COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

April 29, 2003
Castle/Boehner Memo

Respond to False Attacks on the Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act (H.R. 1350)
Help Set the Record Straight on Special Education Reform

Dear Republican Colleague:

As you know, the House is scheduled to consider H.R. 1350, the Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act, on Wednesday, April 30. The bill, which will make dramatic improvements to the nation's special education law, has the strong support of teachers, local school officials, and those on the front lines of ensuring that children with disabilities receive the quality education they deserve.

While the Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act has been heralded as the "best special education policy revisions we've seen in decades," by the American Association of School Administrators (a group representing more than 14,000 education leaders across the nation) -- and has received unprecedented support from groups such as the National Education Association, the National School Boards Association, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Conference of State Legislators, and numerous others -- some lobbying organizations are spreading false and misleading information about the bill.

Please be advised that a national call-in day has been organized for TODAY, Tuesday, April 29, 2003 by opponents of improving the nation's special education law. Your office can expect to receive calls with incorrect or incomplete information regarding the legislation, as well as requests to further delay this legislation that is overdue for reauthorization. Attached to this letter, please find a fact sheet that addresses inaccurate information being circulated about H.R. 1350. Please join us as we seek to set the record straight on special education reform, and move forward in the drive to improve education results for children with disabilities.

Sincerely,

Mike Castle (R-DE)
Chairman, Education Reform Subcommittee

John A. Boehner (R-OH)
Chairman, Education & the Workforce Committee
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The Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act:
Separating Fact from Fiction
UPDATED: April 29, 2003

On March 19, 2003 U.S. House Education & the Workforce Committee members, led by Education Reform Subcommittee Chairman Mike Castle (R-DE), introduced the Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act (H.R. 1350). This legislation would make several significant reforms to the nation's special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), including an increased focus on academic results for children with disabilities and a reduction in the paperwork burden overwhelming schools and driving much-needed teachers out of the classroom.

Despite widespread support from parents, teachers and school organizations, some myths and distortions have been perpetuated about this landmark special education reform bill. The following document provides an overview of the major myths, and provides the facts about the Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act to set the record straight.

Fiction: "This bill is being rushed. Congress needs to slow down and not put this legislation on the fast track. People need time to examine what is in the bill."

FACT: Not only has the bill not been "rushed," it is overdue - and it's overdue because congressional Republicans have taken the time to listen to parents, teachers, and students about the improvements they want to see made to the IDEA law. The authorization for the current IDEA law expired in 2002, and if anything, the reauthorization process is behind schedule. Rep. Castle's Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act is the product of an extensive series of hearings and more than a year of input from teachers, parents, and those involved with special education. Republicans publicly unveiled the principles upon which the bill is based nearly a year ago, inviting congressional Democrats and the general public to join the process at that time.

Over the past 18 months, the House Education & the Workforce Committee has held no fewer than seven different hearings on issues directly relating to the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). On June 6, 2002, as this hearing process was underway, Rep. Castle and committee Republicans also launched an innovative web-based project, dubbed "Great IDEAs," designed to solicit input from stakeholders in special education from across the nation. Since that time, the committee has received more than 3,000 responses from teachers, school administrators, parents of children with special needs and others familiar with the unique needs of children with disabilities, and incorporated many of these suggestions into H.R. 1350.

Improving educational results for children with disabilities is too important a task to allow further delay. Children, parents, and students have waited long enough for special education reform. Further stalling will only result in more children with disabilities being denied the chance they deserve for a quality education.

Fiction: "Paperwork reduction provisions such as the 3-year Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and elimination of short-term objectives will remove accountability for children and parents."

FACT: Proposals such as the 3-year IEP are options for states, and options for parents - options caring parents and paperwork-weary teachers alike believe the law should allow for students with disabilities. If a parent would prefer to have an annual IEP, the law continues to guarantee that right. The 3-year IEP, if agreed to by the parent and the school, would maintain critical individualized education to children with special needs while reducing complex and duplicative paperwork. Further, if a parent decides the 3-year IEP is not working, the parent can simply ask to return to the annual IEP - and they don't have to wait until the 3-year IEP is completed.

The elimination of benchmarks and short-term objectives will not take place until the 2005-2006 school year - because beginning in 2005 all parents will receive report cards from schools showing academic progress indicators. Until that time, IEPs will continue to contain short-term objectives and benchmarks to ensure academic progress is being made. After that time, those students who are being assessed using alternate assessment may continue to have benchmarks and short-term objectives.

The crushing paperwork burden associated with the IDEA is taking teachers out of the classroom and away from the children who need to be taught. Proposed reductions in unnecessary paperwork are designed to increase academic results by allowing the teachers to spend more time teaching rather than filling out complicated and often-unnecessary paperwork.

Fiction: "Making IDEA a mandatory entitlement program is the only way to assure that states will receive full funding."

FACT: There is bipartisan opposition in Congress to making IDEA a new entitlement spending program because it would both undermine efforts to improve the system for children with special needs and take billions of dollars away from other priority education programs that benefit children, such as Title I aid to disadvantaged students. Making IDEA a new federal entitlement spending program will cause an explosion of new paperwork and bureaucracy in special education at the very time teachers and parents are seeking a simpler process for children with disabilities.

On July 18, 2001, a total of 99 House Democrats (led by House Appropriations Committee ranking member David Obey, D-WI) joined 167 House Republicans in voting to reject a motion calling for making IDEA a new entitlement spending program through "mandatory" spending. And in March 2003, the Senate rejected not one, but two attempts to pass "mandatory" spending amendments. One amendment, offered by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-SD), failed 47-52, with two Democrat Senators, Max Baucus (D-MT) and John Breaux (D-LA), joining Senate Republicans to defeat mandatory funding. An second amendment, offered by Sen. Tom Harkin, was drawn up but ultimately not offered because of bipartisan support for an amendment by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) that would increase IDEA funding through the traditional discretionary process.

The Republican Congress has put IDEA funding among the highest of priorities, increasing funding by more than $6.5 billion since 1996 - an increase of almost 300% in just seven years. However, making IDEA an entitlement program, with mandatory funding, will significantly impair the ability of Congress to examine and reform the law to meet the changing needs of children with disabilities.

H.R. 1350 maps a glide path toward full funding in seven years, a course that will continue the significant increases in IDEA funding that states have been given over the past seven years while maintaining critical oversight capabilities so that Congress can ensure the law is reaching its goal of improving academic results for children with disabilities.

Fiction: "The discipline provisions contained in the bill will result in many children being left behind and losing [free appropriate public education] FAPE."

FACT: The discipline provisions contained in the bill ensure that no child is left behind - in fact, the bill explicitly guarantees that children with disabilities will continue to receive educational services regardless of any disciplinary action taken. Under current law, discipline procedures for children with disabilities and non-disabled children can be significantly different, even for serious offenses such as bringing a weapon to school. This is unfair to teachers, students, and even children with disabilities. The proposal in H.R. 1350 would allow schools, at their discretion and with the ability to consider all circumstances including a disability, to assign the same punishment for disabled and non-disabled children. However, even in the case of suspension, a child with a disability would continue to receive educational services to ensure progress is made on an IEP. This improves safety for schools while ensuring protections for children with special needs.

Fiction: "The proposed procedural safeguard provisions may jeopardize the civil rights of children and their families, and they may not eliminate paperwork; in fact, they may result in more paperwork and litigation. The statute of limitations and redefined complaint process will deny the rights of parents."

FACT: The changes in the complaint process proposed in H.R. 1350 are designed to improve communication, restore trust, and strengthen cooperation between parents and school personnel. By providing options such as binding arbitration, parents and schools will have new opportunities to address problems without fear of costly litigation. In fact, changes to the procedural safeguard provisions maintain EVERY civil rights protection for children and families while going a step further to provide optional, alternative means of dispute resolution that will only improve effective communication and cooperation among parents, teachers, and schools.

The one-year statute of limitations proposed in H.R. 1350 is a protection for both parents and schools that will help ensure the timely resolution of complaints. Reforms to the complaint process will help restore trust and allow teachers to feel confident that they can teach without fear of frivolous litigation that could jeopardize educational opportunities for other children with disabilities. The rights of parents are preserved under H.R. 1350, but innovative solutions are proposed to resolve problems in a timely fashion, reduce costly litigation, and refocus IDEA on teaching children rather than compliance with regulations.

Fiction: "The restructuring of Part D of IDEA contained in the bill does not protect the critical investments in research, technical assistance, and other supports and resources which are fundamental to ensuring the quality and accountability of IDEA."

FACT: The restructuring of Part D research activities under IDEA will not only maintain current investments in research, technical assistance and other supports, but will in fact improve special education research and ensure that high-quality methods are at the heart of special education instruction. By moving special education into a new special education research arm of the Institute of Education Sciences, the Department of Education will be able to more effectively monitor the quality of all education research, ensuring that special education research meets the same stringent standards for improving education results. Further, all resources currently devoted to special education research will continue to be provided, through a more effective and accountable program.
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From Ourchildrenleftbehind.com:

OCTOBER 20, 2004

Today, we share with you another vintage OCLB Home page. We firmly believe that without PARENTS' active participation in this process, IDEA would have been quietly "reauthorized" over a year ago without so much as a ripple in the Congressional waters.

We've still a long way to go to persuade our Legislators that kids and families are their primary constituents when it comes to education, but we'll get there -- together.

Kudos to all of you! Keep up the great work!


Debi Lewis, today's parentvolunteer@ourchildrenleftbehind.com


FEBRUARY 26, 2004

WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?

Every time I think of that "Dear Republican Colleague" memo circulated in the House of Representatives last spring, my blood boils.

In an attempt to thwart the impact of the national parent/advocate call-in day against H.R.1350, legislators -- our supposed VOICE in Congress -- took active steps to ensure that our voices were disregarded, and they apparently succeeded.

Tens of thousands of parents, students, and advocates called the House of Representatives on April 29, 2003 to urge a "NO" vote on the bill to reauthorize the IDEA.

Yes, I said tens of thousands!

Legislators then had the nerve to claim they weren't hearing from parents.

Maybe your representative wasn't swayed by this tactic. Bully for them! However, I don't recall a single representative standing up to say to their colleagues, " How DARE you? How dare you throw sincere attempts to be heard back in the faces of parents and advocates? That goes against EVERYTHING we claim to love about our democracy! And how DARE you claim you're not hearing from those very same parents you just kicked to the curb? You have taken hypocrisy to all new heights. I am ashamed of you!"

Nope. No outcry. No flames. What should have sparked at least some reaction from the more principled members of Congress simply fizzled in the fetid waters of politics as usual.

In 1996, a parent named Sue Stuyvesant penned an essay entitled Where Are The Parents? after a school official complained that there were too few parents of children with disabilities involved with the local PTA. This powerful essay is included here in its entirety, for its message should not be missed.

Quote:
Where are the parents?

They are on the phone to doctors and hospitals and fighting with insurance companies, wading through the red tape in order that their child's medical needs can be properly addressed.

They are buried under a mountain of paperwork and medical bills, trying to make sense of a system that seems designed to confuse and intimidate all but the very savvy.

Where are the parents?

They are at home, diapering their 15 year old son, or trying to lift their 100 lb. daughter onto the toilet.

They are spending an hour at each meal to feed a child who cannot chew, or laboriously and carefully feeding their child through a g-tube.

They are administering medications, changing catheters and switching oxygen tanks.

Where are the parents?

They are sitting, bleary eyed and exhausted, in hospital emergency rooms, waiting for tests results to come back and wondering: is this the time when my child doesn't pull through?

They are sitting patiently, in hospital rooms as their child recovers from yet another surgery to lengthen hamstrings or straighten backs or repair a faulty internal organ.

They are waiting in long lines in county clinics because no insurance company will touch their child.

Where are the parents?

They are sleeping in shifts because their child won't sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a night, and must constantly be watched, lest he do himself, or another member of the family, harm.

They are sitting at home with their child because family and friends are either too intimidated or too unwilling to help with child care and the state agencies that are designed to help are suffering cut backs of their own.

Where are the parents?

They are trying to spend time with their non-disabled children, as they try to make up for the extra time and effort that is critical to keeping their disabled child alive.

They are struggling to keep a marriage together, because adversity does not always bring you closer.

They are working 2 and sometime 3 jobs in order to keep up with the extra expenses.

And sometimes they are a single parent struggling to do it all by themselves.

Where are the parents?

They are trying to survive in a society that pays lip service to helping those in need, as long as it doesn't cost them anything.

They are trying to patch their broken dreams together so that they might have some sort of normal life for their children and their families.

They are busy, trying to survive.

By Sue Stuyvesant

Perhaps this will give Congress some context. Perhaps this will finally enable Congress to understand that any contact whatsoever from the parent of a child with disabilities should never be trivialized or disregarded. Behind each parent's letter or phone call are thousands of others who are quite literally fighting a constant battle for their family's survival.

And yet, when those parents do manage to write or call, their extraordinary efforts are often met with the scorn and derision evident in that "Dear Republican Colleague" memo.

It is not unusual for OCLB to receive very, very brief "Thank You!" notes from parents. The time stamp on these e-mails is typically the wee hours of the morning. That's when these parents have a few seconds to breathe, to look beyond their immediate, and often crisis, situations at the broader picture, to wish they had more time &energy for advocacy, and to applaud those who are temporarily able to carry the torch.

Ask any parent of a child with disabilities their greatest stressors. Invariably, the answer is not their child, but the systems with which they must deal in order ensure their child's safety, security, and survival. Why must that also include Congress?

The fire that is OCLB was ignited by that incendiary "Dear Republican Colleague " memo. It is fueled by the fear, the anguish, and the rage of the parents. It will not be doused by empty rhetoric, meaningless compromise, or false partnership.

This fire can only be extinguished by Congress recognizing and acting upon the truth:

* IDEA '97 does not need to be revised. It needs to be enforced.

* The proposed revisions to IDEA will not result in improved educational outcomes for students with disabilities.

* The reasons given for the proposed revisions to IDEA are not based on solid data, but on unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence.

* The driving factors behind each and every proposed revision are administrative convenience and performance anxiety.

* Children with disabilities are being sold out in the name of compromise.

We, as parents of children with disabilities ourselves, realize that it is extremely difficult to find the time and the energy to go above &beyond the call of an already extraordinarily challenging duty. We appreciate every e-mail, every letter to Congress, and every phone call – because we know what it cost you.

So, the next time you're up at 2:00am visiting Our Children Left Behind, let us know how you're doing – and how we're doing. We love to hear from you!