English: View of Capitol Hill from the U.S. Supreme Court Česky: Pohled na Kapitol z budovy Nejvyššího soudu Spojených států (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sequestration starts today unless the Congress acts. It will hurt the education of children with disabilities!
How will IDEA be affected? Under sequestration, federal funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act will be reduced by $1,053,600,000 in 2013, or 28 percent of the total reduction to education programs. You can view an analysis and explanation by our friends at IDEA money watch here. You can see the amount of money that your state and the projected number of special ed staff will lose on this chart. Now would be a good time to call your congressmen and senators and tell them to fix this.
Sequestration - How Would it Impact the Everyday Lives of Americans? (Photo credit: Third Way)
How's that for a post title!
Sequestration is Washingtospeak for the automatic across the board spending cuts that are so extremely draconian that Congress thought they would force the combatants (formerly known as representatives of the public) to compromise on deficit reduction. They have a deceptive name for everything, don't they?
Unfortunately, these folks don't know the meaning of compromise. So in ten days we face the Great Sequester. Remember the fiscal cliff...it's back!
As my summer rock tour on special education law continues, one theme is emerging: there have been big changes to §504 (through the ADA amendments by Congress.) The big question is how much these changes will affect the education of kids with disabilities.
At least three speakers, and many of the hallway conversations, during these conferences have directly addressed the changes to §504. One frequently heard comment is that the main dissatisfaction of the Congress with decisions involving §504 and the ADA in the employment context. Congress felt that the U. S. Supreme Court was interpreting the laws too narrowly and blocking many employees from going to court to be heard on the question of reasonableness of accommodations that they were requesting.
In particular Congress took issue with two lines of cases by the Supreme Court. One involved cases following Sutton v. United Airlines 527 US 471, 30 IDELR 681 (1999). Another involved cases following Toyota Manufacturing v. Williams 534 U.S. 184, 102 LRP 6137 (2002).
In the next part in this series, we will look at these cases and why Congress was upset.
Our ongoing poll is turning out to be a tight race. The question is what should be changed about IDEA. Currently there is only a five vote difference between the top five choices. The poll is on the lefthand side of the blog. Be sure to make your voice heard. Vote!
Special education law is a cycle of ever-changing requirements. Reauthorization of IDEA is now overdue. For relative newcomers, the cycle of special ed law is as follows: the law is passed by Congress, OSEP adopts regulations, the states adopt regulations, all of these are interpreted in hearing officer decisions and court opinions. Then just when we are starting to get comfortable (insert comfort joke here), Congress reauthorizes the law with many amendments, OSEP makes new regs ... This cycle is then repeats indefinitely.
I understand that the economy and health care might push reauthorization to the back burner for a while, but now is the time to start thinking about what changes we might welcome in the special education law. The good part of the "ever-changing" character of the law is that we can ask for changes just like the other players.
So I'm asking you - what would you change in IDEA? I know that many of you have strong opinions on transition planning and related issues. What else should be changed? I am considering requesting a change in the adversary nature of due process hearings and will continue a previous series of posts on that issue to try to flesh out the alternatives a bit more. Do you agree these changes should be made?
How about the Rowley standard? Should the meaningful educational benefit = appropriate standard be changed? Would you have the Congress reverse the other recent high court decisions: Weast (burden of proof in a dp hearing); Murphy (expert witness fees awarded to prevailing parents); Winkleman (parents can represent themselves in federal court on dp hearing appeals) Forest Grove(enrollment in public school as prerequisite to reimbursement for a private placement.)
How about NCLB as it applies to kids with disabilities: do we like the accountability aspects? how about the high stakes test? What about the school sanctions provisions?
Do you think the role or mission of OSEP should change? What could it do better as the federal agency charged with enforcing the special ed law?
My plan here is to collect some of your responses and present them to Congress. Sure I've got some ideas, but why not flex our muscles. The readership of this blog is growing. I'm quite proud that many different kinds of special ed stakeholders are tuning in. We have won awards and recognition. Heck, we even were granted a lenghty exclusive interview with the new Assistant Secretary of Education.
If there is power in numbers, why not present some of our thoughts as a group? I'll try to be fair in any presentation I make and I'll try to separate out my opinions (and as you know they can be strong) from group opinions or from group lack of consensus. I think that this may be exciting.Please let me know how you would change the special ed laws.
The 2011 budget proposed by the Obama Administration provides 12.8 Billion Dollars for Special Education Programs. Here is the analysis by the U. S Department of Education. I tend to get overwhelmed by big numbers, perhaps inspired by former Senator Dirksen who used to say, "... a million dollars here, a million dollars there, and pretty soon you're talking about a lot of money." Maybe modernly we should change "million" to "billion" or even "trillion," yet I digress.
When the Congress passed IDEA, the federal special education law, in 1975, it promised full funding of IDEA which was supposed to be 40% of the excess cost of special education. The proposed budget continues the 17% funding level. Many groups have commented that this is not in keeping with the full funding campaign pledge. For example, here is an article by the Council for Exceptional Children.
Another issue will be the hole created by the disappearance of stimulus funds. The Recovery Act poured a lot of money into education, including special ed. The 2011 budget provides no help for school districts who will no longer have access to these funds.
I am aware that the economy is not doing well. I also am not among those who necessarily equate the number of dollars budgeted to the quality of services received. Nonetheless, this budget is disappointing. Special education remains the biggest unfunded mandate in the federal system. I was hoping for more funding!
Yesterday the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions of the U S House of Representatives introduced new bipartisan legislation aimed at curbing the abuses of seclusion and restraints as behavior management techniques. The press release notes that the victims of the abuse of seclusion and restraint are often children with disabilities. The legislation is summarized here. Here is a video of the press conference by Chairman George Miller (D - CA).
The legislation was triggered by a study by the National Disability Rights Network which unveiled horror stories from every state. That study was followed by a similarly gruesome report by the Government Accountability Office and by Congressional hearings.
If adopted, the bill would require minimum standards for seclusion and restraint. It also requires each state to adopt procedures and systems for monitoring and enforcing the safety provisions. Before it becomes law, the bill must first pass the House and Senate and be signed by the President. If you have strong feelings about abuse and restraint, write to your representative and senators.
As many of you know, I am collecting your ideas for changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act when it comes up for reauthorization by the Congress. To further celebrate this quest we have launched a new poll as to this question. As always, our polls are not meant to be scientific in nature. But they are fun, and they give us an idea of what our readers are thinking, so please exercise your opportunity to vote! The poll appears on the lefthand side of the blog.
Now you may notice that the topic of this post definitely relates to my upcoming interview of Dr. Alexa Posny, the new Assistant secretary of Education. Unfortunately though the poll will not finish before the interview so I won't be able to utilize the results at the big interview.
I have whittled down your suggestions concerning changes to IDEA to the most popular ten. Here are the choices: - Raise the Bar for FAPE - Give Expert Witness Fees to Prevailing Parents - Expand Role/Mission of OSEP - Restrict Comp Ed/Reimbursement as Remedies - Place Burden of Persuasion on School Districts - Increase Transition Rights - Allow Arbitration and More Mediation - Assess Children with Disabilities at Instructional Levels for AYP - Expand and Encourage Response to Intervention - Regulate Seclusion/Restraints
There have been other suggestions and possibilities, these were just the top ten. Other frequent suggestions have included: Make the resolution session meetings confidential; clarify the educational rights of non-custodial parents; prohibit parents from representing themselves in federal court; allow systemic or class action style due process complaints; adopt the principals recommendation for a standard of care for each disability category; require IEP implementation to be material before constituting a violation of the law; and throw out the whole system and start again.
Please tell me what other changes you would like to see. IDEA will eventually be reauthorized - lets get our list together. Given our high level of credibility, I feel that we are being listened to by those who will be making the changes.
IDEA, the nation's special education law is up for reauthorization. True, Congress is busy with other stuff, but sooner or, more likely later, the lawmakers will turn their attention to amending the special education statute.
What would you like to see? If you could write the law (and in a democracy, at least in theory you can have some influence), what would you do? I know that many feel that the law is imperfect or worse. If you follow the link to the Facebook special education law group on the lefthand side of the blog, you will see some passionate discussions. As I have previously mentioned, I'd like to collect your thoughts and present them as a group. As the number of subscribers of this blog continues to grow, we gain credibility in the blogosphere. I hope that this will translate into a voice in the process. So what do you think? What would you change?
I know from previous posts that that many of you have strong opinions on transition planning and related issues. What else should be changed?
I am considering requesting a change in the adversary nature of due process hearings and will continue a previous series of posts on that issue to try to flesh out the alternatives a bit more. Do you agree these changes should be made?
How about the Rowley standard? Should the educational benefit = appropriate standard be changed? Would you have the Congress reverse the other recent high court decisions: Weast (burden of proof in a dp hearing); Murphy (expert witness fees awarded to prevailing parents); Winkleman (parents can represent themselves in federal court on dp hearing appeals).
How about the Forrest Grove issue; should the Congress specify whether or not a child must attend public school before reimbursement for a unilateral placement is available, and if so for how long? Should this apply in non-FAPE cases?
Should the recent Fifth Circuit ruling that added conditions for reimbursement for a unilateral placement be codified in the statute?
How about NCLB as it applies to kids with disabilities: do we like the accountability aspects? how about the high stakes test? What about the school sanctions provisions?
Do you think the role or mission of OSEP should change? What could it do better as the federal agency charged with enforcing the special ed law?
My goal here is to collect some of your responses and present them to Congress. Sure I've got some ideas, but why not flex our muscles. The readership of this blog is growing. I'm quite proud that many different kinds of special ed stakeholders are tuning in. We have won awards and recognition. If there is power in numbers, why not present some of our thoughts as a group? I'll try to be fair in any presentation I make and I'll try to separate out my opinions (and as you know they can be strong) from group opinions or from group lack of consensus. I think that this may be fun.Please let me know how you would change the special ed laws.
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