A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

   FOR RELEASE              Contact: Ivette Rodriguez (202) 401-0262    June 30, 1995                                                                 

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT SUBMITS PROPOSAL TO REAUTHORIZE INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT (IDEA)

The U.S. Education Department today submitted to Congress a proposal to improve the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to promote educational excellence for the nation's 5.4 million children with disabilities.

Today's proposal reflects conversations with and comments from over 3,000 parents and educators during the past year on how to improve the law. They mark the first substantial revisions to the legislation since Congress enacted P.L. 94-142, the basis of the IDEA, in 1975.

"The IDEA has helped millions of disabled Americans to finish school, go to college, get a job, and make their civic contribution like other working Americans," said Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley. "These amendments build on two decades of research and experience to meet the needs of the classrooms of today. They aim to ensure that students with disabilities have the opportunity to learn challenging materials in classrooms with well-prepared teachers. We want the focus of the IDEA today to be on better teaching and learning -- and much less on unnecessary procedures."

The Department based its proposal on six principles: (1) connect the IDEA with state and local education improvement efforts so students with disabilities can benefit from them; (2) improve educational 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; and (6) strengthen early intervention to help ensure that every child starts school ready to learn.

Among the changes proposed:

• Increasing 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. Today, many parents of disabled students are not told how their children are doing until the end of the year and do not participate in placement decisions.

• Providing parents and teachers with better training on how they can help students with disabilities achieve in school. A national network of parent training centers would be expanded. For teachers, a professional development program would be expanded to help all teachers work more effectively with students with disabilities.

• Providing parents in every state the option of resolving disputes with schools over their children's education through mediation.

• Helping 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.

• Improving school safety 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.

• Promoting high expectations and achievement by focusing the individualized education program (IEP) on measurable annual objectives and achievement in the general curriculum, whenever possible, and by including the student's regular education teacher in developing the IEP.

• Ensuring accountability for educational results by requiring greater participation of disabled students in state and district assessments and asking each State to establish goals for the performance of children with disabilities and report on results.

• Reducing paperwork substantially by eliminating unnecessary requirements. For instance, states would no longer have to submit lengthy plans for funding. Rather, they would only have to provide changes from the previous year's submission -- which could be just a few pages.

• Revising 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. Current law tends to encourage over-identification of children, particularly minority children, as disabled and to discourage State early intervention and pre-referral activities.

• Increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Federal 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.

• Giving states more flexibility in serving infants and toddlers who are at risk of developmental delay within their comprehensive system of early intervention.

Of the 5.4 million children served under IDEA, about 4.8 million are school-age, 500,000 preschoolers, and about 150,000 infants and toddlers. Half of those 4.8 million school-age children have learning disabilities -- such as problems with reading and writing. About 9 percent exhibit significant emotional disturbance and only a small number are blind or deaf or have other significant disabilities such as autism or traumatic brain injury.

Congressional authorization for IDEA's discretionary programs and Part H (early intervention for infants and toddlers) expires Sept. 30.

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