IDEA REAUTH0RIZATI0N PASSES SENATE HELP COMMITTEE (S 1248).
On June 12, Senators Gregg and Kennedy introduced the bipartisan
Senate bill reauthorizing IDEA, S 1248. After a week of comments,
the bill was revised and passed without amendment by unanimous vote
of the HELP committee June 25. The provision for SLD eligibility
is identical in both the Senate and the House bills. More
below…
REALIZING THE SPIRIT OF IDEA (HR 1576). On April 2, Representative
Pete Stark reintroduced the Realizing the Spirit of IDEA Act. The
bill would not only to increase funding for IDEA but also to provide
bonus payments to States that provide special education and other
educational services for children with disabilities.
THE CHILD MEDICATION SAFETY ACT OF 2003 (HR 1170). On May
21, the full House passed The Child Medication Safety Act of 2003
(HR 1170), which would require every state to develop and implement
policies and procedures prohibiting school personnel from requiring
a child to take medication as a condition of attending school or
receiving school services. States that take no action will lose
federal education funding. An amendment clarified that educators
are not prohibited from discussing their concerns with parents.
THE SCHOOL READINESS ACT OF 2003 (HR 2210) (HEAD START).
On June 12, the Subcommittee on Education Reform of the House Education
and the Workforce Committee passed their bill to reauthorize the
Head Start Program. Head Start would remain at the Department of
Health and Human Services. The original proposal to set up a demonstration
program to allow states to include Head Start and early childhood
education programs in a block grant was modified to limit the demonstration
programs to eight states. More below…
FEDERAL FUNDING UPDATE. On June 19, the House Labor, Health
and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee approved
a spending bill that would provide $55.4 billion for the U.S. Department
of Education in fiscal 2004. The 4.3 percent increase is the smallest
percentage increase for education spending in eight years and is
$700 million below the amount promised in the Congressional budget
resolution. More below…
CONGRESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
IDEA REAUTH0RIZATI0N PASSES HELP COMMITTEE
(S 1248)
At long last, on June 12, the Senators Judd Gregg and Ted Kennedy
introduced the bipartisan Senate version of the reauthorization
of IDEA, S 1248. After allowing a week for receiving comments
the bill was revised and passed without amendments by the unanimous
vote 0f the full HELP committee on June 25. The provision
for SLD eligibility is identical in both the Senate and the House
bills. A comparison of the House and Senate bills follows.
Similarities
- No longer requires local education agencies to use a severe
discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability to determine
eligibility for services under Specific Learning Disabilities
SLD). Failure to respond to research-based intervention
may be used in the process for determining SLD.
- Eliminates the requirements that IEPs must include benchmarks
and short-term objectives but requires a description of how progress
is measured, including quarterly reports to parents.
- Allows local education agencies to use up to 15% of IDEA funds
to help students not yet identified with disabilities but who
require additional academic and behavioral support to succeed
in a general education environment.
- Allows parents and schools to agree to make changes to an IEP
during the year without having to reconvene an entire IEP meeting
- Allows parents and schools to agree that a student reevaluation
is unnecessary, especially when the student is finishing high
school.
- Requires that hearing officers make decisions based upon substantive
grounds--not on technical errors that have no effect on the child's
education
- Requires complaints of either the school or parents to be clear
and specific before going to a due process hearing.
- Changes the number of times that procedural safeguards notices
must be sent out to parents to no more than once per year, unless
the parent registers a complaint or requests a copy.
- Allows parents of a child served under Part C to keep the same
service providers -- public or private -- for their child until
the child reaches school-age.
Differences
- Allows personnel who are excused from IEP meetings by the parent
and school to participate by submitting input prior to the meeting.(The
House bill just allows personnel to be excused from the IEP meeting
- Ensures that the IEP contains positive behavioral interventions
and supports for a child whose behavior impedes the child's learning,
or that of others. ·
- Requires schools to consider whether a child's behavior was
the result of their disability when considering disciplinary action.
(The House bill does not address the possible relationship of
disability to behavior.
- Notifies parents when disciplinary action is being considered.
- Limits the three year IEP to students aged 18-21 (The House
bill allows three year IEP’s that coincide with natural
school transitions.)
- Establishes a two-year statute of limitations for filing a
complaint and a 90-day limit for filing appeals to a court, unless
State law provides for alternative time frames. (The House bill
has a one year statute of limitation.)
Provisions in S 1248 Alone
- Requires that transition services begin at age 14, rather than
the current age 16.
- Facilitates transition to post-secondary activities with exit
evaluations based on recommendations developed to meet the child’s
post-secondary goals.
- Promotes the involvement of the State vocational rehabilitation
system while students with disabilities are still in secondary
school.
- Clarifies that special education teachers who teach elementary
material in either elementary or secondary schools or act as consultants
but do no direct instruction must be certified in special education
rather than in every subject they teach.
- Extends the timeframe for special education teachers to be highly
qualified to the end of the 2006-07 school year.
- Prohibits parents from suing school districts if a teacher fails
to meet the highly qualified standards mandated in the bill and
in No Child Left Behind, unless the parent can prove the child
was denied FAPE
- Provides for the establishment of risk pool fund to help local
education agencies meet the needs of high cost children and unanticipated
enrollment.
No date has been set for floor vote on the bill. P0ssible
amendments include the Harkin- Hagel proposal for full funding of
IDEA, and the Clinton-Alexander proposal to study the environmental
causes of developmental disabilities. Senator Mikulski expressed
concern about using IDEA funds for non special education activities.
A voucher amendment is also expected.
LDA will be urging Senators to support an amendment to Section
614(b)(6) which would require a cognitive measure to determine if
the child has the ability to achieve at least commensurate with
his/her age.
REALIZING THE SPIRIT OF IDEA ACT (HR 1576)
On April 2, Representative Pete Stark reintroduced the Realizing
the Spirit of IDEA Act The bill would not only to increase funding
for IDEA but also to provide bonus payments to States that provide
special education and other educational services for children with
disabilities,
THE CHILD MEDICATION SAFETY ACT OF 2003 (HR 1170)
On May 21, the full House passed The Child Medication Safety Act
of 2003 (HR 1170), which would require every state to develop and
implement policies and procedures prohibiting school personnel from
requiring a child to take medication as a condition of attending
school or receiving school services. States that take no action
will lose federal education funding. An amendment clarified that
educators are not prohibited from discussing their concerns with
parents.
THE SCHOOL READINESS ACT OF 2003 ( HR
2210) (HEAD START)
On June 12, the Subcommittee on Education Reform of the House Education
and the Workforce Committee passed their bill to reauthorize the
Head Start Program. The bill emphasizes cognitive development and
the results of scientifically-based research in areas critical to
children’s school readiness (including language, pre-reading,
pre-mathematics, and English language acquisition) and requires
all new Head Start teachers to have at least an associates degree
in early childhood education or a related field within three years.
By 2008, 50 percent of Head Start teachers nationwide must
have at least a bachelors degree. Current health and nutrition services
for Head Start children would continue and Head Start would remain
at the Department of Health and Human Services. The original proposal
to set up a demonstration program to allow states to include Head
Start and early childhood education programs in a block grant was
modified to limit the demonstration programs to eight states.
THE READY TO TEACH ACT (HR 2211)
On May 22, the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness of
the House Education and the Workforce Committee introduced the Ready
to Teach Act (H.R. 2211), the first in what will be a series of
bills to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA). “The
Ready to Teach Act aligns teacher training programs under HEA with
the definitions and provisions for highly qualified teachers in
the No Child Left Behind Act, coordinating activities under the
two Acts and bringing the accountability found in NCLB into teacher
training programs. Reforms included in the legislation would infuse
new quality and accountability measures into the grants administered
for teacher training programs, and provide innovative approaches
that would improve the teaching workforce so critical to the success
of K-12 education reform.”
FEDERAL FUNDING UPDATE
On June 19, the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education
Appropriations Subcommittee approved a spending bill that would
provide $55.4 billion for the U.S. Department of Education in fiscal
2004. The 4.3 percent increase is the smallest percentage increase
for education spending in eight years and is $700 million below
the amount promised in the congressional budget resolution. Nonetheless,
Special Education grants (IDEA) were increased by $1 billion, Reading
First and Early Reading First grants to states were increased to
$1.15 billion, and Head Start funding was boosted by $148
million.
The bill restored funding to three programs that were cut dramatically
by the President’s budget—the Smaller Learning Communities
program, 21st Century Learning Communities, and vocational education.
The Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations
Subcommittee marked up its bill on June 26. Because the spending
ceiling for the Senate’s Labor-HHS-Education appropriations
bill is $445 million below the House ceiling, the Senate totals
for education are lower than the levels reported out of the House
subcommittee. Most of the action on the Senate appropriations bill,
which probably will not occur for several weeks, is likely to take
place on the Senate floor in the form of amendments to increase
funding.
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
THE OSEP.NASDSE/PTI CONFERENCE
On May 28 and 29 Justine Maloney and LDA Consultant Myrna Mandlawitz
attended the annual OSEP/NASDSE/PTI Conference. Details of that
conference can be found at www.dscc.org/frc
under Conferences.
The PowerPoint of the presentation of Louisa Moats on “Focusing
on Improving Reading Results for Children with Disabilities”
can be downloaded from http://www.federalresourcecenter.org/frc/lead2003/materials.htm
At the session on “Improving Results for Students with Learning
Disabilities”, Douglas Carnine, Professor and Director of
the National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators, UOR, attacked
the IQ discrepancy formula as a wait to fail mode; Lana Michelson
described the IOWA early intervention model; Judy Eliot described
the Long Beach, CA Student Success Team Program; and Doug
Fuchs described the mission of the newly formed OSEP-funded National
Research Center on Learning Disabilities.
OSEP Director Stephanie Lee presented an overview of No Child Left
Behind and Children with Disabilities. A power point comparison
of the requirements of NCLB and IDEA can be downloaded from
the OSEP web site. She later moderated a panel of Department of
Education Policy Experts on NCLB and IDEA. NCLB’s prohibition
against using out of level testing was seen as a problem, although
one panelist pointed out that school district’s can still
do out of level testing for their own use.
Annie White and Connie Garner of the Senate Health, Education Labor,
and Pensions Committee and David Cleary and Alex Nock of the House
Committee on Education and the Workforce gave updates on the IDEA
legislation and graciously listened to questions from conference
participants.
THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SEEKS INPUT FOR A NEW NATIONAL EDUCATION
TECHNOLOGY PLAN
The No Child Left Behind Act charges the secretary of education
with developing the nation's third National Education Technology
Plan. Individuals and organizations are being asked to identify
and communicate to the Department of Education their top issues,
priorities, concerns, and barriers that need to be addressed for
technology to improve teaching and learning in the 21st century.
Interested parties can give their input by visiting the National
Education Technology Plan's Web site at http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/,
and clicking on the "Participate in the Plan" link.
MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS WORKING GROUP ON SECONDARY
EDUCATION AND TRANSITION
On May 19, Justine Maloney attended a meeting of Working Group
cosponsored by NASDSE and the NCSET (National Center on Secondary
Education and Transition).
THE SCHOOL PESTICIDE REFORM COALITION AND BEYOND PESTICIDES
issued a guide for “Safer Schools: Achieving a Healthy Learning
Environment Through Integrated Pest Management"(www.beyondpesticides.org/schools).
The guide lists strategies schools may use to decrease pesticide
use while implementing more effective pest management strategies.
LDA News from Washington is a monthly publication
of the Learning Disabilities Association of America written by Justine
Maloney; Jane Browning, editor. Available by mail free to members
of LDA upon request.
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