[Source:  Education Week]

2013 was a tough time to eke out any news on special education at the federal level. Sure, there were the effects of the sequester cuts (and the prospect that those cuts may soon be alleviated), but Washington was not where special educators were looking in the past 12 months.
Instead, they were intensely interested in any news relating to the Common Core State Standards, judging by a look at the most-read blog entries for On Special Educaton Blog in 2013. A post noting that the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, one of the test-writing consortia, was seeking comment on proposed accommodations drew high readership, as did follow-up blog posts noting that PARCC had released a proposed accommodations and accessibility manual for students with disabilities, and that the organization adopted a final version of the manual in June.
A post on PowerUp WHAT WORKS, a federally-funded collaboration that offers common-core themed lesson plans for special education teachers, also drew attention, as did an entry oncommon-core resources compiled by PARCC.
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