LD OnLine News Headlines

Advocates worry confusion over shifting rules will make children miss out on tablets, glasses, hearing aids, and therapy that help in the classroom.

Speakers at this week’s OSEP conference highlighted an Illinois teacher apprenticeship program and technical assistance for minority serving institutions.

AI isn’t replacing neurodivergent minds; it’s finally making space for them to thrive. In a world shaped by automation, human difference is becoming our greatest advantage.

SEL programs improve student engagement, mental health, and relationships. So why aren’t teachers adequately trained in this educational approach?

Dr. Sarah Wheeler on loving your ADHD brain—and letting go of perfection.

How common is ADHD? Learn more about ADHD and why it seems more people have it than really do.

State-level complaints over disputes with districts have never been as easy as intended. Now, they’re all desperate families have left.

After a federal judge in 2023 ordered city officials to make dozens of reforms to more swiftly provide special education services to families who won legal disputes, top Education Department officials embraced the extra oversight.

Yet almost as soon as the order was handed down, the city began to miss deadlines. Now, two years later, the Education Department has failed to comply with most of the order’s requirements.

New study: Schools place double emotional burdens on neurodivergent students.

This back-to-school season, follow ADDitude’s guide for neurodivergent students and their parents and educators. Click each image below to learn more.

I recently received an ADHD diagnosis at 32. I’ve used coping mechanisms for years to make life easier without knowing why I was doing it. Now, I’m learning about thriving with ADHD, and the confirmation of a diagnosis is validating.

Fewer states are meeting their obligations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, federal officials say, with most deficient multiple years in a row.

From early education to postsecondary, schools face common recruitment and retention challenges — and solutions, CASE-CEC panelists say.

Test scores [in Mississippi] have improved dramatically in the past 15 years, and the state is now ranked as a Top 20 state for public education. Scores exceed Michigan’s across the spectrum, from Black and white students to poorer and richer ones. Known as the Mississippi Miracle, the state’s improvement is a testament to tenacity, not originality. Over the past 20 years, Michigan adopted many of the same tools and accountability standards as Mississippi, only to abandon them for another plan. While Michigan leaders talked about fixing education, Mississippi did it starting in 2013, approving and sticking with sometimes unpopular ideas like grading schools and holding back third graders who couldn’t read, while investing big in teacher training and literacy coaches. 

With billions of federal dollars frozen by the Trump administration, 85% of school district leaders say they now have to find alternative sources to pay for contracts they have already entered into. Half those leaders say they will have to cut staff to make ends meet if the money doesn’t arrive, according to a new survey. The survey, from AASA, the School Superintendents Association, paints a picture of how the Trump administration’s choice not to distribute more than $5 billion in federal school funds Congress approved in March is affecting districts as they prepare for the upcoming school year. To close the resulting budget holes, nearly three-quarters of leaders with contracts covered by the frozen funds say they will likely have to cut academic supports for students—like literacy and math coaches—and 83% plan to cut professional development for staff

Strong parent partnerships are essential to effective special education, as collaboration between families and educators provides students with disabilities with academic, social and emotional, and behavioral support. While laws like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandate involvement, genuine collaboration requires ongoing, intentional effort. Building trust can be challenging when families have felt unheard or excluded. Because of this, it’s crucial that educators adopt proactive, empathetic, and inclusive practices. The following six strategies offer evidence-based ways to strengthen trust and foster meaningful family partnerships.

The Trump administration will now release the federal funding for after-school and summer programs that districts and states expected to begin accessing July 1 but had been frozen by the Office of Management and Budget, OMB confirmed. The $1.3 billion for 21st Century Community Learning Centers was under review by OMB to ensure the funding aligned with Trump administration priorities. The weekslong delay had already caused cancellations and other disruptions to summer and school-year student services, according to educators, families, education organizations and lawmakers. Still under OMB review is about $5.6 billion in other K-12 funds, including programs for English learners, professional development, student academic supports, migrant services and adult education. OMB did not provide a time frame for the review or release of those funds.

In D.C., and N.Y., age cutoffs for kindergarten fall far into the school year. As Maureen Yusuf-Morales, who has worked at public, charter and independent schools, suggests, “Parents with children born after September should be allowed choice with guidance based on developmental milestones, as opposed to birthdays being the only hard-and-fast rule.” Here are some ways to level the playing field for the youngest students: grades with multiple classes can be broken up into three- or four-month bands, so students are learning with a narrower-aged peer group; and repeating a year should be a more acceptable option. Any steps taken to help New York City’s youngest learners would provide the largest experimental sample size in the country, making those results potentially beneficial for students across America. 

Beginning next school year, all of the city’s public schools — from elementary to high school — must pick from a list of at least nine city-approved intervention programs designed to help struggling readers, according to documents obtained by Chalkbeat. The city hopes “all NYC students become thriving readers and writers by 2035,” the document states. Intervention programs can involve a range of approaches. In elementary schools, for example, teachers may pull students into small groups to go over phonics concepts from earlier grade levels to reinforce the relationships between sounds and letters. In high school, some campuses use online platforms to help build vocabulary and comprehension skills.

Jamie Wace, a young entrepreneur who “hated” school because of an undiagnosed learning disability, has opened up about his experience in a bid to raise awareness among parents and teachers.

It’s frightening to learn we’re not to similar to others, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. One way to respond is to allow that feeling of otherness.

Millions of TikTok users are watching influencers speak about their experiences of ADHD. But how useful is the information being shared?

The Government has published its 10-year plan for the NHS, which focuses on moving care from the hospital to the community and placing a greater emphasis on primary prevention.

President Donald Trump’s administration is pausing over $6 billion of congressionally-appropriated federal funding for after-school, student support, teacher training, English language and other education programs, according to a Department of Education memo obtained by ABC News.

For the past three years, the education department has doled out grants worth up to $10,000 apiece to help future teachers seeking their licenses.

The initiative — called the Educator Recruitment and Retention program — was created via legislation four years ago to combat Colorado’s teacher shortage, especially in special education and rural communities.

Horizon Academy features small class sizes and highly trained staff, but the intensive services come with a high price tag.

Anxiety can look like an attention problem, so how can you tell the difference?

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is particularly prevalent among women with ADHD. Learn about red flags; the impacts of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse; and how to get help.

The “Dawson’s Creek” and “Girls5eva” star says she suffered from low self-worth – until her adult ADHD diagnosis upended those feelings.

“Women are raising their voices against long-established male-centric thinking about ADHD and demanding diagnostic criteria that reflect the female experience.”

Hormonal fluctuations in midlife can hit women with ADHD hard. Learn what perimenopause treatment options can help — and how to talk to your doctor about them.

As diagnoses of the condition in the U.S. have climbed steadily, some longtime researchers are raising fundamental questions.

Coco: ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ vouchers and program cuts undermine the rights of special ed students & the nation’s commitment to helping them succeed.

“I never considered myself a perfectionist because the image that came to mind was of a Type-A overachiever who had their crap together, and I’ve never been mistaken for someone with their crap together. Things started making sense when I found out that procrastination is actually a result of perfectionism and anxiety. I would get so caught up with making things perfect that I’d struggle to finish, or even get started.”

Conditions like A.D.H.D. and autism can make starting and completing tasks feel impossible, but experts say there are workarounds.

ADHD prevalence rates in adults and children remain steady, suggesting that increased diagnosis rates reflect improved understanding and training, diagnostic tools, and self-advocacy skills.

Early learning professionals bring a unique perspective to early care and education issues. Their voices are key to moving the field forward. Their stories can inform efforts to retain talent and to improve systems serving families with young children. The stories highlighted here feature the perspectives of center- and home-based teachers and leaders on issues that matter to them.

Just as the Trump administration in recent months has slashed U.S. Department of Education programs that schools rely on, deep cuts to programs run by other agencies have similarly left students and schools without services and programming on which they have come to rely. With AmeriCorps, the cuts have halted before- and after-school programs. They’ve torpedoed funding for preschool programs. They’ve sent program administrators scrambling to fill budget holes in what is now a competitive market for replacement funding as organizations appeal for backup dollars. In Georgia, where the Communities In Schools chapter was among 14 AmeriCorps programs to be cut, Principal Benja Luke is disappointed to see the erosion of a service that helped bolster her school’s grade-level reading proficiency.

We asked educators to share the creative ways they’re solving problems, bolstering classroom learning experiences, and streamlining time-consuming tasks.

Lift your child’s spirits (and your own!) with these feel-good, strengths-focused tips informed by the principles of positive psychology.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed America is overprescribing and ‘poisoning’ children with medications for ADHD and other drugs.

Despite reports of a recent surge in ADHD, a global analysis has found no reliable evidence of an increase in the number of children diagnosed with the condition since 2020.

Low pay, difficult working conditions and high attrition rates fuel the need for teachers in Pennsylvania, education experts say.

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration on Monday announced $7.76 million in grants to expand the state teacher apprenticeship program and address the ongoing statewide teacher shortage.

President Donald Trump is proposing $12 billion in cuts to the U.S. Department of Education budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. While the president’s budget proposal keeps topline funding steady for the Education Department’s two largest sources of funding for schools, Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it asks Congress to eliminate nearly four dozen other grant programs that provide services for specific K-12 student populations, pay for teacher training and professional development, and fund education research and data collection, according to an Education Week analysis of the Trump budget.

Surrounded by smiling supporters and curious fourth graders, Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed a bill into law that will require universal dyslexia screenings in Colorado schools starting in the 2027-28 school year.

The state desperately needs special education teachers. This Cañon City teacher answered the call after 22 years as an aide

In my nearly two decades first as a classroom teacher then a teacher trainer, I have found the following three scaffolding strategies highly effective: active reading strategies (such as cloze, partner, and choral); background knowledge activation; and peer-assisted learning. A caution: Let’s remember that scaffolding is not differentiation. When we scaffold our instruction, we are giving students access to grade-level material without altering the grade-level expectations.

Matt Cohen is an attorney and founder of Matt Cohen & Associates. He specializes in special education, disability rights, and human services law. He spoke to Community Voices about the history of special education laws in Illinois, challenges that schools and families face, and gives his opinion on how the dismantlement of the Department of Education would affect education and kids with disabilities. Matt also gives advice on how families of children with special needs should navigate the school system.

Pennsylvania faces a shortage of special education teachers. A partnership led by Gwynedd Mercy University seeks to address the problem.

In May, Gwynedd Mercy partnered with Bucks County Community College and Bucks County Intermediate Unit to create an apprenticeship program to train and certify special education teachers for pre-K through 12th grade, focusing on paraprofessionals who are already working in the area but are not yet teachers.

Neurodevelopmental disorders are a diverse group of conditions that affect the brain from early development. They include attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and learning disabilities, such as dyslexia.

ADHD is the most common neurodevelopmental disorder. It affects around 8-10% of children and 2-5% of adults.

Learn more about how ADHD is diagnosed and what factors may contribute to its development.

New Jersey’s new, first-of-its-kind literacy plan aims to boost early reading skills among young learners, but advocates worry schools won’t be ready to roll it out this fall.

The statewide effort, launched under four bills signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in August 2024, aims to refine foundational literacy practices in schools based on research in reading and learning.

The comedian Phil Hanley remembers his school teachers calling him lazy and stupid, when in truth he was struggling with dyslexia. In his new memoir Spellbound: My Life as a Dyslexic Wordsmith, Hanley writes about how his mother defended him in an unsympathetic education system, and why he doesn’t want dyslexic kids today to feel the shame he did.

Who treats ADHD? Who can diagnose ADD? Should you see an MD, PhD, LCSW, or some other ADHD specialist? Here’s an overview of the titles and job descriptions that quickly confuse parents and adults seeking answers to their questions about symptoms of attention deficit.

APSARD’s ADHD diagnosis and treatment guidelines for adults in the U.S. will be published in 2024, says APSARD President, Ann Childress, in an interview with ADDitude.

Schools don’t always follow the law when providing accommodations for children protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Do you know which special-education services children with ADHD and LD are entitled to?

Women and girls with ADHD are at risk for poor outcomes as persistent gender bias and stereotypes hinder proper diagnosis and treatment of females.

As the Trump administration pushes forward with reshaping the federal role in education, the future of special education remains uncertain. Amid this uncertainty, it’s worth stepping back to assess what we know about the potential changes ahead—and what those changes could mean for students with disabilities.

Young people with disabilities in the United States are guaranteed the right to a free and appropriate public education at federally funded schools. But with shifts and cuts at the Education Department, families may be facing changes under the Trump administration.

Two federal laws – the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act – prohibit discrimination against students with disabilities. The majority of students with disabilities protected under the laws in the nation’s public schools have learning or developmental disabilities, including autism, dyslexia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and down syndrome. Students who are deaf, blind or have other physical impairments are also protected by the laws. The two civil rights laws ensure that students are placed in the “least restrictive environments” so they are not separated from their peers unless truly necessary.

President Donald Trump’s first federal budget proposal of his second term last Friday kicked off a flurry of activity in the K-12 education landscape, as district leaders and policy watchers tried to make sense of sweeping cuts outlined in relatively scant detail.

Education Week is tracking the potential impacts of Trump’s proposals, and trying to make sense of what’s known and unknown. Here are answers to some of the key questions educators and districts are likely wondering.

After months of intense debate, a citywide education panel voted Wednesday night to close a Brooklyn school with dwindling enrollment and open a new one for struggling readers in its place. And the panel greenlit opening a new school, the Central Brooklyn Literacy Academy, in the same building. It will be the second city-operated public school designed to serve students with dyslexia and other reading challenges.