When times get tough, school systems and their enabling reporters blame special education. Regular readers of JPGB and Education Next have seen this argument debunked before, but I feel compelled to do it again in response to a sloppy and lazy article in the Wall Street Journal.

Mike Petrilli has finally tried to address the problems we’ve raised regarding national standards. Despite Mike’s best efforts, I’m afraid that national standards and assessments still sound like a really bad idea.

The revised set of proposed national standards were released last week. I don’t know what else to write about this without sounding like a broken record. The bottom line is that this is a really dangerous movement that is receiving support from some people who should know better.

Review of William A. Fischel's Making the Grade

I think I’ve discovered a new medical disorder that I call Reformer’s Disease. Good and smart people involved in education reform can easily be stricken with this disorder in which they visualize a desirable reform policy and then imagine that they can simply impose that policy on our education system and that it will come out as they want.

The national standards train-wreck is pulling into the station, again. This time it is a completely voluntary set of national standards in the same way that complying with a 21-year-old drinking age is completely voluntary for states to receive federal highway money. States had to commit to a rushed and largely secretive national standard setting process as part of the Race to the Top application.

The purpose of our piece was to summarize a body of research supporting the desirability of special education vouchers. Sara Mead's letter raises a number of objections, but she provides nothing to refute our evidence.

Parents should decide when their disabled child needs a private placement

Hawaii decided to fix their budget shortfall by eliminating 17 days from this school year in exchange for an 8 percent reduction in teacher salaries. It’s not a bad deal… as long as you are a teacher.

An evaluation of Florida's program to end social promotion