Dear IDEA Conferee,
The Education Task Force of CCD, comprised of national organizations concerned with and involved in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, offer the following recommendations related to high priority policy issues under consideration in the IDEA reauthorization. We hope that the House and Senate conferees adopt these recommendations in your final deliberations on IDEA policy for the future. Although all Task Force member organizations view the Senate passed bill as a clear improvement over the House bill since it was developed with more bipartisanship and provides more balanced compromises on many complex issues, the Task Force strongly believes that both bills need to be improved from the perspective of parents, providers and advocates.
Although CCD recognizes that there are dozens of provisions that require decisions from the conferees, we have carefully selected eleven major policy areas to concentrate on in this document. They are, in order: discipline; due process; monitoring and enforcement; Individualized Education Programs (IEPs); definition of highly qualified; Part C Early Intervention; related services; paperwork reduction; child medication; research; and funding. Attached are the recommendations and rationales, with appropriate cites, for these provisions.
While we understand that IDEA is an authorizing bill and not an appropriations bill, we would like to note several issues related to IDEA funding which are critical to the bill you are crafting. We join the unanimous chorus of concerned parties about the significant underfunding of IDEA. While we are very pleased with the significant increase in funds for Part B over the last several years, we are disappointed that mandatory full funding for Part B will not be a part of this bill.
We hope that you will join us in urging appropriators to increase funds to help states meet their obligations to students with disabilities. In addition, we hope that you will consider requiring matching funds from No Child Left Behind for the IDEA pre-referral program when NCLB is amended.
CCD is very appreciative of the countless hours Members of Congress and their staff have spent on this vital law. With the possibility of a final conference agreement being reached in these final days of the 108th Congress, CCD hopes and expects that the educational needs of our nation's students with disabilities will remain paramount and form the framework from which the final decisions on IDEA will be decided. We are, as the Task Force Co-chairs, always available to assist this effort in any way.
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