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Commentary: Now What??? What the
Fight Over Special Ed Reform Is All About
by Calvin and Tricia Luker, OurChildrenLeftBehind.com
For more articles like this
visit
https://www.bridges4kids.org.
With this post we would like to try to recapture history and
look forward now that the Senate Bill has been released. Our
Children Left Behind is receiving email questions which we hope
to answer.
Before going forward however, we ourselves have heard from
families with have children with disabilities and families who
have children without disabilities. This tells us that the word
is getting out through the many internet and list-serve
resources available to families. We have eight days left in the
Senate Bill comment period. Time is of the essence, and those
who have deeper questions might better spend their time
following some of the web resources they can link to from
www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com. There are 6.6 million
children and young adults receiving services under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] and 6.6
million different vantage points and stories accompanying our
children. While we believe all of us should aggressively seek
full information so that we can develop our own positions on the
reauthorization process, we maintain that it is the individual
stories – of success and failure – that are most critical for
our legislators to hear.
Now on to the questions.
What is IDEA?
IDEA is the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, first passed after decades of family
effort in 1975. The history of IDEA is briefly discussed in our
first article at the bottom of this page.
What is the House Bill?
HR 1350 is the Bill that passed the
US House of Representatives on April 30, 2003. Articles on
Ourchildrenleftbehind and our links more completely detail what
H.R. 1350 would do if it became law. Suffice it to say that it
guts all fundamental protections for children who are
disciplined for conduct related to their disability; guts the
administrative due process procedures that permits parents to
challenge school decisions on programming, evaluations,
placement, etc.; permits 3-year IEPs; eliminates short-term
objectives; leaves family attorney fee schedules to the whim of
state governors without providing equal power for that governor
to set equal fees for school district attorneys; permits 10
states to seek federal waivers of the application of IDEA laws;
and other similar provisions. We think it is bad news for kids
and families. Sixty-nine+ consumer representative and family
advocacy groups and organizations have publicly opposed HR 1350
for various reasons.
What is the Senate Bill?
SB 1248 is the Senate’s version of
the Bill amending IDEA. It was released last week and we still
are digesting it – comparing it to IDEA ’97 [the current law]
and HR 1350. The Senate Bill, from our reading, gives back some
of what HR 1350 would remove, but still has deficits in the
areas of due process protections, statute of limitations, short
term objectives, and other similar issues.
What is the recommended stance?
Students, parents, families,
advocacy and consumer based organizations, many educators and
policy makers are taking the broad position that IDEA ’97, which
only has been fully implemented for less than two-school years
in most states, should be carry forward in thrust and protection
for students. Most of the changes found in HR 1350 came from
school administrators and school boards, rather than from
families who pretty well were cut out of the HR 1350 drafting
process. SB1248 is more of a compromise between what HR 1350
proposes and what IDEA ’97 currently requires. While the Senate
seems to have listened more carefully to students and families
than did the House of Representatives, its Bill still reflects
many of the changes advanced by school administrators.
The common recommendation on the student/family side is that
student’s and families should concentrate on individual stories
that show why IDEA ’97 should not be amended or show why the
amendments proposed by the House and Senate Bills should be
rejected. It is from our perspective a common fight with highly
individualized features.
What are the present talking points?
There are many, many informative
websites that have analyzed both Bills and have formulated
talking points. Again, we suggest that you follow our links to
those sites to gain more information about potential talking
points. We find the DREDF and NAPAS sites particularly helpful.
Why reauthorization now?
If no reauthorization is done will
IDEA ‘97n expire? Part B of IDEA, which addresses the
eligibility and IEP process and contains the primary procedural
safeguards is permanently authorized. If it is not amended this
year, its provisions will carry forward. Part A, which contains
the Congressional findings and purpose, definitions, creates the
Office of Special Education Programs, abrogates State Sovereign
Immunity and requires promulgation of regulations would continue
in force without any Congressional action. Part C, which covers
infants and toddlers with disabilities and Part D which applies
to special education program improvement, information
dissemination, research and evaluation activities are up for
reauthorization. What “reauthorization” means in this context is
that Congress must pass a law permitting itself to appropriate
funds to operate the services and requirements of Part C and D.
Who is behind the move change IDEA ’97
so significantly?
There are many theories behind why
special education is under attack now. Some attribute the effort
to trying to mesh special education law with the provisions of
the No Child Left Behind Act which passed Congress in 2001.
Others say the changes are being advocated by school-related
persons and entities concerned with paperwork, timing
requirements and other administrative responsibilities they
claim over-burden them and deflect from their ability to
concentrate on teaching activities. Still others claim that
these changes are inspired by individuals and organizations who
historically are insensitive to the needs of students with
disabilities and their families and believe either that special
education law has failed, or believe that special education law
has succeeded and need not be so comprehensive or laden with the
safeguards that were required in its earlier days.
Our personal view is that special education law is only one part
of the safety net that was put into place and should remain in
place for people with disabilities and their families. It is not
just special education that is under attack in Washington today.
Medicaid is under going a similar gutting. Laws protecting
people with disabilities from homelessness and housing
discrimination are experiencing dramatic decreases in funding or
reduced protection. Legislative gains made in recent years to
give people with disabilities more hope and help in being
included in community settings are being threatened and many
people are being forced again to look to larger facilities as
the only remaining living setting for people with disabilities.
Surely part of this change – this threat to what we have fought
so long and hard to achieve for people with disabilities – is a
product of the current Administration’s budgetary priorities and
declining governmental revenues. We think that creates a need
for ALL of us to be more vocal and to stand up for ourselves and
our family members who have disabilities so that our funding
needs are not permitted to fall any further down in the budget
priority list. We also think that part of what is driving the
current action to weaken the federal special education laws is a
belief on the part of many in the Executive and Legislative
branches that States should have more control over both
educational policy and educational funding, and that the federal
government should give that power to the states. We reject that
theory because our nation’s history, from before the civil war
to the present, has been that states often have been unwilling
or unable to create or enforce the basic human rights, including
the right to a free appropriate public education, that we have
been able to achieve through national law. Again, state’s rights
seems to be a popular cry in Washington, but where essential
human rights and dignity are at stake, we can not entrust not
can we trust states to either legislate inclusive policy or to
fund it, especially when, as now, state governmental revenues
are being sorely impacted by federal budgetary priorities and
practices.
Some might look at the family perspective or the family point of
view in this special education battle as rhetoric. We think that
when organizations and individuals form around talking points
and common criticisms of the proposed amendments some rhetoric
is necessary to offset the highly organized, well-oiled and
heavily taxpayer funded lobby operated by school administrators
and school boards. Some common voice from the families is
essential if for no other reason than to let Congress know we
are out here, we are watching AND we vote. But we know from our
own experience that talking points only go so far in describing
what life looks like for the individual family. Frankly, we
can’t create or pay for a lobby organization any where near the
equal of our opponents in this battle. We are too busy fighting
for ourselves, our families and our family members who have
disabilities. This website is but one of many individual and
small group activities that have sprung up since March to fight
the powerful individuals and organizations that have the current
administrations ear. We are proud of what we have been able to
do as a website and are equally proud of what hundreds of
thousands of others involved in the fight to save IDEA have been
able to do in their communities, states and in cyberspace.
We make no apology. Our parents and grandparents fought for
decades to force open the doors of free public education – Ben
Franklin’s greatest idea – to children with disabilities. Those
doors were not opened to our children until our country was 199
years old. We do grave injustice to our fore-parents and their
efforts, and even graver injustice to ourselves and our children
and their expectations if we stand by while these gains are
taken from us. For us it is not rhetoric, it is reality. If we
won’t fight for our own kids who will?
We have eight days to solidify our voices and express them to
our Senators before the public comment period established by the
HELP Committee is closed. After these eight days pass the ball
rests squarely on the floor of the Senate. We can continue our
fight, but have been told in no uncertain terms that further
changes will be unlikely if not impossible. We don’t have to
accept that, nor will we, but we must do what we can, working
individually and together, to make the next eight days count.
Our children are counting on us.
Never question the motivation or determination of parents who
are protecting their children.
Calvin and Tricia Luker |
