%3E%3A_A_Hard_Documentary%2C_but_Does_It_Deserve_to_Be_Rated_R%3F Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:00:10 GMT Bully an R-rating, but anti-bullying advocates argue that the film should be PG-13, so more kids can see the film in schools and theaters without parents tagging along. ]]> Profanity has garnered the new documentary Bully an R-rating, but anti-bullying advocates argue that the film should be PG-13, so more kids can see the film in schools and theaters without parents tagging along. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%3Ci%3EBully%3C/i%3E%3A_A_Hard_Documentary%2C_but_Does_It_Deserve_to_Be_Rated_R%3F http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/WI_Assembly_to_Revisit_Subsidies_of_School_Transfers_for_Disabled Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:00:00 GMT Next year Wisconsin students with disabilities could attend a public school outside their home district or a private school with a taxpayer subsidy, under a bill coming before the state Assembly on Tuesday. The proposal is just one of a series of education bills on a daunting legislative calendar as the Legislature wraps up its session this week. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/WI_Assembly_to_Revisit_Subsidies_of_School_Transfers_for_Disabled http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Feds_Share_Largest_Collection_of_Student_Restraint%2C_Seclusion_Data Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:00:30 GMT New federal data about how often public school students are restrained or secluded at school show that, in the majority of cases, these approaches are used to contain kids with disabilities, who make up just a sixth of all students. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Feds_Share_Largest_Collection_of_Student_Restraint%2C_Seclusion_Data http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/PA_Senate_Education_Committee_Approves_Bill_to_Overhaul_Special_Education_Funding_Distribution_Formula Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:00:20 GMT The Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee approved legislation that would establish a 12-member House-Senate commission to develop a distribution formula for new state special education funding. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh County, would direct the commission to establish a formula that separates special education students into three cost categories based on their need for services. More funds would be allocated for students requiring higher levels of service. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/PA_Senate_Education_Committee_Approves_Bill_to_Overhaul_Special_Education_Funding_Distribution_Formula http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Opinion%3A_Confessions_of_a_%27Bad%27_Teacher Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:00:10 GMT I am a special education teacher. My students have learning disabilities ranging from autism and attention-deficit disorder to cerebral palsy and emotional disturbances. I love these kids, but they can be a handful. Almost without exception, they struggle on standardized tests, frustrate their teachers and find it hard to connect with their peers. As you might imagine, my job can be extremely difficult. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Opinion%3A_Confessions_of_a_%27Bad%27_Teacher http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/KS_Senators_Discuss_Dyslexia Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:00:00 GMT Citing phone calls from frustrated parents, a Kansas Senate committee discussed a bill to help identify and effectively teach dyslexic students last week. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/KS_Senators_Discuss_Dyslexia http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Special_Ed._Vouchers_May_Open_Doors_for_Choice Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:00:30 GMT Meet voucher supporters' new fellow strategists: students with disabilities. Creating private school vouchers for special education students—programs that are largely unchallenged in court, unlike other publicly financed tuition vouchers—can be the perfect way to clear a path for other students to get school options, according to school choice proponents. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Special_Ed._Vouchers_May_Open_Doors_for_Choice http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/ADHD%3A_Backlash_to_the_Backlash Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:00:20 GMT The idea that ADHD drugs might be killing us represents just one of several ominous storylines associated with the disorder. In recent years, we've also heard speculation about whether ADHD is real, and if it is real, whether it's being grossly overdiagnosed. And then there are the drugs. These backlashes against childhood developmental diagnoses seems to rise and fall every few years, but lately it's burgeoning. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/ADHD%3A_Backlash_to_the_Backlash http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Princeton_Group_Says_It%27s_Hard_to_Get_Children%27s_Dyslexia_Treated_or_Even_Recognized Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:00:10 GMT The group of parents sitting in a board room here were part of a hard-luck fraternity even before they decided to start their new statewide advocacy group, Decoding Dyslexia. They had been meeting for years in local coffee shops to discuss how their children weren't reading anything by first grade, couldn't spell their names, couldn't remember sounds, couldn't match rhyming words, couldn't distinguish left from right, didn't have a dominant left or right hand, couldn't get their shoes on the correct feet let alone tie the laces — and they weren't getting support in their classrooms. And all along they were being told, there is no such thing as dyslexia. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Princeton_Group_Says_It%27s_Hard_to_Get_Children%27s_Dyslexia_Treated_or_Even_Recognized http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%248.5_Million_NIH_Grant_May_Help_Decipher_Dyslexia Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:00:00 GMT If you can read this sentence with ease, consider yourself fortunate: Millions of Americans with dyslexia cannot. In the hope of improving the lives of those struggling readers, a team of experts at Florida State University is working to better understand and diagnose dyslexia and other learning disabilities with a new, $8.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/%248.5_Million_NIH_Grant_May_Help_Decipher_Dyslexia http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Obama%27s_Budget_Leaves_Funding_Unclear_for_Disabled_College_Students Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:00:30 GMT President Obama's budget proposal for fiscal year 2013 may signal a murky future for a fledgling program that helps students with intellectual disabilities go to college and succeed while enrolled. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Obama%27s_Budget_Leaves_Funding_Unclear_for_Disabled_College_Students http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/When_IEP_Is_a_Four-Letter_Word Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:00:20 GMT A new study reveals a troubling fact: Parents aren't involved as they should be in planning classroom accommodations. Do schools do enough to loop families in when it's time for special-ed services? http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/When_IEP_Is_a_Four-Letter_Word http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Kalamazoo_Author_Overcomes_Dyslexia_to_Release_Third_Book Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:00:10 GMT In the small upper-floor room of Kalamazoo author Alice Beard's Northside neighborhood house, copies of her poems, manuscript drafts and other creative works sit stacked on shelves. Beard, who goes by the pen name Alice Renee, has been collecting these works for decades, but despite appearances, the writing didn't come easily to her at first. While growing up, Beard struggled with her schoolwork because of a learning disability and dyslexia, she said. http://www.ldonline.org/ldnews/Kalamazoo_Author_Overcomes_Dyslexia_to_Release_Third_Book