Skip to main content

Mobile Navigation

  • National
    • Policy
      • High Expectations
      • Quality Choices
      • Personalized Pathways
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Gadfly Newsletter
      • Flypaper Blog
      • Events
    • Scholars Program
  • Ohio
    • Policy
      • Priorities
      • Media & Testimony
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
      • Ohio Gadfly Daily
  • Charter Authorizing
    • Application
    • Sponsored Schools
    • Resources
    • Our Work in Dayton
  • About
    • Mission
    • Board
    • Staff
    • Career
Home
Home
Advancing Educational Excellence

Main Navigation

  • National
  • Ohio
  • Charter Authorizing
  • About

Ohio Menu

  • Topics
    • Accountability & Testing
    • Career & Technical Education
    • Charter Schools
    • Curriculum & Instruction
    • ESSA
    • Evidence-Based Learning
    • Governance
    • High Achievers
    • Personalized Learning
    • Private School Choice
    • School Finance
    • Standards
    • Teachers & School Leaders
  • Research
  • Policy
  • Commentary
    • Ohio Gadfly Newsletter
    • Ohio Gadfly Blog
    • Events
Standards & Accountability

Applying Systems Thinking to Improve Special Education in Ohio

Nathan Levenson
9.4.2012
9.4.2012

Special education is a maze of complexity, highly bureaucratic and compliance driven, often a point of contention between educators and parents, frequently litigious, and the single fastest growing portion of spending on public education. It has been largely impervious to change or improvement efforts. Worse, despite the spending children in special education programs are not making gains academically. 

Can special education be done better while controlling its growth? This is the question we posed to Nathan Levenson, one of the country’s leading thinkers on doing more with fewer resources in special education and whose District Management Council has done extensive work with local school districts here in the Buckeye State.

The result is a thought-provoking policy paper, Applying Systems Thinking to Improve Special Education in Ohio. In it, Levenson suggests three major opportunities, along with concrete examples, for making special education more efficient and better for Ohio’s students.


Policy Priority:
Standards & Accountability
Topics:
Accountability & Testing
Curriculum & Instruction
Teachers & School Leaders
DOWNLOAD PDF

Nathan Levenson is a Senior Advisor for the District Management Group.

Related Resources

view
High Expectations

Shifting Trends in Special Education

Janie Scull, Amber M. Northern, Ph.D. 5.25.2011
NationalReport
view
High Expectations

Boosting the Quality and Efficiency of Special Education

Nathan Levenson 8.28.2012
NationalReport
view
High Expectations

Financing the Education of High-Need Students

Matt Richmond, Daniela Fairchild 11.24.2013
NationalReport
Fordham Logo

© 2020 The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Privacy Policy
Usage Agreement

National

1015 18th St NW, Suite 902 
Washington, DC 20036

202.223.5452

[email protected]

  • <
Ohio

P.O. Box 82291
Columbus, OH 43202

614.223.1580

[email protected]

Sponsorship

130 West Second Street, Suite 410
Dayton, Ohio 45402

937.227.3368

[email protected]