Miriam Freedman has been an attorney at the Boston law firm of Stoneman, Chandler and Miller LLP since 1988, representing public schools in special education, Section 504, and school law.
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Freedman is a co-founder of Special Education Day and the Special Education Day Committee (SPEDCO) to honor special education’s achievements and spur reform. Previously, Freedman was a Massachusetts hearing officer for eight years and a public school teacher in California, New Jersey, and New York. She has written six books in the education and law fields—most recently, Fixing Special Education—12 Steps to Transform a Broken System. Her articles have appeared in EducationWeek, Education Next, Hoover Digest, and elsewhere; she also writes on her personal site. Freedman received her law degree from New York University, her master's in history from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and bachelor of arts from Barnard College. Since 2004, she has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University.
Today's mandates for special-needs students set schools up for lawsuits, conflict with No Child Left Behind requirements, and waste taxpayers' money. Here are some alternatives.