Examining Outdated and Inequitable Special Education Funding Formulas

“A focus of my recent work is federal and state funding for special education programs, which is essential to how we pay for services and support for students with disabilities in schools,” says Dr. Tammy Kolbe about her research examining outdated funding formulas.

Kolbe's team analyzed the Individuals with Disabilities (IDEA) Act, legislation that ensures students with disabilities are provided education tailored to their needs. A recently published article in Brookings highlights the research team's Case for Reconsidering Federal Special Education Funding Formulas.

Their paper, “Unequal & Increasingly Unfair: How Federal Policy Creates Disparities in Special Education Funding,” found that, on average, states with proportionally larger populations of children and children living in poverty, children identified for special education, and non-White and Black children receive fewer federal dollars, both per pupil and per student receiving special education.

"Beyond my interpersonal connections, UVM HESA and The Vermont Connection have strong national and international reputations; graduates who are doing field-altering, meaningful work; and a strong commitment to equity and justice,” says Dr. Brittany (Brit) M. Williams about what influenced her decision to join the Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration program.

As a 2022 National Academy of Education (NAEd)/ Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, Williams studies Black college women and HIV/AIDS. Her advocacy work has appeared across the national stage in AIDS United, National Public Radio, Teach for America, the National Black Women’s Health Imperative, and the National Minority Aids Council.

Williams' research provides insights and offers solutions for predominately white institutions to attract, recruit and retain students, faculty and staff of color.

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Social Work Professor Leads Research on Prevention and Treatment of Substance Use Disorders

The Department of Social Work is pleased to welcome new full-time faculty member Dr. Jen Putney,  whose expertise centers around two separate but related strains. “The first is the behavioral health risks and resilience among people of diverse sexualities and gender identities,” she explains, “and the second is substance use disorder prevention and treatment.”

Putney has received $5 million in external grant funding for her research. She currently serves as the Principal Investigator on the Simmons Opioid Workforce Expansion Project (OWEP) funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

Her teaching practice prepares social work students o provide harm reduction services for people with substance use disorders. Given the opioid crisis, her aim is to help students develop the critical knowledge and skills for this important work, and in turn, increase access to care.

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Two prominent scholars will enhance the nationally accredited Counseling program's teaching, research, and service collaborations striving to improve the health and wellbeing of communities throughout Vermont. 

Dr. Aishwarya Joshi's expertise includes trauma-informed counseling practices, interdisciplinary integration of mental health services in public policies, and the globalization of the field of counseling and counselor education. 

Dr. Nancy Thacker Darrow specializes in grief and loss, LGBTQ+ persons’ mental health and development issues, affirming counseling methods, and equity practices in counseling and higher education.

"What piqued my interest and decision to join UVM was the Counseling program’s interdisciplinary approach to mental health education and its participatory action research initiatives supporting mental health access to diverse and marginalized populations in Vermont," Joshi says.

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“There needs to be a shift where autistic youth and adults guide how to best support them in being healthy and full members of society," says Liliane Savard, co-chair of the UVM Autism Collaborative. "Vermont will be a healthier community for all when we embrace diverse ways of being and thinking in addressing our societal challenges.”

The UVM Autism Collaborative is a joint project of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, UVM Center on Disability and Community Inclusion (CDCI) in the College of Education and Social Services, and the University of Vermont Medical Center.

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Engaging Teachers in Critical Zone Science Research

Through UVM’s Critical Zone Academy CREST Program, educators participated in hand-on investigations about the Lake Champlain watershed alongside UVM faculty researchers, graduate students, teacher educators, and local experts. They also received guidance for integrating place-based education practices into a project to be implemented in their school classrooms during the academic year.

The program is the outcome of new a collaboration between the federally funded GEAR-UP Champlain Research for Secondary Teachers (CREST) Program and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Critical Zone (CZ) Big Data Cluster Project at the University of Vermont. 

“They showed us specific ways we could engage students in authentic science," said Brian Varga, who teaches an Integrated Science class and AP Biology. "I could easily see students at my school sampling soil for lead or monitoring stream quality in the places they live just like we did during CREST."

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Read the full SAGE Journals article.

Agents of Change in Education

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