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| English: A special education teacher assists one of her students. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
A few weeks back we ran a post about the overuse of acronyms in special education. There has been a lot of interesting feedback.
The post was inspired by a footnote written by a Judge in a special education case. He said in K.O. v. New York City Department of Education 60 IDELR 102, n.1 (SDNY 01/26/2012): " Unfortunately, '[t]his opinion, dealing as it does with the IDEA and practices thereunder, is replete with acronyms.' M.H. v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ. (M.H. II), 685 F.3d 217, 223 n.l (2d Cir. 2012). One suspects that regulators and bureaucrats love such jargon because it makes even simple matters cognizable only to the cognoscenti and thus enhances their power at the expense of people who only know English. Nevertheless, acronyms have so invaded IDEA practice that this judge, like others before him, is pretty much stuck with having to use them."
You can see the entire post here.
The responses generally agree that we overuse acronyms. Where the disagreement occurs is the question of whether this is an ethical issue. I'd be interested in your thoughts. This issue may have some traction!
