Abstract
The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) has launched a Policy Steering Committee.
Public policy and advocacy have long been at the core of CEC’s mission as a professional association. The Policy Steering Committee, in conjunction with CEC’s senior policy and advocacy advisors and senior staff, will support the objectives in CEC’s Strategic Plan to strengthen CEC’s advocacy and public policy issues management process, reestablish CEC’s presence before Congress and relevant federal agencies, and improve grassroots initiatives on behalf of its members.
The committee’s specific purposes are to:
Develop recommendations for consideration by the CEC Board of Directors with regard to special education legislative and regulatory issues at the national, state and local levels.
Assist CEC’s Board and policy staff in developing policy and position statements in a timely manner.
Monitor and advance issues related to the practice of special education.
Support CEC government relations staff/advisors.
Duties of the committee include:
Develop and maintain a multiyear public policy agenda to be endorsed by the CEC Board of Directors to guide the creation and implementation of an annual set of goals.
Develop a specific list of advocacy issues for each upcoming year.
Maintain communication with CEC units, divisions and members to maximize input and support from the field.
Recommend issues to CEC staff requiring information and actions by members and collaborate with CEC staff to create informational materials such as issue briefs, policy statements and analyses.
Actively monitor public policy issues affecting special education, offer policy recommendations to the Board of Directors, and collaborate with units, divisions and the board to promote the CEC public policy agenda.
Develop an issue prioritization process reflecting a tiered structure of action and response.
Develop a clear metric for measuring the effect of action on legislative and regulatory outcomes.
The Policy Steering Committee Chair is CEC Past President Margaret J. McLaughlin, Ph.D. She is a professor in special education at the College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park. She holds degrees from the University of Denver, University of Northern Colorado and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Her area of scholarship is K-12 policies and children with disabilities.
She currently directs a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) for school system leaders that is grounded in improvement sciences and school improvement and is offered to cohorts of local school system administrators in Maryland. The program trains personnel to assume key leadership roles in the public and private schools and become policy advocates for children and youth.
McLaughlin’s research includes investigation of the impact of education reform in students with disabilities and special education programs. She has published extensively on issues related to curriculum access, standards, high stakes assessment and the inclusion of students with disabilities.
She also taught learning disabled and emotionally disturbed/autistic children and youth.
Members of the Public Policy Steering Committee had not yet been named as of press time.