#and what defines succcess?

[willievermakeithome]

When that little boy whispered “I wish to be liberated” I was like ME TOO BRO

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

There have been a flurry of recent stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other outlets about influential Democratic powerbrokers casting about for new 2020 candidates, apparently due to doubt about the strength of the current field. And in a related development, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick are all reportedly considering entering the race, even as they would face long odds against winning the nomination.

Can’t the party establishment just live with one of the candidates who are already running? After all, the Democratic field is getting smaller, but it’s still huge, with 16 “major” candidates.1 And the party’s voters like the candidates just fine. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in July found record-high levels of enthusiasm about the field among Democratic voters, matched only by their excitement in 2008 when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were running. A Huffpost/YouGov survey from last month found that 83 percent of Democrats were satisfied with the party’s candidates.

So … what’s going on? Why are the party pooh-bahs so nervous?

It’s difficult to provide a definitive answer to this question, in large part because “Democratic donors” and “the Democratic establishment” are large, nebulous groups. We don’t have a formal poll testing the views of the “establishment,” for example. Plus, news organizations tend to be more likely to write stories with the theme “people are worried” than “everything is fine,” so you should be somewhat skeptical of how representative these stories are of opinions overall.

That said, my own interviews and conversations with elite Democrats2 and those who have talked to other reporters do suggest that some members of the establishment are nervous. So this is view is out there, even if I can’t quite tell you how pervasive it is. But however widespread the feeling is, I don’t think it’s too difficult to understand. Here are three explanations that cropped up in my reporting, ordered from most to least important (at least in my view):

An unorthodox group of front-runners

If you are a major Democratic donor or a Democratic National Committee member, you likely were a strong supporter of at least one of the last two Democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. You want to win the general election, and you’re looking for what’s worked in the past. In November 1991, Clinton was 45 years old and had served as Arkansas’s governor for more than a decade. In November 2007, Barack Obama was 46 years old and had served in the U.S. Senate for two years. Ideologically, both positioned themselves as center-left (as opposed to more openly liberal) during their campaigns.

I think if one of the candidates at the top of the polls was or had been a governor or senator, was between the ages of, roughly, 40 and 70, and was not considered either too liberal or too conservative by many in the party, then the party’s elites would not be casting about for someone else. Instead, from the point of view of these party elites, the leading contenders include …

A candidate who is charismatic and ideologically “safe,” but who’s only 37 years old and has never been elected to statewide office (Pete Buttigieg);

A candidate with lots of political experience who’s also ideologically “safe,” but who’s 76 years old (Joe Biden);

Two candidates with plenty of political experience and clear appeal, but who are far more liberal than most past nominees (Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — also, Sanders is 78 years old).

Fellow FiveThirtyEight contributor Julia Azari, a Marquette University professor, argues in an essay in the book “The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2020” that there is a deep tension right now in the Democratic Party between “risk aversion and orientation toward the status quo” on the one hand and an increasingly powerful bloc pushing for more progressive ideas on the other. That status-quo-oriented group seems to be the one looking for alternatives.

Most key figures in the Democratic Party haven’t endorsed anyone yet. But among the endorsements we do have, you can see these elite preferences in action. Cory Booker (sitting senator, 50 years old, not as left as Sanders and Warren) is right behind Warren in number of endorsements so far, and Kamala Harris (sitting senator, 55 years old, not as left as Sanders and Warren) is well ahead of Warren in endorsements. Both Booker and Harris are also leading Sanders, despite clearly trailing Warren and Sanders in the polls. If Harris and, especially, Booker (because he is a man and would therefore be considered a safer choice by some Democrats) were polling at the level Warren is, my guess is that they would be getting a flood of endorsements and lots more buzz.

In short, party establishment figures think they know what a great White House candidate looks like — and they aren’t sure they’ve seen one yet. One longtime D.C.-based Democratic operative I talked to referred to “head-scratching” among the party’s establishment, “wondering why these super-talented candidates are making some really dumb mistakes.” Those mistakes, according to this strategist, included Biden’s campaign spending more than it raised from July to September, Buttigieg’s lack of succcessful outreach to black voters, Harris’s struggles to come up with a clear message and Warren fully embracing “Medicare for All.”

Worry about Warren

Party establishment types that I have talked to see a scenario in which Warren wins Iowa, where she is polling well, and New Hampshire, where voters are fairly familiar with the Massachusetts senator. With those two early wins, she becomes more popular, particularly with nonwhite voters, and basically sweeps to the nomination. This is basically what happened in 2004 with John Kerry and similar to what happened with Obama in 2008 (he came in a close second in New Hampshire). The party establishment types may be wrong in predicting that outcome, but they are speaking from their own recent experiences.

“If she wins Iowa, this whole thing could be over,” a DNC member told me.

And the prospect of a Warren nomination has some party insiders worried. Establishment Democrats often cast Warren as a bad general election candidate, but many of them simply don’t want her to be president — she has fairly aggressive policy plans to take on elite, wealthy Democrats (and Republicans). Bloomberg’s aides are essentially telegraphing a plan to stop Warren: If Biden struggles in the early states, the former New York mayor will enter the race on Super Tuesday, running as the moderate alternative to Warren instead of Biden.

Biden’s problems, according to the party elites I spoke with, boil down to a fear he won’t be able to stop Warren, and that he’s vulnerable largely because he is not clearly leading in Iowa or New Hampshire.

“Buttigieg, Warren and Sanders have created national movements around their candidacies; Biden absolutely has the potential to do that, but he hasn’t so far,” said Robert Zimmerman, a New Yorker who is both a longtime party donor and a DNC member.

I think Democratic elites are overly pessimistic about Biden’s candidacy. The former vice president, according to the polls, is a clear front-runner in the primary and polls well against Trump in the general election. It’s not even guaranteed that he will lose Iowa or New Hampshire, but even if he does, polling suggests Biden will still be in a strong position in Nevada and South Carolina because he does better with nonwhite voters.

But Democratic elites have never been enthralled with Biden as a potential general election candidate or president. When Biden considered a White House run in 2016, for instance, Barack Obama and his aides weren’t exactly encouraging — in fact, some of their moves bordered on discouraging. In all, Biden ran for president two times, in 1988 and 2008, and flirted with runs four other times, in 1980, 1984, 2004 and 2016. The party elite didn’t rally behind him in any of those races — and they aren’t doing so now.

Elites have basically given up on lower-tier candidates

You might be thinking, particularly regarding the nascent Holder and Patrick campaigns, what’s wrong with Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, the two center-left black candidates already in the race? Why doesn’t the establishment just unify behind one of the people who isn’t in the top four but who already has a campaign infrastructure and would be a fairly conventional party nominee? What about Amy Klobuchar or Julián Castro?

Donors and party elites don’t see these candidates as viable, because they’re so far down in the polls. (There is a bit of a contradiction here, in that the donors are pessimistic about Biden despite his strong polling but down on the other candidates because of their weak polling.)

There have been public reports about Harris’s campaign donors, in particular, starting to think that she is no longer a viable candidate. And even as Democratic establishment types emphasize the importance of nominating an electable candidate, they are making little effort to boost Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana or Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, both of whom have won in areas where Trump was strong in 2016. (Trump won Montana and many rural counties in Minnesota that Klobuchar carried in 2018.)

“I think the problem isn’t so much that there is no one good in the field, but that it seems harder to get Harris or Booker to move to the front of the pack than it is to get an unknown to jump in and maybe immediately get attention and move to the front,” said Hans Noel, a Georgetown University professor and expert on dynamics within the two parties.

He added, “I don’t have any reporting on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Patrick or Holder had been discouraged from running because someone like Booker or Harris or Castro was already in the field. Now that they [Booker, Harris, Castro] are not at the top, it’s a chance to get in.”

So how does this end? Is someone new really going to jump into the race? If so, will his or her campaign be viable? I tend to think that a last-ditch candidacy can’t win, unless maybe we are talking about someone really popular and well-known like Michelle Obama. I don’t think someone like Patrick has much of a chance to knock off Biden or Warren, who have been campaigning for months, raised millions of dollars and have staff on the ground in key states. I can’t rule out one of these people running anyway — Bloomberg and Patrick in particular have long flirted with running for president. They want the job, so maybe they convince themselves there is a path to get it even if there really isn’t.

But, in the end, I’d bet that the party establishment will accept whomever does well in primaries in February and March. I don’t think Bloomberg himself will ever endorse Warren if she does well in those first few contests, but he represents something of an extreme case. Would, for example, former top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett endorse the Massachusetts senator if she won the first four primaries, essentially signaling that the former president is fine with Warren as the nominee? I think that’s very possible. Like the Republican Party in the 2016 primary cycle it doesn’t appear that the Democratic establishment will collectively decide who the nominee should be before the voters weigh in. But the party will likely decide at some point to get behind Biden, Buttigieg, Warren or Sanders — and this autumn angst will seem like a distant memory.

[allisonacs]

Spotify's Failed #SquadGoals

By Jeremiah Lee

The original Spotify Squads article came out while I was at Yelp, and I remember reading it at the time and thinking, damn this just completely ignores design, glorifying engineering and product management. That article did a lot of damage to the culture at many-a-company. I can't decide if I feel better or worse that it didn't reflect reality at Spotify itself.

The ”Learn from Spotify's mistakes“ section above has a lot of gems. What sticks out most to me are the following:

Autonomy requires alignment. Company priorities must be defined by leadership. Autonomy does not mean teams get to do whatever they want.

Emphasis mine. Bottoms up culture is really common in start-ups because when you're strapped for resources, you hire the best folks, sick them on a problem, and move on to focus on the next thing. That works really well at small sizes and when the entire company is focused on only one thing, but it falls apart incredibly quickly as you scale.

Processes for cross-team collaboration must be defined. Autonomy does not mean leaving team to self-organize every problem.

Elsewhere in the article, Jeremiah says something to the effect of, ”collaboration should not be an assumed competancy,“ and he's dead on. Without well-defined processes in place, teams will always fall back to bushwhacking their way through a problem. It's simply too easy to decide you know what's best, and that what you're solving for is somehow different. This couldn't be further from the truth.

And finally, his points about accountability are worth dwelling on. It's all well-and-good for companies to create top-down priorities, well-defined processes, and clear metrics. If you can't or won't hold your teams accountability for the work they've been assigned to do, you may as well have not bothered with any of the other work.

One last thing from me. One problem I think a lot about is design system contribution models, and how important community contribution and ownership is for the succcess of a design system in a given organization. I have lots of thoughts on this, and they don't belong in this post. Articles like this one from Jeremiah make me wonder just how many “contribution utopia” articles are complete shams as well. I think probably most or all.

[maxihealth]

Health Care and the Democratic Debates – Round 2 – Battle Royale for M4All vs Medicare for All Who Want It – What It Means for Industry

Looking at this photo of the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential candidate debater line-up might give you a déjà vu feeling, a repeat of the night-before debate. But this was Round 2 of the debate, with ten more White House aspirants sharing views — sometimes sparring — on issues of immigration, economic justice, climate change, and once again health care playing a starring role from the start of the two-hour event.

The line-up from left to write included:

Marianne Williamson. author and spiritual advisor

John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Colorado

Andrew Yang. tech company executive

Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana

Joe Biden, Former Vice President

Bernie Sanders, Senator-Vermont

Kamala Harris. Senator-California

Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator-New York

Michael Bennet, Senator-Colorado

Eric Swalwell. Representative for California’s 15th U.S. Congressional District

The format of Round 2 was the same as the night before, with Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, and Jose Diaz-Balart leading the first hour of Q&A, and Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow wrangling the second hour. “Wrangling” is the right description for this night, which featured candidates interrupting each other, more raised voices and passionate assertions and parrying — especially on issues related to generation and age, immigration, and a spirited dialogue between Sen. Harris and VP Biden on race, busing, and segregation — which in the larger public health context continue to have a direct impact on health equity, health disparities, and socio-economic status.

Lester Holt began with Sen. Sanders, noting his call for big new government benefits like universal health care through Medicare for All and free college tuition. Holt asked the Senator whether he expected Americans to welcome paying more taxes for these services. Sanders explained that the vast majority of people will pay significantly les for health care than they do right now. And, that education is an investment in the future of the nation and thus, we must make public colleges tuition-free and eliminate student debt by “placing a tax on Wall Street.”

Guthrie turned to VP Biden, stating that Sanders is calling for a revolution. Biden talked about income inequality, immediately pivoting to the President: “Trump thinks Wall Street built America,” Biden began his response. Biden’s father said, “a job is more than a paycheck; it’s about dignity and respect…We have to make sure to return dignity to middle class” by covering health insurance and affordable health care, expanding education opportunities, and ensuring that people breath air that’s clean and -insurance =covered and must afford it. Continuing education, And ensure they can breathe clean air and drink clean water. “Trump put us in a horrible situation,” and Biden would address this fiscally by eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Senator Harris, too, mentioned government benefits like free college and Medicare for All as her health plan preference. When asked, “Do Democrats have a responsibility to explain how to pay for all of the proposals” Harris responded, “Where was that question when Republicans and Trump passed a tax bill contributing $1 trillion debt to America paid for by the middle class?” She continued that working families need to be lifted up, and that rules have been written in favor of people who have the most versus the people who work the most.

Hickenlooper warned that Dems will lose in 2020 if they embrace socialism and booed at Calif convention when he said that. Sanders IDs as Dem Socilist. Hickenlooper says bottom line is if we don’t define clearly we are NOT socialists republicans will call us that — the Green New Deal…I’m a scientist but we can’t promise every American a govt job HC is a right and not a privilege but we can’t eliminate private insurance for 100 mm people who don’t want to give it up, CO first state to bring envy comity together to address methane emissions….expanding reproductive rights and reduced teen pregnancy…he’s done what everyone is talking about doing.

Sen. Gillibrand said this debate in the Democratic party is “confusing…[facing off] capitalism versus greed.” The things we’re trying to change, she explained, is when companies care more about profits than people, citing the “greed” of insurance and drug companies and the gun lobby. Her takeaway: “We want healthy capitalism, not corrupted capitalism.”

Sen. Bennet argued for universal health care (in a public/private system) but not for Medicare for All. “Health care is a right,” he asserted as all candidates have shared. We accomplish the goal “by finishing the work we started with Obamacare and create a public option where every American can make a choice or keep private insurance.”

Mayor Pete took a more moderate approach to education and health care policy, by not supporting free college for all nor Medicare for All. Instead, he is for “Medicare for All Who Want It,” in his words.

Andrew Yang is the only candidate talking about a guaranteed basic income of $1,000 a month for every U.S. adult 18 and over, which he terms “The Freedom Dividend.” How to pay for this $12K per year per capita? Diaz-Balart asked. Yang, a technology entrepreneur, said that it’s difficult to fund “when Amazon pays no taxes and drives businesses out of stores.” Yang imagines a “trickle-up economy” that would circulate through regional economies. Thus, he would ensure these highly successful businesses bear their fair share of taxes, and also levy a value-added (consumption) tax.

Note that, up to this point, health care was not the explicit question, but clearly was on the front-burner for most of the ten candidates in this round of debate.

At this point, then, Holt moved the question to health care, addressing the group in a “raise your hand” question: “Who would abolish private insurance for a government run health care plan?”

Hands were raised by Sanders and Harris (who walked this back a bit today in interviews).

Gillibrand chimed in, discussing her “transition plan” to achieve Medicare for All. Gillibrand said she ran on M4A and in a 2:1 Rebpuclican district — and won. She wants to get to universal health care and initially create competition with insurers. “They have never put people over profits and I doubt they ever will. People will choose Medicare and we will (eventually) get to Medicare for All and then get to single payer” like Social Security, she forecasted.

Mayor Pete asserted that “everybody who says Medicare for All has a responsibility to explain how to get from here to there.” Buttigieg would call it “Medicare for All Who Want It,” made available on health insurance exchanges. If people are right, it will be more inclusive and efficient, and then a natural glide path to single payer, he explained. Even countries like the U.K. and Canada have some private insurance. “We can’t be relying on the tender mercies of the corporate sector,” he added. Primary care must be available to all, noting that his father who was recently quite ill was financially saved by Medicare coverage.

Biden, too, told his personal story of family health trauma and financial coverage with health insurance. He said the “quick way” to get to universal health coverage is to “build on what we did with Obamacare. Make sure everyone does have an option” by being able to buy into a Medicare-like plan. “Urgency matters – people right now are facing what my family faced,” he empathized.

Holt challenged Sanders, who “wants to scrap the private health insurance as we know it,” Holt described, saying that no state that has tried this has been succcessful. “If they can’t make it work,” Holt asked, how can killing private health insurance be successfully implemented in the U.S. for 330 million people nationally?

Sanders said it’s hard to believe every other country including the one “50 miles to the north” of Vermont, Canada, has figured out a way to provide health care for every man, woman and child, paying 50% of what we are paying in the U.S. He added that it’s not in the interest of health insurance or drug companies to provide quality care in a cost-effective manner. Americans pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, Sanders repeated from the night-before debate, and he would lower these by half.

Marianne Williamson argued for the Federal government to be able to negotiate Rx prices with drug manufacturers. “We don’t have a health care system in the U.S. – we have a sick care system,” she noted. She went on to rhetorically ask why so many Americans have unnecessary chronic illnesses compared with other countries, answering that this has to do with environmental policy, chemicals, food supply, and other factors.

Bennet recounted his recent prostate cancer and treatment, which occurred at the same time his child had her appendix out. “Families should have choice – I think that’s what Americans want,” he attested. “Millions do not have health insurance as they make too much money to get on Medicaid.” Canada has around 35 million people, he said, and there are probably 35 million in ther U.S. who could be part of the Buttigieg-described “Medicare for Those Who Want It” population.

Harris asked us to consider “how this affects real people.” She described a scenario of “any night in America, a parent sees their child with a temperature out of control” calling 911. They take their child teh ER, and sit outside of the hospital looking at the sliding glass doors with their hand on their child’s forehead. They know that if they walk into those doors, they will have to deal with a $5,000 deductible.

Guthrie moved the question from health care coverage for U.S. citizens to health care for undocumented immigrants. This was another hand-raising exercise. Mayor Pete supported health coverage for undocumented immigrants, “because our country is healthier when everyone is healthier. Undocumented immigrants in South Bend pay sales taxes and property taxes,” adding that “this is not about a handout – this is an insurance program.”

Health Populi’s Hot Points — implications for health care industry stakeholders

Cover me…. The two over-arching issues about which most Americans, across political party, converge are for health insurance coverage and lower prescription drug costs. The January 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll found that 73% of Americans favored creating a national government administrared health plan similar to Medicare open to anyone, but allowing people to keep coverage they had. This is consistent with most of the 20 debaters’ views — a la Mayor Pete’s “Medicare For All Who Want It” approach.

The ongoing challenge of explaining “Medicare for All” versus universal health coverage accomplished through a combined public/private plan takes more than a 240-character tweet to explain. As President Trump observed just weeks into moving into the White House, trying to usher through his promised repeal-and-replace policy, and with both a Republican majority House and Senate in the legislative branch under his leadership, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”

Prescription drug costs are also in U.S. voters’ sights, whether we’re listening to EpiPen-buying parents, Hep C patients, or people managing diabetes. A Washington Post op-ed published earlier this month noted, “A caravan for insulin demonstrates how the American health-care system is failing us.”

Lower my drug prices. The cover theme of the May 2019 AARP Bulletin focused on “the fight to lower prescription drug prices,” saying that, “medicine can be made more affordable. Here’s how the battle is being fought…and how it can be won.” The story included this graph comparing drug company profits to other successful businesses operating in the U.S., comparing the profitability of Gilead, Abbvie, Pfizer, Lilly and BMS to the levels of Facebook, McDonald’s, Apple, Starbucks and AT&T based on Morningstar’s data.

Across political party ID, Americans want the Federal government to negotiate prices with prescription drug companies to get lower prices for people on Medicare. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s March 2019 Health Tracking Poll found this, a policy backed by many of the Democratic Presidential candidates.

This approach is embraced by most wealthy countries around the world, which responds in part to Senator Sanders’ question about “how” other countries can fiscally provide for universal health coverage for all their health citizens.

A caveat about using traditional Medicare as “the” mechanism for covering “All” was raised by Jeff Delaney on Night 1 — that is that Medicare payments to hospitals may be insufficient to cover providers’ costs if scaled to 100% of covered Americans. We’ll need a closer actuarial analysis about hospitals’ real costs (not the “chargemaster,” but actual costs for delivering units of care) to calculate what a viable payment rate could be for these plans. And note that Medicare Advantage plans differ from traditional Medicare in providing social supports and services that many people on the plan value — and that make a difference in outcomes, health engagement, and patient satisfaction.

For more on that topic, see the May 7 2019 JAMA article, The Implications of “Medicare for All” for US Hospitals, written by two physician-influencers from Stanford University School of Medicine,

Improving health equity and outcomes – addressing and learning from the example of maternal mortality.  The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among wealthy countries. Sen. Amy Klobuchar raised this point in the first debate. I bring it to this synthesis of the two nights because too much of the health reform discussion focused on insurance without attending to social determinants of health and the direct relationship between socioeconomic status and health outcomes.

Marianne Williamson spoke to this in the very few minutes she had to speak out during the debate, and I appreciated her alluding to the opportunity to bake health into all policies — environmental, agricultural, food and nutrition, et. al.

Assuring univeral health care in and of itself, whether via a M4A or public/private mix, doesn’t directly impact the many factors that shape a person’s health — those social determinants like education, clean water and air, job security, food/nutrition security, and safe neighborhoods with access to green spaces and walkability. Indeed, access to health care services is one component of the SDOH universe, but only one — impacting about 20% of health outcomes.

Finally…Where was the mass call-out for mental health as part of America’s public health?  The rise of deaths of despair in the U.S. have reversed improvements the nation has made in life expectancy. An article this month in Rolling Stone titled All-American Despair addresses the tragic losses of lives through peoples’ stories, from everyday men to the suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Robin Williams. The author, Stephjen Rodrick, took a 2,000-mile driving trip through the American West which, he hypothesized, was “a self-immolation center for middle-aged men.”

A key section of this investigative piece recounts: “For years, a comfortable excuse for the ascending suicide rate in the rural West was tied to the crushing impact of the Great Recession. But it still climbs on a decade later. ‘There was hope that OK, as the economy recovers, boy, it’s going to be nice to see that suicide rate go down,’? says Dr. Jane Pearson, a suicide expert at the National Institute of Mental Health….The impact of hard times can linger long after the stock market recovers. A sense of community can disintegrate in lean years, a deadly factor when it comes to men separating themselves from their friends and family and stepping alone into the darkness.”

Mental health is part of overall health, and extracts costs out of people living in the U.S. — financial costs in terms of productivity and job security and unemployment; health care costs in terms of depression and anxiety as co-morbidities coupled with chronic conditions and and acute illnesses; and finally, the loss of life described by Deaton and Case shown in this chart, along with those described by Rodrick in Rolling Stone.

Any Democrat running for President in 2020 knows that health care will drive voters to the polls the way it did in the 2018 midterm elections. Getting this right — listening to people, whether they’re rationing insulin, burying their sisters or daughters due to preventable maternal mortality, or sitting in their cars agonizing about whether to walk through the ER door with their sick child — will be key to resonating with American voters…who perhaps after the 2020 electon will emerge as health citizens.

The post Health Care and the Democratic Debates – Round 2 – Battle Royale for M4All vs Medicare for All Who Want It – What It Means for Industry appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Health Care and the Democratic Debates – Round 2 – Battle Royale for M4All vs Medicare for All Who Want It – What It Means for Industry posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

[hwcampus]

New Post has been published on Online Professional Homework Help

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SPE 226 Full Class

SPE 226 Full Class

SPE 226 Educating the Exceptional Learner 

  SPE 226 Full Course

  SPE 226 Topic 1 DQ 1

  Explain the concept of special education. What is the impact of both cultural diversity and linguistic diversity on special education? Be sure to remember that students with linguistic diversity are not necessarily special education students.

  SPE 226 Topic 1 DQ 2

  Max Points: 5.0

  If you were to propose a reauthorization to IDEA, what changes would you propose regarding special education?

  SPE 226 Week 1 Assignment Attitude, Legislation, and Litigation

  Details:

Write an essay of 1,000-1,250 words in which you address the social implications of attitude, legislation, and litigation on the lives of students with disabilities. Include the following components in your essay:

Explain how thinking has changed regarding the understanding of students with disabilities. How has legislation and litigation influenced the education of students with disabilities?

There are many challenges facing educators, which include increasingly higher standards and teacher accountability for student performance. What do you predict will happen to students with disabilities in the current educational climate and special education in the future?

What was your initial response during your first personal encounter with an individual with a disability? Based on your current knowledge and experiences, how would your response be different now?

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. Be sure to use three scholarly sources to prepare your paper.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

    SPE 226 Week 1 Weekly Journal 1

  Details:

Write a reflection journal of 350-400 words that addresses the following questions:

What are the key points in the assigned textbook reading for this week?

Based upon your experience in education, how might you apply this content to a classroom and instruction?

While GCU format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to directions in the Student Success Center. Submit this assignment by the end of Week 1.

    SPE 226 Topic 2 DQ 1

  What are the challenges that special educators face in planning and providing special education services to students with disabilities? Which do you think are the most significant and why?

SPE 226 Topic 2 DQ 2

  What are existing support systems, services, or resources for parents and families of children with special needs? Focus on those of local, state, and federal government. Research privately run support systems and share those with the class. If you were the parent of a special needs child, what would draw you to any of these and why?

    SPE 226 Week 2 Assignment Collaborative Learning Community: Inclusion In-Service Presentation

  Details:

This is a CLC assignment. Your instructor will assign you to a CLC group.

Each CLC member should submit to the group a list of concerns a teacher might have about inclusion and a list of benefits for the inclusion of students with disabilities in the classroom.

Next, compare and contrast the two lists each member submitted, noting any similarities, differences, and themes. Some points to consider are:

What might be the reasons for the similarities and differences?

Are there any themes?

How might teachers alleviate their concerns about inclusion of students with disabilities in the classroom?

What are the benefits of inclusion?

What types of training programs could be created for regular education teachers in order to meet the learning needs of students with disabilities?

Finally, as a group, create a 10-15-slide PowerPoint presentation designed to be given at a teacher in-service, that could help alleviate teachers’ concerns about including students with disabilities in their classrooms. Emphasize the benefits of having these students in the classroom. Support your position with research.

Be sure to include speaker’s notes, detailing what would be said if actually giving the presentation.

While GCU style format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

  SPE 226 Week 2 Weekly Journal 2

  Details:

Write a reflection journal of 350-400 words that addresses the following questions:

What are the key points in the assigned textbook reading for this week?

Based upon your experience in education, how might you apply this content to a classroom and instruction?

While GCU format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid acadmic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Succcess Center

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to directions in the Student Success Center.

    SPE 226 Topic 3 DQ 1

  How would you explain the critical need for transitional services for students with disabilities? What are challenges associated with transitions for students with disabilities?

  SPE 226 Topic 3 DQ 2

  Early childhood special education services assist parents of infants and toddlers with special needs. In your opinion, what are the ways you can assist the parents and families to cope with the challenges? Support your opinion with research.

  SPE 226 Week 3 Assignment Lifelong Learning

  Details:

Write an essay of 1,000-1,250-words in which you discuss the following:

Diagnosis of developmental disabilities, early intervention priorities, educational programs, services for the young exceptional learner, and transitional programs and procedures for young students with disabilities.

Strengths and weaknesses in the assessments and interventions used in early childhood special education and suggestions for improvements

Transitional programs for young students with special needs and outcomes expected from these programs.

Prepare this assignment according to the GCU guidelines found in the GCUStyle Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

    SPE 226 Week 3 Weekly Journal 3

  Details:

Write a reflection journal of 350-400 words that addresses the following questions:

What are the key points in the assigned textbook reading(s) for this week?

Based upon your experience in education, how might you apply this content to a classroom and instruction?

While GCU format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to directions in the Student Success Center.

  SPE 226 Topic 4 DQ 1

  TASH supports total inclusion of regular students with students with severe and multiple disabilities. How do you respond to this statement? Support your response with evidence.

  SPE 226 Topic 4 DQ 2

  Why are intelligence and adaptive behavior used to measure intellectual disability? What other measure would you prefer to use and why?

    SPE 226 Week 4 Assignment Educating Special Needs Students

  Details:

Write an essay of 1,000-1,250 words in which you address the following:

Define intellectual disability, autism, and multiple disabilities, their causes, and the impact of the disabilities on the education of the student with intellectual disability.

Identify areas of curriculum necessary for students with mild to moderate disabilities and explain why they are needed.

Prepare this assignment according to the GCU guidelines found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

    SPE 226 Weekly Journal 4

  Details:

Write a reflection journal of 350-400 words that addresses the following questions:

What are the key points in the assigned textbook reading for this week?

Based upon your experience in education, how might you apply this content to a classroom and instruction?

GCU format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to directions in the Student Success Center.

    SPE 226 Topic 5 DQ 1

  What is the difference between a communication disorder and a learning disability? Why do many children with learning disabilities also have communication or language disorders?

  SPE 226 Topic 5 DQ 2

  Max Points: 5.0

  In your opinion, what are the key characteristics of learning disabilities? Do individuals with learning disabilities have low IQs? Support your response with research.

    SPE 226 Week 5  Learning Disability Communication Disorder Chart

  Details:

Create a “Definition Chart” that defines learning disabilities and communication disorders, identifies characteristics and causes, and describes, with examples, effective teaching strategies and placement options.

GCU format is not required, but solid academic writing is expected.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

  SPE 226 Weekly Journal 5

  Details:

Write a reflection journal of 350-400 words that addresses the following questions:

What are the key points in the assigned textbook reading for this week?

Based upon your experience in education, how might you apply this content to a classroom and instruction?

While GCU format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and refernces should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to directions in the Student Success Center

    SPE 226 Topic 6 DQ 1

  What questions do you still have regarding special education?

  SPE 226 Topic 6 DQ 2

  How important are support systems for students with disabilities? How important are they for the special education teachers? What did you learn about support systems in this class that you will apply to your work environment?

  SPE 226 Week 6 Assignment Benchmark- Teaching for Exceptionalities

  Details:

General Practicum information:

Students’ practicum experiences should follow the practicum experience requirements, including the diversity and hour requirements for this course.

  Benchmark Assessment:

Contact a school, identify yourself as a GCU student, and request an opportunity to observe and participate in two different educational settings/grade levels that serve students with mild to moderate disabilities. Legally, you may not ask what the student’s disability is and you may not look at the IEP without parental permission. Of the total 15 hours required schedule to spend a minimum of 5 hours with the student during this practicum experience in one of the educational settings.

  Spend a total of 15 hours, approximately 7.5 hours in two different grade levels. Each setting needs to serve students with mild to moderate disabilities.

  During your initial observations of the student, take note of which modalities are strongest for the student (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc.). Also, note the curricular areas in which the student exhibits strengths and weaknesses.

  Obtain a lesson plan that has been written by the teacher in a curricular area that is a challenge for the student (math, writing, reading, science, etc.). Make a copy of this lesson to submit with the Benchmark Assessment. Review the learning objective, activity/assignment description, and assessment (where applicable).

  Write an Accommodation/Lesson Plan based on your observations and inclusive of the following. Ensure that you review the plan with the mentor teacher(s).

A brief description of the targeted student with a disability: (a) Age and grade level of student, (b) Areas of academic strengths/weaknesses, (c) Student’s preferred modalities of learning.

A learning objective that would be more appropriate for the targeted student with disabilities.

An activity/assignment that would match this objective and would be appropriate for the student based on his or her cognitive level.

An assessment for this activity that would be appropriate for the targeted student; consider and describe technologies and other instructional supports that would enhance the learning for this student.

Implement the modified lesson with the targeted student. Seek the mentor teacher’s feedback on your teaching.

Write a 1000-1250-word Reflective Analysis.

Consider the following. Ensure your responses are inherent in the essay, not simply short answers to these questions:

Which accommodations and modifications were successful?

If you taught this lesson again, would you do it the same/different? Explain.

What other accommodations/modifications might the student’s regular education classroom teacher make?

What other accommodations/modifications might the student’s special education classroom teacher make?

What other accommodations/modifications might related service specialists make (where applicable)?

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

Ask the classroom teacher to complete the Classroom Teacher Evaluation Form. Include it, the classroom teacher’s lesson plan, your Accommodation/Lesson Plan, and your Reflective Analysis as the Benchmark Assessment submission to the instructor.

  Submit your benchmark assignment and Field Experience activity log to Taskstream. Directions for submitting to Taskstream can be found on the College of Education site in the Student Success Center.

    SPE 226 Weekly Journal 6

  Details:

Write a reflection journal of 350-400 words that addresses the following questions:

What are the key points in the assigned textbook reading for this week?

Based upon your experience in education, how might you apply this content to a classroom and instruction?

While GCU format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to directions in the Student Success Center.

    SPE 226 Topic 7 DQ 1

  Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) is a popular topic in special education literature. What is FBA and how does it assist with behavioral challenges?

    SPE 226 Topic 7 DQ 2

  What does a teacher need to consider in the instructional planning for students with physical and/or health impairments, and traumatic brain injury? Why are these considerations important? What difference does specialized instructional planning make for students with these issues?

    SPE 226 Week 7 Assignment Emotional, Behavioral, and Physical Disabilities

  Details:

Write an essay of 1,000-1,250 words in which you address the education of students with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities, health impairments, and traumatic brain injury. Include the following:

Describe and give examples of effective research-based teaching strategies in Math and English Language Arts for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical and health impairments, and traumatic brain injury.

Describe what you can do to nurture the self-esteem and self-determination, and enhance the self-advocacy skills, of students with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical and health impairments, and traumatic brain injury.

Describe what can be done to help regular students understand, respect, and respond appropriately to students with disabilities in a class.

Include a summary of ONE of the following topics in your essay:

Investigate the policies, procedures, and programs for the education of students with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities, other health impairments, and traumatic brain injury in Math and English Language Arts for your local school district. Describe how those procedures are implemented with individual students at a local school.

Attend an IEP meeting of a student with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities, other health impairments, or traumatic brain injury, or discuss an IEP meeting for one of these students with a member of an IEP team.  NOTE: You must obtain written parental permission before attending the IEP meeting.

Visit, observe, and participate in inclusionary and/or special classrooms serving students with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities, other health impairments, and traumatic brain injury. Discuss behavior modifications and/or academic modifications in Math and English Language Arts that you observed in each setting.

Prepare this assignment according to the GCU guidelines found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

    SPE 226 Weekly Journal 7

  Details:

Write a reflection journal of 350-400 words that addresses the following questions:

What are the key points in the assigned textbook reading for this week?

Based upon your experience in education, how might you apply this content to a classroom and instruction?

While GCU format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to directions in the Student Success Center.

[naimanora-blog]

Succcess is defined in the in the dictionary in so many different ways, when you google the definition of success right now the first definition you will get is this: "Suc·cess səkˈses/ noun the accomplishment of an aim or purpose."
So keeping this definition in mind, what's your your aim/purpose in life? what is the kind of success you want? Did you start your journey towards your success? How are you going about the whole process towards your success? #successispraying #stayawayfromharamthings #obeyallahandhismessenger #begoodtoyourparents #neverlosehumanity #stayhumble #makedua #readthequran #nevergiveup #striveforknowledge