Guest column by Charles Seaton, Jr., a special education teacher at Sherwood Middle School in Memphis, from The Commercial Appeal.
Earlier this month I flew to Washington, D.C., to represent my Sherwood Middle School students at a hearing of a U.S. Senate committee. After years of delay, Congress is considering the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law; what the lawmakers decide could change my students' lives for better or worse.
I am a special education teacher in the Orange Mound community. This is a community that is over 88 percent African-American, with a median annual income of $21,802. Almost all of the students at Sherwood -- 97.6 percent -- receive free or reduced-price lunches. My students have a range of disabilities, from attention deficit disorder to autism, as well as many talents. (One student struggles to make friends, but can build amazing things with gears and wires.)
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