How Do U.S. Students Compare Internationally?

English: Logo the C-SPAN (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well I can't tell you.

But if you are interested, tune in to C-SPAN tomorrow, January 18th at 9:15 am.  On the "America by the Numbers" segment on its Washington Journal program, Jack Buckley, the commissioner for the National Center for Education Statistics will discuss a study of math, science and reading results for fourth and eighth graders from 50 countries.

You can learn more about the program on the website of the U S Census Bureau here.

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• Census Bureau News -- "How Do U.S. Students Compare Internationally?" Live on the "America by the Numbers" Segment of C-SPAN's "Washington Journal"

Special Education Law 101 - Part XIII Legal Representation

U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is another post in our ongoing series on the basics of special education law.  Please let us know how you are enjoying this series.  We feel that this is a good introduction for newbies and a good refresher for seasoned pros.  

The federal regulations implementing IDEA provide that parties to due process hearings have a right to be accompanied by legal counsel and by individuals with special knowledge or training with respect to the problems of kids with disabilities "...except that whether parties have the right to be represented by non-attorneys at due process hearings is determined under State law." 34 C.F.R. §300.512.  This regulation was changed recently to reverse a previous long standing policy of the department of Education that had permitted non-attorney advocates to fully represent parents in the past. To be clear a parent may still have an advocate present to advise her, but the advocate may not be able to represent the parent depending upon state law.

There is one US Supreme Court decision concerning legal representation: 

In Winkelman by Winkelman v. Parma City Sch. Dist  550 U.S. 516, 127 S.Ct 1994,  47 IDELR 281 (5/21/2007) the Supreme Court ruled by a 7 to 2 margin that the IDEA grants independent enforceable rights to parents as well as students.  Accordingly, the court concluded that parents may pursue IDEA appeals in federal court without being represented by an attorney.  NOTE: This decision applies only to federal court appeals of due process decisions.  All parties agreed that a parent may appear at a due process hearing without counsel.

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Crisis Averted - I Hope

FeedBurner Flame (© FeedBurner, Inc.) (Photo credit: magbag)

My last post was about difficulties my subscribers had in receiving my two posts before that.  I Understand that most or all of you received all three posts in an email or by delayed RSS delivery.  I assume that this means that Feedburner experienced a temporary problem, and that everything is now ok.

Many of you provided useful suggestions that I will look into going forward.  For now I hope for the best.

If in the future any subscriber doesn't receive a post for a while, please contact me.  I want to fix this if it becomes a problem.  I appreciate our subscribers and I want to make sure that you receive all posts.

By the way, it is really hard to contact The Google.  Try calling them on the phone or even emailing them sometime just for fun.  You'd think that email would be an option.  Yet I digress!

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HELP Needed: Feedburner NOT Delivering Posts to Subscribers

My last two blog posts were not delivered to my subscribers.  I use Feedburner, the Google feed delivery, but neither my email subscribers or my RSS feed subscribers seem to have received my last two posts.

I would appreciate any advice you can give me!