A housing grant given to the New York Alliance for Inclusion and Innovation has resulted in an ambitious project to collect statewide housing resources on non-certified housing options for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and their families.
The goal: To create a comprehensive website and companion app with regional and statewide housing information.
But first! The project, “Housing Resources for Independent Living,” is hosting informal focus group discussions for parents and caregivers of children with I/DD. Participants will receive web-based resources on topics related to non-certified housing options for people with I/DD. Focus groups will then meet to share feedback in two key areas:
You can participate if you are:
If interested, register and get more info here.
A housing grant given to the New York Alliance for Inclusion and Innovation has resulted in an ambitious project to collect statewide housing resources on non-certified housing options for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and their families.
The goal: To create a comprehensive website and companion app with regional and statewide housing information.
But first! The project, “Housing Resources for Independent Living,” is hosting informal focus group discussions for parents and caregivers of children with I/DD. Participants will receive web-based resources on topics related to non-certified housing options for people with I/DD. Focus groups will then meet to share feedback in two key areas:
You can participate if you are:
If interested, register and get more info here.
Charter schools are generating buzzy, positive headlines thanks to a study showing most of their students have made bigger gains in reading and math than kids in traditional public schools (TPS).
But guess who’s left out of all the good news: Special education students. In fact, the study revealed they did worse than if they had attended public schools.
The study, As a Matter of Fact: The National Charter School Study III, is out of Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). It covers the school years 2014 – 2019 and shows student progress as measured by state achievement tests. It includes data from 29 states plus Washington, D.C., and New York City, the largest school district in the U.S.
The 2023 breakdown found gains across a broad range of students, with some significant variation. Black students, for instance, showed the most gains in both reading and math:
However, special ed students lost out badly. They lost an average of 13 days of reading growth and 14 days of math relative to kids receiving special ed outside of charters.
The inequity is one of the few sore spots revealed by the study and charter schools should be “taken to task” for the collective failure, Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO, told the74million.org.
“With the exception of very few charter schools that specialize in particular kinds of special education, the sector has basically thrown up their hands and said, ‘This isn’t our job,’” she told the news site.
It’s not entirely surprising charter schools fail students in special ed. Charter schools typically receive less public funding than traditional district schools, and some are perceived to be unable or willing to educate students with disabilities. At least one charter school network, the Success Academy in New York, was found to have violated the civil rights of students with disabilities.
The Standford study also says that due to the COVID-19 pandemic student academic performance “has regressed by two decades in math and fallen steeply in reading, with the most severe performance declines found among minority, poverty and special needs populations [highlight mine] that were already struggling before the pandemic,” making the search for solutions all the more important.
Photo: CDC via Unsplash
Charter schools are generating buzzy, positive headlines thanks to a study showing most of their students have made bigger gains in reading and math than kids in traditional public schools (TPS).
But guess who’s left out of all the good news: Special education students. In fact, the study revealed they did worse than if they had attended public schools.
The study, As a Matter of Fact: The National Charter School Study III, is out of Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). It covers the school years 2014 – 2019 and shows student progress as measured by state achievement tests. It includes data from 29 states plus Washington, D.C., and New York City, the largest school district in the U.S.
The 2023 breakdown found gains across a broad range of students, with some significant variation. Black students, for instance, showed the most gains in both reading and math:
However, special ed students lost out badly. They lost an average of 13 days of reading growth and 14 days of math relative to kids receiving special ed outside of charters.
The inequity is one of the few sore spots revealed by the study and charter schools should be “taken to task” for the collective failure, Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO, told the74million.org.
“With the exception of very few charter schools that specialize in particular kinds of special education, the sector has basically thrown up their hands and said, ‘This isn’t our job,’” she told the news site.
It’s not entirely surprising charter schools fail students in special ed. Charter schools typically receive less public funding than traditional district schools, and some are perceived to be unable or willing to educate students with disabilities. At least one charter school network, the Success Academy in New York, was found to have violated the civil rights of students with disabilities.
The Standford study also says that due to the COVID-19 pandemic student academic performance “has regressed by two decades in math and fallen steeply in reading, with the most severe performance declines found among minority, poverty and special needs populations [highlight mine] that were already struggling before the pandemic,” making the search for solutions all the more important.
Photo: CDC via Unsplash
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new “flexibilities” on June 12, 2023, to help keep Americans covered as states resume Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) renewals. The new flexibilities were announced in a letter Secretary Becerra sent to the nation’s governors.
Some of the new flexibilities announced :
RELATED NEWS: 10 Things to Know About the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Provision
“Nobody who is eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program should lose coverage simply because they changed addresses, didn’t receive a form, or didn’t have enough information about the renewal process,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “We encourage states to utilize all available flexibilities to ensure children and families don’t lose coverage. We also urge states to join us in partnering with local governments, community organizations, and schools to reach people eligible for Medicaid and CHIP where they are.”
Image: Freepik
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new “flexibilities” on June 12, 2023, to help keep Americans covered as states resume Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) renewals. The new flexibilities were announced in a letter Secretary Becerra sent to the nation’s governors.
Some of the new flexibilities announced :
RELATED NEWS: 10 Things to Know About the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Provision
“Nobody who is eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program should lose coverage simply because they changed addresses, didn’t receive a form, or didn’t have enough information about the renewal process,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “We encourage states to utilize all available flexibilities to ensure children and families don’t lose coverage. We also urge states to join us in partnering with local governments, community organizations, and schools to reach people eligible for Medicaid and CHIP where they are.”
Image: Freepik
We know Direct Support Professionals (DPS) need and deserve to earn a living wage, but thanks to the 2023 DSP Survey Report we also know what they need in other ways.
Participating DSPs gave their input on supervisor support, recognition and career advancement. Based on the survey data, it’s clear that driving their attitudes toward work is “a desire for workplace wellness, a thirst for learning opportunities, and a yearning for career growth options.”
Here are the key findings of the report, produced by ANCOR:
“The impact of DSP supervisors is huge,” reads the report. “This is a trend we have seen among the DSP workforce over the last several years. DSPs consistently report that they prefer recognition from their supervisor more than anyone else. On top of that, those DSPs who are more likely to stay with their organization are the ones who report a decent level of satisfaction with their supervisor.”
The 2023 survey had 763 DSP participants. Sixty-six percent of the respondents had five or more years of experience.
Image: Freepik
The Albany City School District “is facing scrutiny after state investigators found it misused certain rooms to isolate students with disabilities, while one educator separately alleged staff secured some elementary schoolers to classroom chairs with seat belts, a form of mechanical restraint that state officials say is banned.”
The Times-Union has the story.
NY Education Dept. Presents Proposals to Limit Physical Restraint on School Kids
Biden Administration Calls for End to Corporal Punishment in Schools
FYI, Oklahoma Says ‘Yes’ to Hitting Kids With Disabilities in Schools
An important bill to update SSI rules that impede the ability of people with disabilities to work and get married needs a big push, and The ARC is making it easy and fast for all of us to act. (See below!)
Introduced in Congress’ 2021-2022 legislative session, the bipartisan effort called the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, would:
Adding to the urgency of making some noise is that the lead Republican sponsor of that bill, Rob Portman, retired at the beginning of the year.
Just click this link, courtesy of The Arc, to send a prewritten email to your U.S. Senators to support the bipartisan SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act.
“Raising the SSI asset limit is one of the most important things we can do right now to improve financial security for disabled Americans,” Darcy Milburn, director, Social Security and Healthcare Policy at The ARC, told The Boost.” Current asset limits trap people in poverty; create barriers to work, savings, and having a bank account; and make financial independence virtually impossible.”
RELATED: Jen and Eddie want to get married, but they’re terrified of what that would mean for their lives (The Arc)
Additionally, said Milburn, “raising the asset limit is an especially salient issue right now because it ties into two critical issues shaping our economy – inflation and workforce shortages. … Also, many individuals who receive SSI want to work and do in fact work. But the extremely low asset limit means some beneficiaries are prevented from taking on more hours, pursuing new opportunities, or saving money from paid work for fear that if they save over $2,000 they could be kicked off of SSI.”
The Supreme Court issued a landmark 7-2 ruling affecting aging and disabled people that allows individuals to sue State and local government providers of federally funded health services such as Medicaid or Medicare “for failures and lapses in care.”
The case brought before the court, Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski, concerns the death of 85-year-old Gorgi Talevski, who his family says was “chemically restrained and later moved to a different facility” instead of being treated for his dementia. They claimed his treatment was a violation of the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act (FNHRA) to provide funds to nursing care facilities on the condition that these facilities comply with specific obligations, including limitations on the use of physical and chemical restraints and on transferring or discharging patients, according to the ACLU.
A lower court sided with the Talveskis, but the nursing home’s owner, Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, appealed to the Supreme Court.
Disability Scoop does a great job of unpacking the win.