Events

Congressional Briefing. On February 23rd, 2007, NDSS and 13 other national disability and general education organizations co-sponsored a congressional briefing in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee room on Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The co-sponsors were the American Federation of Teachers, the Council for Exceptional Children, Easter Seals, the Higher Education Consortium for Special Education, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, Inc., the National Down Syndrome Congress, the National Down Syndrome Society, the National Education Association, the National School Boards Association, the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, The Advocacy Institute, The Arc of the United States and United Cerebral Palsy.

UDL is a framework for designing educational environments where all students can gain knowledge, skills and enthusiasm for learning and has important implications for the implementation of IDEA 2004 and the upcoming NCLB reauthorization. The purpose of the briefing was to demonstrate that UDL is a research based strategy that can assist struggling schools by improving achievement for ALL students, including students with disabilities, minority and economically disadvantaged students and those with limited English proficiency.

The presenters at the briefing were David Rose, Ed.D., a founder of the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) and its Chief Education Officer; Grace Meo, a veteran teacher, special education administrator and director of teacher professional development for CAST and Austin Naughton, a special educator who has implemented UDL in grades 6 through 12 in Massachusetts and California. They explained what UDL is, why it is important, how it relates to IDEA and NCLB, what implications it has at the state and school district level and how it works in the classroom.