Special Education Report Released

The Department of Education released the Special Education Report (more accurately the "Review Commmittee Report and Recommendations Arising From the Minister's Review of Services for Students with Special Needs") on August 23/07. A full copy of the Report can be found here.For what its worth, the Report contains 27 recommendations, a significant number of which focus on issues surrounding students with learning disabilities. The initial focus of media coverage was definitely the recommendation to phase out the Tuition Support program but let's hope that "the rest of them" (students with differing special needs) don't get lost and forgotten in the shuffle.And its important to remember that the Recommendations are just that. Its up to the Minister of Education to decide whether to accept any or all of them. As an aside, pages 4-16 of new Report contain the government's resposes to the 34 recommendations contained in the 2001 Report.

Initial media coverage focusing on the potential loss of the Tuition Support program (as recommended in the Report) can be found here , here and here. The Daily News also has an editorial on the topic here.

Continuing highlights and commentary follow below.