Open Society

Many states report school performance grades as a way to inform the public about school quality. However, past research has shown that when these grades drew largely on proficiency-based measures, they served to capture variation in school and community demographics rather than school quality.

Drawing on school accountability grades from Florida combined with school and community demographic data, we find that more than half the variation in multidimensional measures of school quality can be explained by observable school- and county-level factors outside the school’s locus of control. Together, our findings show that even school grades that draw on multiple measures misattribute the contribution of demographics and socioeconomics to school quality—but subcomponents based on learning gains perform better than those based on proficiency. We conclude with policy implications and recommend that states focus public reporting on school quality measures that driven less by out-of-school factors and more by the school’s true contribution to student outcomes.

You may notice that the needs have been depicted here as a wheel or a spectrum, and not as a hierarchy, as is common with needs following Maslow’s famous theory. As a result, it is depicted as such because all human beings experience all of these needs to differing degrees at all times. The intensity of these needs differs from person to person due to their own personal neurology, and from moment to moment as situations change and as needs are left more or less met. My preferred way to represent this in the Wilding theory, is to show a spectrum of needs where complex balances occur. This is regularly depicted as a wheel. Having said this. it is true to some extent that a hierarchy can play a role in how we prioritise behaviours that seek to address imbalances. When trying to regulate in a given moment, we are more likely to prioritise some needs over others initially. However, there are many occasions when the hierarchy just doesn’t represent the complexity of human behaviour and so is not helpful. Both depictions can be useful.

Autonomy Our brains are wired in such a way that we have a deep sense of self that is unique. This drives us to seek out autonomy. Our need for autonomy includes the need to: Have personal freedom, and therefore make our own choices. Be self directed, including being able to acting for ourselves. Express a distinct personality that gives us a sense of individuality. Have our own ideas, and to hold our own personal values.

Human beings are a nervous system (including a brain), being carried around by a body that allows us to interact with the world. So essentially, we are brains that behave through our body. Behaviour is initiated or inhibited in the brain in order to meet the needs of that system. Neurological = brain and nervous system Psychological = behaviour

Humans are complex, and our brains are unique in many ways. In order to look at human needs and behaviour holistically, we must look at all five systems that directly influence our behaviour. These are interdependent. They interact with each other consistently: Physical regulation (body) Cognitive regulation (mind) Sensory regulation (sensation) Emotional regulation (feelings) Psychological regulation (drivers of behaviour) Needs for things such as nutrition, hydration, temperature etc. Our need to be able to think clearly, and make choices. The need to feel comfortable in our environment and within our own body. Our need to experience emotion, but not feel overwhelmed by it. The regulation of our behaviour requires that the above elements are regulated as well as the drivers mentioned below. These are the broad categories that explain what our brain is wired to make us do beyond the regulation of the above.

When we consider our most basic human systems, we can notice a pattern that nothing remains static. No aspect of being human (and no aspect of nature in fact) is still. That is to say, everything operates most effectively when it fluctuates between states, and this is easy to observe in considering our physical needs. We need enough nutrition but not too much. Our breathing rate needs to change and adapt in different circumstances and then re-balance into a usual rhythm. Moreover, I could describe every element of our basic needs this way. When you look further into each of the areas described above, this pattern is still present. We need sensory input, but not too much. Our emotions are essential, but we need to feel them without being overwhelmed. We need to be able to take in new information but if we take it too far, we will need a lot of rest. This realisation let me to my first breakthrough. Fundamentally, humans need regulation. All of our behaviour is driven by us seeking relative balance depending on our own personal neurology, and our current circumstances. We, as humans, function best when we are wholly well regulated, in the five broad areas above.

To be psychologically regulated means to be acting to support the wiring of our brains. Our behaviour is driven by all of the above aspects, so we act to keep ourselves physically, sensorily, cognitively and emotionally regulated. Those aspects impact our psychological regulation (shown on the wheel in red). Further to this, there are six drivers of behaviour that our brains are wired for.  These are: Protection Predictability Connection Recognition Autonomy Novelty

I would like to ask for non-autistic people to start actually helping. I know we have allies, but we don’t just need allies. We need outspoken allies. We need a buffer to the trauma. We need a break.

I’m tired. We’re tired. Something has got to give so autistic people can get some rest when fighting for justice.  Consider 30 minutes a week of activism, or speaking up and platforming autistic voices, if your livelihood is benefited by autistic lives. Because current and future autistic lives are on the line, whether you feel that way or not.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?  I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. . . . I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies.  The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism a sham, your humanity a base pretense, and your Christianity a lie.  It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home.  It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth.  It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union.  It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes.  Oh!  Be warned!  Be warned!  A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! . . .

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is an entirely new diagnosis in the DSM-5. ARFID replaces "feeding disorder of infancy or early childhood," which was a diagnosis in the DSM-IV restricted to children 6 years of age or younger; ARFID has no such age limitations and it is distinct from anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in that there is no body image disturbance.

Life is an ecological process. This is the case for all living organisms. In a healthy habitat, organisms experience life as being part of an ecology of care. This is the case irrespective of the scale of the organism.