What do y'all think of this?  Kyle, Bobby, Ken?  Any comments?

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Justice For All Moderator
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 8:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Houses Approves Bad IDEA Legislation

"Houses Approves Bad IDEA Legislation"

On the same day that that the Senate confirmed the
nomination of Jeffrey Sutton to the Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals, the House passed legislation that overhauls the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and guts
protections for children with disabilities.  As with the
Sutton vote, the House IDEA vote fell largely along party
lines, with Republicans supporting the measure and all but
34 Democrats opposing it.

As a series of postings from the Disability Rights
Education and Defense Fund have made clear, the legislation
approved yesterday has dire consequences for people with
disabilities.  Under the House bill, children with
disabilities can be expelled for violating codes of conduct
without any inquiry into whether the behavior is connected
to a disability.  Also, parents may not be able to recover
attorneys fees when they try to compel states to provide
services.

Contact members who supported this legislation!  Explain to
them that this bill will leave children with disabilities
behind, contrary to the "No Child Left Behind" motto of
President Bush's education policy.

The next step is the Senate, which is expected to introduce
its bill later this month.

A story from the New York Times follows.

Jonathan Young
JFA Editor, AAPD

============================================

House Backs Vast Changes in Education for Disabled

May 1, 2003
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, April 30 - The House today passed major changes
to the laws governing special education for some 6.6
million children, while voting down amendments that would
have eased the way for disabled children to attend private
school at taxpayer expense.

The bill, which updates the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, is intended to reduce the number of students
deemed learning disabled by helping struggling children
earlier. It is also intended to cut down on the paperwork
involved in special education, and reduce the legal
expenses of states that face lawsuits from parents seeking
extra help for disabled children. It passed 251 to 171,
with 34 Democrats joining Republicans to support the bill.

"These children are still among those at the greatest risk
of being left behind," said Representative Michael N.
Castle, the Delaware Republican who sponsored the bill.
Despite the "many success stories" of disabled students
educated under the current laws, he said, "there is room
for improvement in serving children with disabilities."

The bill charts spending for special education over the
next seven years, putting Congress on course to pay up to
40 percent of the state cost for the education of disabled
youngsters by 2011.

But the chairman of the House Education and Work Force
Committee, Representative John A. Boehner, an Ohio
Republican, blocked efforts by Democrats to make the
federal contribution mandatory. Despite the absence of a
guarantee on the entire federal contribution, organizations
representing educators and school administrators strongly
backed the bill.

The Council of the Great City Schools praised the bill for
reducing paperwork and giving schools and teachers more
flexibility. The National Association of Elementary School
Principals also endorsed the changes, which make it easier
for schools to expel disabled children for misbehaving.

Under existing law, disabled youngsters may be suspended
for turning up in school with drugs, guns or other weapons.
Today's bill would allow schools to expel disabled students
if they violate a school's code of conduct, and schools
would no longer be obligated to determine whether the
misbehavior was connected to a child's disability.

The bill also allows governors to limit the amount states
pay the lawyers of parents who win cases that force local
schools to pay for extra services.

Largely for those reasons, the Council for Exceptional
Children, the Children's Defense Fund, and other groups
representing disabled children and their parents stood
squarely against today's bill.

"Those discipline provisions can create a nightmare,
because we're stripping away civil rights protections,"
said Lynda Van Kuren, a spokeswoman for the Council for
Exceptional Children.

Moderate Republicans joined Democrats in opposing two
separate amendments that would have expanded the ability of
disabled children to pursue a private education with public
funds, including one that would have given parents vouchers
worth $1,400 toward their children's tuition at a private
school.

Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat from Long
Island, said she was pleased that the voucher bids met
defeat, but worried that the cap on lawyers' fees will
discourage lawyers from representing low-income children
who are denied services.

"I'm a nurse," said Ms. McCarthy, whose son is learning
disabled. "As far as I'm concerned, we do no harm. I
believe that the way this bill is written we're going to do
harm to our children and our parents."

In 1976, when Congress first passed the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, it promised the federal
government would pay 40 percent of the state's cost of
educating children with disabilities.

Many advocates pushed for that promise to be enshrined in
law this year. But Republicans argued that Democrats had
never agreed to make the federal contribution mandatory
when they controlled the House, and said that over the last
year alone, the federal spending on special education has
jumped 19 percent.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Health Education
Labor and Pensions Committee have been working over the
last two years to put together a bipartisan bill on special
education, which aides say will most likely be introduced
in late May. They said the two parties agree on the need to
reduce paperwork and track academic progress among disabled
students. They will probably leave the most contentious
issues, including vouchers, student discipline and making
the federal contribution mandatory for a vote by the full
Senate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/education/01EDUC.html?ex=
1052790841&ei=1&en=c52d3858d797b3aa

[note: the above link is broken into two lines.]

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