CEC Recommendation to the US Senate on IDEA

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 our views with respect to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is up for reauthorization this year.

CEC has engaged in a year-long process of soliciting issues and input from its members to develop the CEC IDEA Reauthorization Recommendations, and is making its findings available to its members and other interested parties. I hope you will consider these recommendations as reauthorization activity proceeds in the Congress.

In the recommendations, CEC covers seven IDEA policy issues identified by CEC members. Each of the policy issues includes a background section and CEC policy recommendations.

CEC is approaching with caution the notion of making additional changes to the IDEA statue. Because of this, the Council has only recommended changes to the law when convinced that the current federal statutory language with federal, state and/or local policy solutions are insufficient to address the identified areas of concern. Many of the implementation issues are best addressed through policy changes to the Part D Support Programs. Following are some highlighted recommendations from each of our seven policy issues.

Finance

CEC recommends full funding for all parts of IDEA, including the Part B Grants to States Program (including preschool grants), the Part C Infants and Toddlers Program, and the Part D Support Programs.

* Mandatory full funding for Part B by FY 2008 ($22.23 billion)
* Full funding for the Preschool Grants Program by FY 2008 ($1500 per child allocation)
* Permanent authorization of Part C, with full funding ($725 million) by FY 2008
* Total Part D appropriations indexed to total IDEA annual appropriation, equal to private industry R & D standards

Disproportionate Representation

* The Findings section of the statute should be updated to reflect current data on disproportionality in special education
* States and local districts should be required to develop and implement improvement plans when significant disproportionality is present
* ESEA and IDEA language should be clarified to ensure that, prior to referral to special education, effective early intervention strategies are in place in general education to safeguard against inappropriate referral, unnecessary testing, and misclassification in special education
* Expand current efforts to prepare, recruit, and retain qualified professionals from culturally and linguistically diverse groups

Qualified Personnel

* Every child and youth with a disability must receive services from highly qualified special education teachers, related services providers, and early intervention teachers, as well as highly qualified general education teachers and administrators
* Amend IDEA Part B CSPD Personnel Standards to ensure that ALL special education teachers, related services providers, and early intervention teachers are highly qualified by the 2006-07 school year
* A funding source from Part B should be designated to address the following three Priority Areas: (1) Ensure that the nation has the capacity to prepare and retain a sufficient supply of highly qualified diverse special and general educators; (2) Ensure that states require mastery of nationally recognized standards to effectively serve children and youth with disabilities through teacher licensing and program accreditation requirements, thereby promoting consistency across states; and (3) Ensure that each state's licensing requirements for all special education, early intervention, and general education school administrators include the mastery of appropriate standards to effectively supervise, develop, and support delivery of high-quality special education, related services, and early intervention
* Increase authorization and appropriations for Part D Personnel Preparation activities to address critical shortages in qualified special education and related services personnel

Increasing Accountability while Reducing Paperwork

* The Education Department should identify, develop, and disseminate simplified and streamlined suggested model IEPs, procedural safeguard notices, and prior written notice reporting requirements incorporating all relevant federal statutory and regulatory requirements; states and local education agencies should simplify and streamline as well
* IDEA should be fully funded to provide sufficient funds for (1) the hiring of clerical support staff to assist in special education record keeping functions, data collection, and information sharing, and (2) the purchase and maintenance of appropriate hardware and software for IEP case management and other special education record keeping functions
* CEC recommends eliminating short-term objectives and benchmarks under the current IEP requirements. IDEA's performance reporting requirements should replace short-term objectives as performance accountability measures within the IEP, as such measures better relate to the general education curriculum content standards
* The Education Department should pilot a streamlined IEP review process and evaluate its success

Identification and Eligibility: Learning Disabilities

* The Secretary should establish a priority through the Part D Research program and sufficient funds be allocated to validate psychometric, non-psychometric, and "response-to-treatment"' methods of identifying students with learning disabilities
* CEC recommends clarifying language in ESEA and IDEA to ensure that effective early intervention strategies are in place in general education as an integral part of the total educational process to safeguard against inappropriate referral, unnecessary testing, and misclassification in special education

Discipline Procedures

* The statute should be amended to clarify that Section 615(k) of IDEA (the discipline amendment) is a policy of last resort that should be applied only in rare cases where the parents of a child with a disability and school officials cannot otherwise reach agreement on appropriate disciplinary measures for the child within the context of the traditional IEP review process
* CEC recommends establishing a single discipline standard for all students by amending ESEA to require continued alternative educational services for all students who are suspended or expelled from school
* The remainder of the discipline provisions should be clarified within committee report language to facilitate implementation of the current IDEA discipline policy
* CEC supports language that requires interagency agreements among state agencies to ensure continued alternative educational services (including the full continuum of services as provided for under IDEA) for any student who is long-term suspended or expelled from school

Early Childhood

* CEC recommends permanently authorizing Part C
* CEC recommends creating incentives in the Part C funding formula to assist states in increasing the number of Part C eligible children served who receive needed early intervention services
* CEC recommends clarifying language that defines natural environments as settings in which an eligible child's age peers who have no disabilities are typically found; and includes the child's home and community settings in which children without disabilities participate
* The natural environments policy in the statute should be changed to incorporate language related to the achievement of the child's outcomes

You can find CEC's full recommendations on their Web site at: http://www.cec.sped.org/gov/IDEA_reauth_4-2002.pdf