HR 1350 to be Considered

HR 1350 to be Considered Next Week

H.R. 1350 to be Considered Next Week

CEC Issues Letters on Transition, Children with Learning Disabilities

Hagel and Harkin to Introduce IDEA Full Funding Bill

H.R. 1350 TO BE CONSIDERED NEXT WEEK!

As expected, the full House will be marking up H.R. 1350, the House bill to reauthorize IDEA, next Wednesday, April 30th.

Nationwide Call-in Day: Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Because of the many damaging provisions in the bill, CEC is joining with other education, disability, and parent groups to call for a national "call-in" day in protest of this bill on Tuesday, April 29th.

ACTION TO TAKE - Even if you've already sent a letter to your Representative on IDEA, you need to send another one on or before April 29th!

1. On April 29th, call your Representative and tell him/her to "Oppose H.R. 1350 Because It's a Bad I.D.E.A." You can find your Representative's telephone number through CEC's Legislative Action Center (LAC). Just go to http://capwiz.com/cek/dbq/officials/ and enter your zip code. You'll be taken to your Representative's information page.
2. E-mail and FAX a letter to your Representative urging him/her to "Oppose H.R. 1350 Because It's a Bad I.D.E.A." You can e-mail your letter from CEC's Legislative Action Center at http://capwiz.com/cek/issues/alert/?alertid=1769041. Simply enter in your zip code, and you'll be able to personalize a letter to send to your member of Congress. You can also print out this letter and FAX it to your Representative. You'll find his/her FAX number by going to http://capwiz.com/cek/dbq/officials/ and entering your zip code. You'll be taken to your Representative's information page.
3. Visit with your Representative this week, while he/she is home during Congress' spring break. The message will be the same: "Oppose H.R. 1350 Because It's a Bad I.D.E.A."
4. Tell all of your colleagues and fellow CEC members to contact their Representatives too. Everyone needs to tell their House members to oppose the House bill to reauthorize IDEA.

CEC Issues Letters on Transition, Children with Learning Disabilities

As you all know, CEC works in collaboration with its many divisions and other units to formulate positions on a variety of issues. We often then send letters to members of Congress, the White House and the Bush Administration on those issues. The most recent examples of this include two letters pertaining to specific issues addressed in H.R. 1350, the House bill to reauthorize IDEA.

Transition Services. The first letter deals with the definition of transition services under IDEA. CEC, in collaboration with its Division on Career Development and Transition, has written a letter to Congress outlining our concerns that H.R. 1350 would change the definition of transition services, and requesting that the current definition as "outcome-oriented" should be maintained. The full text of the letter is below. Please send your own letter concerning transition issues to your Representative by clicking on: http://capwiz.com/cek/issues/alert/?alertid=1976106.

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Dear Representative,

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is the largest professional organization of teachers, administrators, parents, and others concerned with the education of children with disabilities, giftedness, or both. As a member of CEC, I join with members of CEC's Division on Career Development and Transition (DCDT) to express CEC/DCDT's views and my personal concern with HR 1350, a bill to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

I am especially concerned that H.R. 1350 would change the definition of transition services under IDEA. The current definition of transition services as "outcome-oriented" should be maintained. Narrowing the definition to emphasize "academic" or "developmental" results would significantly change the intent of the law.

The current definition of transition services and related provisions for designing Individual Education Programs (IEPs) were included in the 1990 reauthorization of IDEA in response to the poor postschool outcomes of many young people with disabilities. Since that time, the law has served to sharpen the focus on accountability for the achievement of youth with disabilities and provide a framework for implementing transition services. The current language provides a broader, research-supported vision of achievement that encompasses multiple postschool outcomes including postsecondary education, employment and community participation.

An overarching purpose of a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) for individuals with disabilities is to assist children and youth to achieve productive adult citizenship, including equality of opportunity in the community, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. To increase accountability for delivery and outcomes of FAPE, I urge you to strengthen the commitment to transition services by making the following changes to IDEA.

1. Require transition planning and services by 14 years of age, a natural transition point. Eliminate the confusing language about different requirements for age 16. Many students with disabilities who drop out do so before they reach age 16. Transition planning and services must be in place before students make the transition from middle to high school to ensure better outcomes for all youth with disabilities.

2. States should develop a system for collecting postschool outcome data on students' attainment of postsecondary employment and education as additional "high-stakes" assessment measures. A postschool outcome data collection system must include a formal feedback process to provide local systems with data to use in continuously improving education and transition services for all students.

Thank you for considering these recommendations. For further information about DCDT's principles for IDEA reauthorization and transition services please see
http://www.udel.edu/dcdt/reauthNov01.html If you have any additional questions about CEC's policy recommendations with regard to IDEA, you can contact Deborah Ziegler at debz@cec.sped.org or at 703-264-9406.

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Children with Learning Disabilities. The second letter deals with children with learning disabilities under IDEA. CEC, in collaboration with its Division on Learning Disabilities (DLD) has written a letter to Congress outlining our concerns that H.R. 1350 would radically change how children with learning disabilities are deemed eligible for special education programs and services under IDEA.

H.R. 1350 allows LEAs to use a process that determines if a child responds to scientific, research-based intervention as the determinant of whether a child has a specific learning disability. Further, under Sec. 614(b)(6)(A), it added language that states that LEAs are not required to take cognitive ability into consideration when determining whether a child has a specific learning disability.

The full text of the letter is below. Please send your own letter concerning children with learning disabilities to your Representative by clicking on: http://capwiz.com/cek/issues/alert/?alertid=1976136

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The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is the largest professional organization of teachers, administrators, parents, and others concerned with the education of children with disabilities, giftedness, or both. As a member of CEC, I am writing to express CEC's views and my personal concern with HR 1350, a bill to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and its proposals to radically change the way in which students with Learning Disabilities are deemed eligible for special education programs and services.

HR 1350, under Sec. 614(b)(6)(B), allows LEAs to use a process that determines if a child responds to scientific, research-based intervention as the determinant of whether a child has a specific learning disability. Further, under Sec. 614(b)(6)(A), it added language that states that LEAs are not required to take cognitive ability into consideration when determining whether a child has a specific learning disability. These proposals in HR 1350 raise very serious concerns.

We ask you to consider the following critical points:

1. The use of research-based interventions in early reading offers a real opportunity for more at risk students, including many with learning disabilities, to acquire needed beginning literacy skills. However, the use of scientific research-based intervention cannot determine whether a child is or is not learning disabled! Instead, students who do not display meaningful gains and who appear to be unresponsive to intervention are candidates for referral for special education evaluation.
2. Pre-referral processes (also known as response to intervention, problem-solving, etc.) show promise. However, insufficient data are available regarding the longer-term effects of these approaches upon student outcomes. CEC/DLD supports legislative language that advocates the adoption of pre-referral processes, coupled with the collection of large-scale data on specific models that show improved educational outcomes over time for at-risk children, including those with learning disabilities.
3. Use of an IQ/Achievement discrepancy formula for identification of students with learning disabilities is not mandated in IDEA-97, nor is use of any single criterion for eligibility permitted under IDEA-97. CEC/DLD agrees that the ability-achievement discrepancy formula should not be used as the sole criterion for determining eligibility, but the concept of discrepancy or intra-individual differences remains a hallmark of specific learning disabilities.

CEC/DLD supports the provision allowing LEAs to use other means of identifying students with learning disabilities, other than an IQ-achievement discrepancy formula. But there are no research-based alternatives that have been sufficiently validated at this time. CEC/DLD supports legislative language that permits use of measures of cognitive processing and academic achievement to document intra-individual differences and unexpected under-achievement and guide eligibility decisions. We also believe that IQ testing would still be used, particularly when questions of cognitive level or the possibility of mental retardation arise. CEC/DLD recommends that in the determination of eligibility for special education services, non-responsiveness to scientific research-based instruction should trigger a multi-disciplinary evaluation and should not, in itself, be considered an indication of a specific learning disability.

Thank you for considering my views. The millions of students with learning disabilities in our schools are depending on you. For almost 30 years, IDEA has steadily improved learning for students with learning disabilities by ensuring each an individualized, appropriate education. This reauthorization must retain current services and protections, while continuing to improve educational outcomes.

If you have any questions about CEC's policy recommendations with regard to serving children with learning disabilities under IDEA, you can contact Deborah Ziegler at debz@cec.sped.org or at 703-264-9406.

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Hagel and Harkin to Introduce IDEA Full Funding Bill

Senators Hagel and Harkin are going to be introducing their bill for mandatory full funding of IDEA next week. The bill will focus on full funding through an 8-year time line with a base of $8.9 billion remaining discretionary, and the increases of approximately $2 billion each year being mandatory. In addition, there would be added local flexibility for districts that are deemed in compliance, as long as those districts use the available funds for activities authorized under ESEA. In other words, if the Secretary of Education and the state education agency (SEA) agree the LEA is in compliance with the law and allow a reduction, ALL of the money MUST be used for (educational) purposes authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This language actually narrows the purpose from current law by requiring all of it to be spent for NCLB purposes.

The Senators have given the bill to various advocacy groups for their review and feedback. CEC is currently going over the bill. A PDF version of the bill is provided at this link:

http://www.connsensebulletin.com/HagelHarken.pdf