Joanne Jacobs
Missing dyslexia
Schools are failing to diagnose dyslexia, which makes it hard for as many as 20 percent of students to master reading, writes Sarah Carr...
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Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 18
- 2 min
Repeating a grade can help elementary students succeed
Holding kids back if they're way behind in reading is very controversial, but new research shows that repeating a grade in elementary...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 17
- 2 min
Why so many parents mistrust schools: They didn't teach our kids to read
"When schools fail to teach reading, it harms the public's trust in schools," writes Kendra Hurley in Slate. Her children's Brooklyn...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 9
- 2 min
For failing students, lockdown was freedom, school is 'prison'
School is "like being in prison," says 14-year-old Kieran, who has dyslexia and ADHD. He prefers doing physical labor with his father....
Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 10
- 1 min
Special-ed numbers doubled in 40 years: Are 20% of New York kids really disabled?
Fifteen percent of K-12 students are in special education, nearly double what it was in the late '70s, according to a Pew Research Center...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 30
- 2 min
Teaching fragility: 1/5 of undergrads are 'disabled'
Colleges are disabling students, teaching them that they need not show up in class, complete assignments on time or give an oral...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 29
- 3 min
Autism is a disability -- not a 'natural difference to be celebrated'
Autism rates keep climbing -- nearly 3 percent, of all eight-year-olds in the latest estimates -- yet there's no sense of crisis, writes...
Joanne Jacobs
- Apr 23
- 2 min
Autism doesn't define me -- or make me a worthwhile person
Emma Camp was diagnosed with autism in college, and embraced the explanation for her insecurities and personality quirks, she writes in a...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 6
- 2 min
Happy talk isn't helpful: Tell parents the truth about their kids' learning
Keri Rodrigues, co-founder and president of the National Parents Union, complained on Twitter about the special-education team "who...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 14
- 3 min
'Challenging' students with disabilities are sent home (but not suspended)
Schools aren't supposed to suspend special-needs students if their misbehavior is related to their disability. But some schools use...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 21
- 2 min
Do 'red flag' laws prevent shootings?
“I just might come to yo school and kill everybody,” a 17-year-old former student wrote in an Instagram message. He specifically...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 15
- 2 min
To protect kids, treat parents' addiction, mental illness
The best predictor of children's risk of severe neglect and abuse is not poverty, writes Naomi Schaefer Riley in City Journal. It's drug...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 14
- 1 min
Grandin: Educate the visual thinkers too
Our society and our schools aren't designed for "visual thinkers, which so many of us neurodivergent folks are," writes Temple Grandin, a...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 3
- 3 min
NAACP pushes for literacy reform: Teach our kids to read
Black leaders have transformed reading instruction in northern Virginia, reports Sarah Carr in the Washington Post. The Fairfax County...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 23, 2022
- 3 min
Mastering newspeak at Stanford
Will Stanford continue to award master's degrees? Will my daughter's major -- American Studies -- need a new name? Stanford's IT...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 3, 2022
- 2 min
Suicidal students: What can universities do?
Yale discriminates against students with mental-health issues, according to a lawsuit filed this week, reports William Wan in the...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 2, 2022
- 1 min
Florida's special-ed students are doing very well: Is it choice?
In Florida, which pioneered school choice for special-needs students more than 20 years ago, students with disabilities are doing very...
Joanne Jacobs
- Nov 5, 2022
- 2 min
Pandemic amnesty: Is it time?
My resolution for 2021, renewed for 2022, was to be kind and calm. There is enough nastiness and enough hysteria out there without me...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 4, 2022
- 2 min
It's college, not kindergarten
Of the three million students who will start college this fall, one million won't make it through the first year on campus or won't...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 3, 2022
- 1 min
To get special-ed teachers, pay more
Teaching special-needs students is challenging and stressful. Special education teachers are in short supply across the country, and have...
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