Tom Hehir: A Champion for the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities

We at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) mourn the loss and celebrate the extraordinary life and contribution of Tom Hehir, Ed.D. Throughout his decades-long career in special education, from special educator in Massachusetts, to director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), and faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Tom was a tireless advocate for children with disabilities and their families.

Tom was relentless in his pursuit for equity and inclusion of children with disabilities. He shaped the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1997 that required students with disabilities to have access to the general education curriculum. He demanded that our nation increase its expectations for the academic performance of students with disabilities and that all students could benefit and be successful by learning the same material as their non-disabled peers. In addition, Tom produced research that changed our understanding of how to identify and support children with disabilities. His work has changed for the better the life trajectory for children with disabilities, including children of color with disabilities and those from low-income backgrounds.

While Tom was an intellectual giant in the special education policy [...]

Read article at sites.ed.gov

Article Taxonomies

Categories:
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /home/webable/www/www/wp-content/themes/webable/content-mcm.php:65 Stack trace: #0 /home/webable/www/www/wp-includes/template.php(792): require() #1 /home/webable/www/www/wp-includes/template.php(725): load_template('/home/webable/w...', false, Array) #2 /home/webable/www/www/wp-includes/general-template.php(206): locate_template(Array, true, false, Array) #3 /home/webable/www/www/wp-content/themes/webable/single-mcm_article.php(15): get_template_part('content-mcm') #4 /home/webable/www/www/wp-includes/template-loader.php(106): include('/home/webable/w...') #5 /home/webable/www/www/wp-blog-header.php(19): require_once('/home/webable/w...') #6 /home/webable/www/www/index.php(17): require('/home/webable/w...') #7 {main} thrown in /home/webable/www/www/wp-content/themes/webable/content-mcm.php on line 65