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The information in this document has been superseded by more recent information available elsewhere on this site.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.

MAKING A GOOD LAW BETTER:
THE INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT
AMENDMENTS OF 1995

Since enactment of P.L. 94-142, the Education for all Handicapped Children Act of 1975, results for children with disabilities have improved dramatically. Before the enactment of that ground- breaking law, one million children with disabilities were excluded from school altogether, and many were housed in dehumanizing institutions. Today, one of the basic goals of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has been largely met -- children with disabilities have access to education. As President Clinton has said, we do not have a person to waste in this country. Without the educational opportunities afforded to children with disabilities through the IDEA, we would continue to have a large segment of our population uneducated and unemployed.

This law has benefited not only disabled children. It has been good for all children. Nondisabled students are learning and playing with children who look, sound, or act different from them; they are learning about responsibility and how to live with members of their community.

As we undertake a review of this legislation, we reaffirm our commitment to the basic purposes of the IDEA and the recognition of the federal role in ensuring that all children with disabilities are provided with the equal educational opportunity that the Constitution guarantees. With this reauthorization, we have the opportunity to take what we have learned over the past twenty years and use it to update and improve this important law.

WHY CHANGE IS NECESSARY

Despite the great progress that has been made, significant challenges remain. Too many students with disabilities are failing courses and dropping out of school. When appropriate interventions are not provided, these students often get in trouble with the law and spend significant time in jail. Enrollment in postsecondary education is still low, and students are leaving school ill prepared for employment and independent living. Children from minority backgrounds and children with limited English proficiency are often inappropriately identified as disabled and placed in special education classrooms with low expectations. In addition, school officials and others complain that the current law is unnecessarily prescriptive, that it focuses too much on paperwork and process, that it imposes unnecessary costs, that it creates barriers to effective discipline, and that it spawns too much litigation.

OUR VISION FOR AN IMPROVED IDEA

Our reauthorization proposal addresses these issues and makes improvements to ensure that the fundamental objectives of the law are achieved, while preserving and maintaining existing rights and protections for children and their families. We based our reauthorization proposal on six key principles that clearly define our mission to improve results for students with disabilities, beginning as early as possible in the child's life.

1. Align the IDEA with State and local education reform efforts so students with disabilities can benefit from them.
2. Improve results for students with disabilities through higher expectations and meaningful access to the general curriculum, to the maximum extent appropriate.
3. Address individual needs in the least restrictive environment for the student.
4. Provide families and teachers -- those closest to students -- with the knowledge and training to effectively support students' learning.
5. Focus on teaching and learning.
6. Strengthen early intervention to ensure that every child starts school ready to learn.

Aligning the IDEA with State and local education reform efforts so students with disabilities can benefit from them underlies our entire proposal.

We need to stop thinking about "special education" as a separate program and separate place to put students and start thinking about the supports and services children need in whatever setting is the least restrictive -- whether it be the regular classroom, a resource room, a separate classroom, or a separate school. We must promote the transformation of our current categorical education system into a system for all children that meets the individual needs of each child.

We envision an education system that sets higher expectations for all students, gives all students the opportunity to learn to challenging standards, and takes responsibility and is accountable for the success of all children. We envision an education system in which special education is an important asset in overall school improvement efforts that contributes to the overall resources of the school and enriches the teaching and learning that takes place for all children. The strategies we describe below are critical to the development of a system that meets this vision.

Our second principle is that IDEA must focus on improving results for students with disabilities through higher expectations and meaningful access to the general curriculum, to the maximum extent appropriate.

We know that most children work harder and do better when more is expected of them. Disabled students are no different. When we have high expectations for students with disabilities, most can achieve to challenging standards, and all can achieve more than society has historically expected.

One strategy for increasing expectations and access to the general curriculum is improving the individualized education program (IEP). Our proposal would refocus the IEP process on educational results and include requirements that make more sense. For example:

• The new IEP would include meaningful annual objectives for the student and focus on enabling the child to participate and achieve in the general curriculum.

• Parents would be informed of their children's progress, by means such as report cards, with the same frequency used to inform parents of nondisabled children.
• The IEP procedures would be revised to require the participation of at least one regular education teacher in the IEP meeting, and provide for earlier transition planning to help ensure that each student completes secondary school prepared for employment or postsecondary education and independent living.

A related strategy for promoting high expectations and access to the general curriculum is the inclusion of students with disabilities in State and districtwide assessments. While civil rights laws already prohibit the discriminatory exclusion of students with disabilities from participation in assessments, some States exclude more than 90 percent of all students with disabilities from those assessments. Of course, a small number of students with significant cognitive disabilities cannot appropriately be included in general State and districtwide assessments. States and districts would conduct alternate assessments for these few students.

Our long-range strategy is that each State would use assessment results and other data it collects on students, such as drop-out rates, to assess and report on its progress towards meeting goals the State would establish for the performance of children with disabilities. We believe that when States assess students with disabilities and report to the public on the results, they will focus more on ensuring that students with disabilities receive the help they need to participate and achieve in the general curriculum and meet the challenging standards established for all students.

The third principle underlying our proposal is addressing individual needs in the least restrictive environment appropriate for the student.

A central purpose of the IDEA is to ensure that each child receives an effective and individualized education that addresses the child's particular needs in the least restrictive environment. Today, children are often identified and served according to the disability category within which they are labeled rather than according to what they need to achieve their full potential. Several critical changes will help defeat this unfortunate categorization.

Our first strategy is to ensure that federal and state requirements and funding systems do not create disincentives for appropriate placements and services.

• We propose that the federal funding formula be changed to allocate to States all new funding above their fiscal year 1995 grants on the basis of the total number of children in the State, not just children with disabilities. This change in the formula would remove disincentives for States to undertake improvements such as the increased provision of early intervention services, and would remove incentives for States to over-identify students as disabled.
• We also propose that any State that bases State aid on the type of settings in which children are served demonstrate that its funding formula does not result in placements that violate IDEA's least restrictive environment requirement.

Our second strategy is to promote better ways of identifying and serving students. Under the current IDEA, students must be identified as being in one of 13 specific disability categories to be served. This fosters an undesirable categorical approach to evaluating, labeling, placing, and serving children.

• We propose to use a new eligibility definition which, together with changes in reporting requirements, would encourage States to move toward less categorical approaches, while permitting States to retain their current eligibility criteria if they choose to do so.
• Evaluation procedures would also be streamlined so that what is educationally relevant is not lost and resources can be better devoted to helping students. Currently, States are required to conduct extensive evaluations and reevaluations that are costly and of limited utility in making decisions regarding a student's particular educational needs. Under our proposal, agencies would be required to convene an evaluation team every three years to consider the need for additional data, but they would no longer have to conduct tests to re-determine whether the child has a disability unless the agency or parent believes it is necessary. Our proposal would increase the focus of evaluations and reevaluations on instructionally relevant information and whether modifications are necessary to achieve the IEP objectives for the child.

Our fourth principle is that families and teachers must have the knowledge and training to effectively support student learning.

We must provide families and teachers -- those closest to students -- with the knowledge and training to effectively support students' learning.

There are 14 categorical programs in the IDEA, and over the past 19 years much good work has been done in each of them. However, despite some real successes, we believe that these programs need significant reform. Having developed separately over the years to address specific issues, the 14 programs are fragmented and too narrowly focused. We envision a streamlined, comprehensive, and coordinated approach for the discretionary programs that will be more effective in improving results for children with disabilities, while also making more effective use of resources.

• Our proposal would replace the 14 current programs with five flexible authorities. This action would reduce duplication and fragmentation, while fostering collaborative, coordinated efforts across disciplines. The programs would concentrate on developing meaningful and timely information on improving results for students with disabilities and then putting that information into the hands of those who need it: States, school districts, educators, and parents.
• To ensure that issues concerning the special needs of children with low-incidence disabilities, such as deaf-blindness, continue to be adequately addressed, there would be a minimum "floor" for discretionary spending across the new discretionary authorities to meet the needs of these children.

Family involvement is at the heart of the IDEA. Our proposal will more fully involve parents in decisions about where and how their child is educated. For example:

• Our proposal would require parents to be involved in the decision regarding the child's educational placement. Currently, parents are entitled to participate in the IEP meeting in which decisions are made about the services to be provided, but they are not entitled to participate in placement decisions, and are, therefore, often excluded.
• Detailed notice to families of their rights is another critical safeguard, yet families currently receive duplicative notices with excessive and confusing information. Our proposal would streamline the notice requirements while ensuring that families would receive all the necessary information whenever they need it.
• We also want to reduce unnecessary lawsuits that create emotional and financial burdens for parents and school districts. While the right of parents to "due process" hearings to resolve disputes is central to the implementation of the law, recourse to these hearings should be a last resort when less adversarial methods have failed. In States that have mediation in place, parents and school districts report that mediation not only helped them to clarify and resolve their particular disagreement, but that it also helped them to work together better and avoid future conflicts. Our proposal would require that mediation be made available as an option to all parents to resolve disputes.

Support for families and teachers also means assistance in addressing the health and other needs of students. Many children with disabilities have significant health or social needs. And, some children who are not yet identified as disabled can avoid needing special education if their problems are caught early. School shouldn't have to do this alone.

• Our proposal would give States and districts the flexibility to use some of their IDEA funds to help support the development of State or districtwide systems for coordinating education, health, mental health, and social services.

Our fifth principle is to increase the focus on teaching and learning.

Over the past 20 years, the IDEA has focused on process without sufficient attention to educational results for children with disabilities. Too often, the fundamental purpose of the law is lost. To achieve the improvements we are seeking, we must maximize the extent to which resources are used for teaching and learning. Our proposals for improving IEPs, eligibility determinations, and evaluations of children will help to redirect considerable resources toward more instructionally relevant activities that support higher achievement for children with disabilities.

We propose several additional changes to reduce requirements that drain resources that could be better used to improve teaching and learning. For example:

• We propose to reduce unnecessary paperwork for schools, while improving services for students, by allowing schools to use their IDEA funds to pay for special education services in the regular classroom for the purpose of benefitting students with disabilities without having to track whether nondisabled students also benefit.
• To reduce unnecessary burden, our proposal would eliminate State plans. Current application requirements direct States to document their compliance with various procedures. Currently, to establish their eligibility for funding, States routinely submit to the Department boxes of documents containing copies of all State policies and procedures for special education. Yet, States are not required to plan for improving educational results. Under our proposal, States would merely be required to update documentation kept on file at the Department. Similarly, we would give States the discretion to eliminate applications from school districts as long as appropriate documentation is on file.
• A new State improvement authority would recognize the key role that the States play in implementing the law and enhance the ability of State agencies to carry out their own plans for program improvement by providing flexible resources based on an IDEA State Improvement Plan. Recognizing that the essential element of school improvement is well-prepared teachers and administrators, the authority would focus substantial attention and funding on teacher preparation. This authority would distribute funds to States on a formula basis and would be an impetus for improving the entire IDEA program by giving States additional resources to undertake the strategies they have identified for meeting their performance goals for children with disabilities.

It is also impossible to teach and learn in an atmosphere of fear. Our proposal addresses the issue of school discipline related to students with disabilities. We believe the changes we are proposing to improve the educational opportunities of students with disabilities and to promote effective practices will help curb potential discipline problems. However, prevention is not always sufficient, and there are times when schools must take steps to address misconduct. For this reason, there should be additional options for schools seeking to ensure safety and discipline.

• Our proposal would extend the Improving America's Schools Act amendment to the IDEA, which permits schools to immediately remove a child from the classroom for up to 45 days for bringing a gun to school, to other cover other dangerous weapons such as knives.
• We are also proposing that schools be permitted to go to hearing officers to obtain quick decisions about whether a child is dangerous and may be removed from the classroom. Hearing officers already exist in every State to address special education issues and work closely with schools. This provision would help schools to expedite decisions related to dangerous conduct that does not involve weapons.

Our sixth principle is to strengthen early intervention to help ensure that every child starts school ready to learn.

Support for families also means working with them to address the early intervention needs of their infants and toddlers. While States and communities have made tremendous progress in implementing their early intervention systems for children from birth through age two under Part H of the IDEA, there remain two major challenges: ensuring that all eligible infants and toddlers receive services and supporting the prevention of developmental delays by expanding the inclusion of at-risk infants and toddlers within the Part H comprehensive system of services. To address these challenges, we propose two improvements to Part H.

• Our proposal would give States greater flexibility in their efforts to serve infants and toddlers at risk of developmental delay. States that choose to serve at-risk children would be able to provide less than the full array of Part H services as long as they provide service coordination for these children.
• We also propose to draw on the best expertise in the nation to evaluate the need for and develop an appropriate definition of developmental delay in infants and toddlers in order to help States ensure that all children in need are identified and served.

These proposals will focus the IDEA more on what happens in the classroom -- on teaching and learning -- and less on procedures. They will also give as much flexibility as possible to local teachers, principals and parents -- without diminishing essential safeguards. Taken together, they will help local communities in their efforts to create safe, disciplined schools that have high expectations for all their students, that have well-prepared teachers, and that will strengthen the involvement of students with disabilities and their families in their children's education.