DINF Web Posted on December 15, 1997

The information in this document has been superseded by more recent information available elsewhere on this site. This document is for historical purposes only. See http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/IDEA/ for more current information about IDEA.

IMPROVING THE INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT:
A SUMMARY OF THE ADMINISTRATION'S PROPOSAL

The administration's proposal for improving education for children with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is designed to ensure that the fundamental objective of the law is achieved: that all children with disabilities are provided the equal educational opportunity that the Constitution guarantees. Our proposal is based on six principles that support our mission to improve educational results for children with disabilities.

1. Align the IDEA with State and local education reform efforts so students with disabilities can benefit from them.
   • Ensure that the IDEA supports State and local efforts to meet the individual needs of each child with a disability as part of overall efforts to help all children meet challenging standards and make a successful transition to further education and employment.

2. Improve results for students with disabilities through higher expectations and meaningful access to the general curriculum, to the maximum extent possible.
   • Enhance participation of children with disabilities in the general curriculum through improvements to the individualized education program (IEP).

   • Increase parental involvement by requiring regular reporting to parents on their children's progress, by means such as report cards, and by including parents in decisions about their children's placement.

   • Increase involvement of regular education teachers in developing the IEP.

   • Focus on improving educational results by providing for the inclusion of children with disabilities in State and district assessments, the development of State performance goals for children with disabilities, and regular reports to the public on progress toward meeting the goals.

3. Address individual needs in the least restrictive environment for the student.
   • Make student evaluation and re-evaluation procedures more instructionally relevant and eliminate unnecessary testing.

   • Encourage eligibility determinations that focus on each child's educational needs by de-emphasizing the 13 disability categories and eliminating reporting by disability category, while ensuring that all children who are currently eligible are served.

   • Discourage over-identification of children and facilitate State early intervention and pre-referral activities by changing the formula for grants to States to distribute new dollars on the basis of population, not the number of children with disabilities served under the program.

   • Eliminate disincentives for appropriate placements by requiring States that distribute State funds based on the type of setting in which the child is served to show that their formulas do not result in inappropriate placements.

   • Promote appropriate services for minority children who currently encounter over-identification, inappropriate placement in separate classrooms, and low expectations.

4. Provide families and teachers--those closest to students-- with the knowledge and training to effectively support students' learning.
   • Increase effectiveness and efficiency of federal categorical resources by replacing the 14 categorical competitive grant programs with five comprehensive, coordinated authorities, with special attention to ensuring that current knowledge reaches teachers, administrators, and families.

   • Provide flexible resources to States to carry out their own State Improvement Plans designed to improve the performance of students with disabilities through better teacher preparation and other improvement strategies.

   • Streamline notice requirements so families receive appropriate information on their rights when they need it.

   • Facilitate the resolution of disputes between parents and schools by requiring States to offer mediation to parents.

   • Promote coordination of services to meet children's education, health, and social service needs by allowing States and school districts to use a fixed percentage of IDEA funds to develop coordinated services systems.

5. Focus on teaching and learning.
   • Eliminate unnecessary paperwork requirements that discourage the use of IDEA resources for services in the regular classroom.

   • Reduce paperwork and improve State administration by streamlining requirements for how States and districts apply for funds, and by allowing for more flexible use of administrative funds.

   • Enhance the ability of schools to maintain safe and disciplined classrooms by allowing schools to move a student who has brought a firearm or other dangerous weapon to school to an alternative educational setting for up to 45 days and by permitting hearing officers to authorize the temporary removal to an alternative setting of a student who is substantially likely to injure himself or others.

6. Strengthen early intervention to ensure that every child starts school ready to learn.
   • Promote the inclusion of children who are at risk of developmental delay in the comprehensive system of early intervention services under Part H by providing States flexibility regarding the services to provide if they choose to serve at-risk children.

IMPROVING THE IDEA: IMPROVING EDUCATIONAL RESULTS

Not all schools have high expectations for children with disabilities and not all schools take responsibility for their academic progress. The individualized education program (IEP) document that is developed for each child often reflects low expectations and fragmented goals. About half of all children with disabilities are excluded from general State and local assessments of student performance.

To improve the IEP process, our proposal would:

• Focus the IEP on enabling the child to participate and achieve in the general curriculum in order to ensure that students with disabilities are not shortchanged academically. The IEP would describe services and program modifications needed to provide for participation in the general curriculum.

• Require at least one regular education teacher to participate in the IEP meeting, in addition to the special education teacher, when a child is or may be participating in the regular education environment.

• Require schools to regularly apprise parents of their child's progress toward meaningful, measurable annual objectives, by means such as report cards, as least as often as parents of nondisabled children are informed of their progress.

To ensure accountability for educational results, our proposal would:

• Require States to include students with disabilities in general State and district-wide assessments, with appropriate accommodations, where necessary, to ensure access. For the small number of students with significant cognitive disabilities who could not appropriately be included in such assessments, States would conduct alternate assessments.

• Require each State to report on the performance of students with disabilities on both general and alternate assessments with the same frequency and in the same level of detail that it reports on the assessment of nondisabled children.

• Require each State to establish goals for the performance of children with disabilities and develop indicators for assessing their progress toward meeting their goals. Indicators would include assessment results, drop-out rates, and graduation rates. States would report to the secretary and the public on their progress every two years.

IMPROVING THE IDEA: FOCUSING RESOURCES ON TEACHING AND LEARNING

To improve educational results for children with disabilities, States, districts, and educators must be able to focus on teaching and learning rather than on paperwork requirements that are not necessary for educational improvement. Our proposal would:

• Streamline student evaluation and re-evaluation procedures and eliminate unnecessary testing. Districts would no longer be required to do a full battery of tests every three years to determine whether the child is eligible for special education when the parents and school agree that this determination is unnecessary. These changes would free up significant resources to better help students and their families.

• Focus the individual education program on access to the general curriculum, whenever appropriate, and on goals designed to improve educational results. New requirements would ensure regular reporting to parents on their children's progress toward measurable annual objectives, while the development of detailed, short-term objectives for each student would no longer be mandated.

• Promote less categorical approaches to eligibility determinations by eliminating the requirement that States classify children by particular disability category, so long as all children who are currently eligible are served. This would permit States to move toward less categorical eligibility criteria and promote a focus on what children know and what services they need rather than on what disability label they should be given.

• Reduce burdensome tracking of federal funds by allowing schools to use IDEA funds to pay for special education services provided in regular classrooms that primarily benefit students with disabilities, without having to track the costs of benefits to nondisabled children in the classroom.

• Improve parent notice requirements so that parents will receive a useful explanation of important information when they need it and additional information when it is relevant or requested by parents.

• Ensure that mediation is made available to all parents, by requiring all States to offer mediation as an option to parents to resolve disputes. Mediation will provide a less adversarial and less costly method of resolving disputes for both parents and school districts.

• Promote coordination of education with health and social services by allowing States and school districts to use a fixed percentage of IDEA funds to develop coordinated services systems and by requiring the State to have an effective method of ensuring that responsible agencies provide related services to students that are mandated under the IDEA. This will help to connect schools and families with other public and private agencies that can assist them in meeting the needs of students with disabilities so that teachers can focus on teaching and learning.

• Streamline requirements for State plans and school district applications for funds, by requiring only that States and school districts update information rather than submit a new plan or application every three years.

• Reduce data collection requirements substantially by eliminating the requirement that States collect data by disability category.

• Permit consolidation of federal funds for administering the Grants to States and Preschool Grants programs to reduce paperwork and give States greater flexibility in administering these programs.

IMPROVING THE IDEA: HELPING FAMILIES HELP THEIR CHILDREN

Families are children's first and best teachers and their most important advocates. While the IDEA creates a strong framework for family-school collaboration, more can be done to assist families to help their children and to strengthen working relations between families and schools. Our proposal would:

• Provide parents with regular reports on their children's progress, by means such as report cards, at least as often as such information is reported to the parents of non-disabled students. This would give parents of children with disabilities, who now often receive no meaningful information about their information they need to help their children succeed.

• Include parents in the team that decides their children's placement. This would ensure that families are not excluded from fundamental decisions regarding the education of their children.

• Ensure that mediation is made available to all parents, by requiring all States to offer mediation as an option to parents to resolve disputes. Mediation will provide a less adversarial and less costly method of resolving disputes for both parents and school districts.

• Promote coordination of education with health and social services by allowing States and school districts to use a fixed percentage of IDEA funds to develop coordinated services systems. This will help to connect schools and families with other public and private agencies that can assist them in meeting the needs of students with disabilities so that teachers can focus on teaching and learning. Each State would also be required to establish an effective mechanism for interagency coordination, including defining each agency's financial responsibility, if any public agency, other than the educational agency, is responsible for providing any necessary services such as health or transition services.

• Support Parent Training and Information Centers in every State to assist parents to better understand the nature of their child's disability and their educational needs and to participate effectively in the development of their child's individualized education program. A number of Community Parent Resource Centers would also be supported to assist underserved parents, including low-income parents, parents of children with limited English proficiency, and parents with disabilities.

IMPROVING THE IDEA: ENSURING SAFE AND DISCIPLINED SCHOOLS

Maintaining safe and disciplined schools is essential for learning for all students, both disabled and non-disabled. Our proposals would help prevent discipline problems while providing schools with additional options for disciplining students who bring a weapon to school or who engage in other dangerous behavior. These proposals would help to ensure the safety of all students while protecting the established rights of children with disabilities.

Support prevention of discipline problems through:

• Requiring the IEP team to consider the need for strategies like behavior management plans whenever a student's behavior is impeding the learning of himself or others.

• Helping to ensure that the classroom teacher receives supports needed in the classroom, by requiring school districts to consider annually each teacher's needs for supports in the classroom.

• Addressing training needs under the proposed Professional Development authority, which would help to train teachers, administrators, and families in behavioral management techniques. Under the proposed State Improvement Grants program, States would have flexible funding that could also be used to help teachers learn to address behavior problems. Under Research to Practice, funds would be targeted to research on strategies to address behavioral issues and to technical assistance to State agencies and others to promote safe and disciplined schools.

Promote mediation to resolve disputes about the child's placement:

• Requiring States to offer mediation to parents would help resolve disputes that may arise when a school proposes to move a student to a different placement in order to address the student's behavior.

Provide Additional Options to Schools for Responding to Dangerous Students:

• Permit school districts to move a student who has brought a firearm or other dangerous weapon to school to an alternative educational setting for up to 45 days and until the completion of any due process proceedings.

• Permit hearing officers to authorize the temporary immediate removal of a student who is substantially likely to injure himself or others for up to 45 days. Currently, except in the case of a firearm, a school district may not suspend or remove any student with a disability for more than 10 days unless a determination has been made that the conduct was not related to the disability. In the infrequent case that the parents challenge the removal and request a due process hearing, the child must "stay put" in the current placement until the legal proceedings are completed. At any time during the process, the school may seek an emergency court order to remove a dangerous child. Our proposal would give schools the option of obtaining such an order from a hearing officer rather than a court.

IMPROVING THE IDEA: CONSOLIDATING CATEGORICAL PROGRAMS

The 14 categorical programs funded under Parts C-G of the IDEA have played a critical role in promoting improvement in the education of children with disabilities. For the most part, these programs support functions that can be most efficiently and effectively carried out through national leadership.

At the same time, the number of overlapping authorities have resulted in fragmentation in the administration of the programs and made it difficult to coordinate these activities effectively. For example, research is authorized under 10 of the 14 programs and technical assistance is authorized under 12 programs.

The bill would provide for a streamlined, comprehensive, and coordinated approach for carrying out these functions. The bill would replace the 14 programs with 5 new authorities that are clearly focused on helping children of all ages and with all disabilities achieve better educational results.

• State Improvement Grants would provide funding to States to assist them in implementing State Improvement Plans to meet goals they have established for improving the performance of children with disabilities. This program would provide substantial support for professional development, including resources to address persistent shortages of personnel and the training of regular education teachers.

• Professional Development would address systemic problems through national activities; address the need for personnel to serve children with low-incidence disabilities such as blindness and deafness, and early intervention personnel; and provide training for administrators, teacher trainers, researchers, supervisors, and other leadership personnel.

• Research to Practice would support coordinated research, demonstrations, outreach, and technical assistance and dissemination activities to ensure that the most current knowledge reaches parents, teachers, and administrators.

• Parent Training and Information would build on current efforts to support a parent training center in each State.

• Technology Development and Educational Media Services would support research on and development of advanced technology and media services such as captioning, video description, and recordings.

Implementation of these programs would be based on planning involving parents, teachers, administrators, researchers, and policy-makers that would develop a comprehensive, long-range improvement agenda. One of the primary goals would be to focus support on improving the implementation of the formula grant programs under Parts B and H.

IMPROVING THE IDEA: STRENGTHENING EARLY INTERVENTION AND PRESCHOOL SERVICES

Support for families also means working with them to address the early intervention needs of their infants and toddlers. Through early intervention and preschool services, problems or potential risks can be identified and the family's ability to minimize and manage a child's special needs can be strengthened.

Our proposal would:

• Promote the inclusion of infants and toddlers at risk of developmental delay in the Part H service delivery system by allowing States that choose to serve at-risk children to provide less than the full array of Part H services as long as they provide service coordination for these children. This change would help ensure that infants and toddlers with disabilities are identified as early as possible. The status of the at-risk infant or toddler would be reviewed at least every 6 months to determine whether the condition of the child has changed and whether the child should be classified as disabled.

• Initiate development of a national definition of "developmental delay" by convening a panel of experts to develop recommendations, which could be used by the secretary in establishing a regulatory definition or in providing guidance to the States, which currently have widely varying definitions.

• Improve the transition of children from Part H to other programs by expanding the transition requirement to include at-risk children and transition to other service systems such as Head Start.

• Provide for more efficient administration of the Grants to States and Preschool Grants programs by permitting States to combine funds used for administering the Preschool program with other IDEA funds provided for administering the Grants to States program. States would also be permitted to use administrative funds available under Part B for administration of Part H in those States in which the State education agency is the lead agency for Part H.

• Provide for better coordination of State-level activities under Part B and eliminate unnecessary fiscal tracking by permitting States to combine State set-aside funds under the two Part B programs that are used for support services such as teacher training if the training also benefits children aged 3-5.

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