Happy New Year to all. We hope that 2013 brings you, your children, and your families health, happiness, and success. I want to take this opportunity to create a rudimentary wish list of improvements in education we would like to see in 2013. What changes do you personally hope to see in education this year? If you would like to add a wish to this list please send an email to info@dayanlawfirm.com. Here are a couple of things we hope to see:
Genuine collaboration between teachers' unions and city officials to resolve local education issues of dispute not for political reasons but because it is in the best interest of our country to improve the state of education across the nation
Compelling comparative research on the educational models of other countries ranking high in education, including a thorough review of why those approaches have worked in those countries and whether/how those approaches can be adapted to the U.S.
Better oversight of the administration of preschool special education services to eliminate fraudulent activity and preserve critical dollars which would otherwise be spent on important services for children with special needs
Assurance that early intervention providers who have been crucial for the provision of early childhood special education services are not put out of work solely because of economic considerations that would save the city money but seriously jeopardize the development of the children who are meant to benefit from those services
Aggressive education and campaigning targeted to the issue of childhood obesity to educate children and their parents about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, overhauling school food programs (more than just a few pro forma tweaks to the menu here and there) to help children stay healthy, and increasing the role of meaningful physical activity throughout the school day
Continued research in the area of autism to better understand the factors that contribute to the birth of a child with autism, to improve the quality of available therapies, services, and medications for those who are most severely impaired, and to move closer to finding an eventual cure if one exists