Teach Effectively!

Bill Meahan, director of special education for the Ellensburg (WA, USA) local education agency is featured in a report by Pat Muir of the Daily Record. The focus of the story is how Mr. Meahan has responded to problems with staff morale and a situation in which he managed to continue providing educational services for a boy who had assaulted teachers and administrators. That’s about all of substance to the report, but Mr. Muir does provide evidence about the support Mr. Meahan has received from the LEA’s superintendent.

This should be an interesting situation to watch. It’d be great to learn about whether Mr. Meahan’s efforts will result in better outcomes for the special education students in the Ellensburg schools. Will their scores improve on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, Washington’s state-wide assessment? How about performance on Washington’s classroom-based assessments that are tied to the Essential Academic Learning Requirements, Washington’s content standards?