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

Good morning. Senator Jeffords, Senator Harkin, and members of the Committee -- thank you for inviting me to appear before you to discuss the IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

For 22 years, this law has played a major role in transforming American communities. Through IDEA programs, millions of students with disabilities have received the education they need to become fully participating, fully contributing members of our society.

The IDEA is not just a law on paper. To most families with disabled children, it is the bedrock foundation upon which the future of their children depend.

Many, many Americans are eager to ensure that the IDEA continues to meet the needs of our nation. As Assistant Secretary of Education, I have visited hundreds of communities in the past four years and have spoken with thousands of educators, parents, and students.

I am absolutely convinced we must not weaken the protections contained in the IDEA, which guarantee that disabled students have equal access to free, public education in the least restrictive environment, and which guarantee that disabled students receive the educational opportunities they need to become productive adults.

The IDEA has always enjoyed bipartisan support, and we must continue that bipartisan tradition. The Administration welcomes the opportunity to work with the Senate and the House -- and with educators and parents -- to assure that IDEA programs and policies continue to yield improved results for students with disabilities and for the entire system of American education.

President Clinton has said, "I am committed to maintaining IDEA so that every American student with a disability will receive excellent educational opportunities in the least restrictive environment possible."

The Administration will be proposing legislation to improve the programs authorized under the IDEA in the near future. My testimony today will highlight major issues that must be addressed by the legislation.

Together, we will make sure that the IDEA continues helping teachers to teach and students to learn.

Prior to enactment of P.L. 94-142 in 1975, federal courts recognized that children with disabilities have a Constitutional right to an equal educational opportunity. PL 94-142 was enacted to Assist states and communities in meeting their Constitutional obligation by requiring them to make a free appropriate public education available to all children with disabilities.

Please remember that only twenty years ago, more than one million children with disabilities were not receiving any public education, and another 3.5 million did not receive appropriate programs within public schools. Many of these young Americans were placed in dehumanizing state institutions for the mentally retarded. Today, infants and toddlers with disabilities receive early intervention services that help get them on the right developmental track from the beginning. Children with disabilities go to preschool and to school in their community with their brothers and sisters, play on little league teams, and sing in the church choir. And, when they finish school, they go to work and pay taxes, enjoying the opportunities of this great country while accepting the responsibilities of citizenship.

Disabled students and their families do not want to be shut away from the rest of society or given a watered-down curriculum; they want an opportunity to study and to work so that they can contribute to society.

The IDEA has changed the role of government from one of caretaker of dependent individuals to one that opens the door to education and empowers people with disabilities to fully participate in their community.

I was a child in the 1950's and 60's, too early to benefit from the IDEA. I was one of more than one million disabled children who were being denied the right to go to school.

I contracted polio when I was one and a half. When I was five years old and ready for kindergarten, our neighborhood public school would not take me because I used a wheelchair. Instead, the school system sent a tutor to my house twice a week. I received exactly two and a half hours of education a week!

Throughout my years as a student, the school system seemed to continually send me the message that my prospects were limited and my future unimportant. But my mother and father were immigrants who truly believed that America was the land of opportunity. They always believed in their hearts that I had a right to an education that could help ensure a successful future.

However, since there was no law to guarantee that right, my parents soon learned they had to fight for my right to achieve.

When I was nine, in the fourth grade, I finally got to go to a real school. I was placed in a class hidden in a far corner of the basement. We were treated like second-class citizens. We were allowed to mix with the non-disabled children only on Fridays, at our school-wide assemblies.

The message from the school was: disabled children are not valued as people, and certainly not as students. The results were predictable: very few of the children in my "special" class went on to further studies. In fact, I was the first student in my class to go on to high school -- but not until my Mom and Dad fought for this right. If it were not for them, upon graduation from the eighth grade, I would have gone back to home instruction.

My parents and hundreds of thousands of others waged a fight to open the school house doors for their disabled children. I believe that this struggle will be viewed by history as reaffirming the fundamental right of all Americans to be free of discrimination and arbitrary treatment.

Educational reform has been front and center in the public policy agenda of our nation for at least 16 years. But we cannot consider our educational reform tasks completed until America's schools are able to serve all our students well. America's children come from a variety of racial, ethnic and nationality groups. America's children come from all economic backgrounds.

And America's children are both disabled and non-disabled.

If we are to prosper in the future, we cannot afford to waste the potential of any of our young people. America needs us all.

Parents of children with disabilities also have children without disabilities. In the past, these parents might have had limited expectations for the achievements of their disabled children. As I said, they fought -- and fought hard -- just to make sure their children got into school. But more and more today, thanks in part to the IDEA, parents expect that all their children -- those who are disabled as well as those who are not -- will receive an excellent education that will prepare them for higher education, meaningful employment, and most important -- to become valued members of their community.

For example, Mattingly Eisner, a third-grader in Maryland, was born with Down's syndrome and multiple heart problems. Because of the IDEA, Matty has been able to obtain the educational services he has needed during each phase of his young life.

From the time he was a new-born to one-and-a-half years old, Matty received early childhood development services at home because he had to undergo a series of open heart operations and because he could not risk becoming infected by exposure to other people. From one-and-a-half to three years old, he went with his mother two days a week to a program that prepared him for pre-school. Then he went to a pre-school for children with special needs-- three half days a week at first and five full days a week later. Starting at age six, with kindergarten, Matty has been taught in regular classrooms with a teacher's aide to assist him.

From the time he began learning in an inclusive setting, Matty's ability to verbalize has increased dramatically and he has become an avid reader. Matty's teachers say he loves to learn and enjoys being pushed to learn new things.

Most of the children in his school are from ethnic or racial minorities and have themselves felt "different" from the majority in our society. Nevertheless, some classmates used to tease Matty until teachers and Matty's mother helped the children understand his uniqueness. Now the children get impatient for their turn to study with him. Having Matty as a pal helps them learn important lessons about getting along with other people.

According to his Mom, "because he's in an inclusive school, Matty has become your basic nine year old boy. He's loving and sweet, stubborn and playful. He's energetic, loves sports and music, makes up jokes, tells stories, and likes to play-act."

Before the passage of the IDEA, children like Matty Eisner might have been shut off from the rest of society, their potential ignored. But today, Matty is full of the anticipation and excitement that is the right of all nine-year olds. He is formulating his life's dreams and expects to reach them.

Matty and his parents are right to have high expectations, and we in government have a responsibility to ensure that these expectations can be fulfilled.

Despite much progress, we can do better in reaching the goals of the IDEA.

I would like to discuss five areas the Administration believes must be addressed in order to improve educational results for children with disabilities.

One: High Expectations

At the Federal level, the Department of Education is pursuing this objective through its implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. We are in the process of identifying goals for each of our programs and of developing performance indicators that will be used in gauging progress. In the case of special education, possible indicators would include the graduation rate, participation and performance on assessments, and post-school results such as employment.

At the State level, there should be a corresponding effort to develop goals for the performance of children with disabilities and to monitor progress toward achieving those goals. States should be analyzing their own data on graduation and dropout rates, performance on assessments, participation in postsecondary education, and employment.

Of course, the purpose of all assessments should be to create tools for developing appropriate strategies for improvement.

It is critical that children with disabilities be included in State and district-wide assessments. Even though civil rights statutes prohibit discriminatory exclusion of students with disabilities from assessments, many States actually exclude half or more of these students. As a result, these excluded may be denied meaningful access to the curriculum to which the assessments are tied. One strategy for improving access to the general curriculum is to improve IEPs. The IEP process should also be used as a means of ensuring that children with disabilities are provided the accommodations they need to participate in assessments. It is tragically obvious that states do not expect them to reach the same high standards being established for non-disabled children. We believe that when we have high expectations for children with disabilities, most can achieve to challenging standards and all can achieve more than society has historically expected.

Of course, a small percentage of children with significant cognitive disabilities cannot be appropriately included in regular assessments. In those cases, States and school districts should provide alternate assessments for these children.

Providing for the participation of children with disabilities in assessments and reporting on those results is critical to ensuring that States and districts take responsibility for the academic progress of disabled students.

Regular feedback to individual parents also needs to be a part of the accountability system. Parents can do much to help their children succeed, but they need to be told how their children are progressing in school. Parents of children with disabilities should be informed of their children's progress with the same frequency as parents of non-disabled children through means such as regular report cards.

Two: Services, not Places

We have learned that the IDEA's requirements relating to serving children in the least restrictive environment make good educational sense and benefit both children with disabilities and non-disabled children. We should look at how to make this requirement work even better for all students.

We must stop thinking about "special education" as a separate program and a separate place to put students and start thinking about "special education" as the supports and services children need in whatever setting is the least restrictive, whether it is the regular classroom, a resource room, a separate classroom or a separate school. Under current law, a less restrictive setting may not be rejected without a thorough consideration of whether that setting might work if the child was provided with supplementary aids and services, but we frequently find that this approach is not followed. At the same time, a child should never be "dumped" in a setting in which the teacher is not equipped to address that child's special needs and the child is not provided needed supports, yet all too often we hear of that type of situation.

One strategy for achieving successful inclusion of children with disabilities in the regular classroom is to include a regular education teacher in the IEP meeting. This teacher would offer a unique perspective on what is possible in the regular class and what is needed for success. In addition, communication and collaboration between regular teachers and special education personnel is critical to successful inclusion. Moreover, appropriate training for both regular and special education teachers is essential to ensure that the needs of children with disabilities are met in the regular classroom.

Another promising strategy is improving the evaluation process to ensure the evaluations produce instructionally relevant information that can be used to help make appropriate decisions on how to meet the child's needs.

A key element of the Administration's approach to all educational issues is the effort to create a partnership between parents and educators. No one knows what children need to become effective learners better than the parents who love them. And no one knows how to help children reach their goals better than the teachers who teach them.

We believe that parents must be involved in placement decisions. Among other things, they have much unique information to offer that can help ensure that the child's placement is appropriate.

Three: Due Process

We wholeheartedly support the use of less adversarial mechanisms, like mediation, to resolve disagreements between parents and schools. Unnecessary lawsuits can create emotional and financial stress for parents and school districts.

Many states have created successful mediation systems that resolve disputes quickly and effectively. Parents and school districts that have engaged in mediation report that it not only helped resolve their particular disagreement, but it helped them to work together better and avoid future conflicts. We believe that all parents should be offered the option of mediation in the case of a dispute.

At the same time, the right of parents to due process hearings to resolve disputes is central to implementation of the IDEA.

The number of disagreements that result in litigation is infinitesimally small. On average, there are approximately two to three court cases per State per year, with many States having none. And remember, there are 5.8 million students being served under the IDEA.

Relatively few resources go toward resolving disputes, and we believe that the benefits of having this safety valve outweigh the costs. This mechanism helps ensure that the purpose of the IDEA is achieved -- that all children with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education.

For these reasons, we would be strongly concerned about any proposals that would jeopardize parents' access to attorneys if they need legal assistance. While school districts and others complain about the costs of attorneys fees, it is important to remember that fees are awarded only when the school district is found to have failed to comply with the law. Furthermore, the statute already imposes limitations on when the award of fees is appropriate and includes other provisions that limit the amount of fees that are awarded.

Four: Safe Schools

I think we all can agree that we must have safe and orderly schools for all our children to learn, including children with disabilities. To ensure safety and order in the classroom, schools must be able to discipline children, including children with disabilities, through such measures as suspension and expulsion.

It is important to emphasize that there is a great deal a school can do under current law to address misconduct -- from temporary suspensions to long-term expulsions when the child's conduct is not a manifestation of the child's disability. There still seems to be considerable misinformation in schools about what disciplinary actions are permissible that needs to be cleared up.

A focus on prevention can also make a big difference. There are many schools that have learned how to prevent violent and disruptive behavior through such means as early identification of learning problems, teaching how to resolve conflicts peacefully, and behavioral management plans.

We also know that student misconduct is sometimes caused when the child does not receive the necessary supports and services he or she needs in order to learn. Children must not be penalized for the failures or shortcomings of our schools.

The law is very clear: children with disabilities who have been suspended or expelled can not be cut off from educational services. This has been the government's consistent position since President Bush. Cessation of educational services to children is not needed to ensure safe and orderly classrooms conducive to learning; nor is it an effective form of punishment. We have opposed the cessation of services for children with disabilities because it reduces the odds that these children, who are among the least likely to return to school, will ever be productive, law-abiding members of their communities.

Here's a success story, involving Lincoln Elementary, a 100 percent Title I school located in Utah's most severely distressed neighborhood in downtown Salt Lake City.

Historically, Lincoln was a school with no innovative programs, and no community or parent involvement and it was open only during the traditional hours of a school day. In four short years, Lincoln changed dramatically, thanks in large part to two programs built upon IDEA-funded research and sponsored by the State of Utah. The programs are called: FACT -- Families and Agencies Coming Together, and BEST -- Behavioral and Educational Strategies for Teachers.

Through these and other programs, the staff at Lincoln mobilized its community and formed collaborative partnerships between many professionals and parents. Lincoln is now open from early morning to late at night and has become a family resource center as well as a school. Many creative and innovative programs now operate from Lincoln, including the "Kids Against Violence" art program.

A child with a disability whom we'll call "Eddy" is a Lincoln student with a history of physical and verbal aggression. He was known by classmates and teachers alike as the "school bully." He was placed in the "Kids Against Violence" program. Here, Eddy learned to be an expert potter and participated in numerous community service art projects.

Today, Eddy's aggressive behaviors have almost disappeared. Instead of running from him, other children seek him out to help them on their art projects.

Five: Support Programs

The IDEA currently contains 14 discretionary authorities -- each of which was created over the years to address a specific need identified at that time. These programs authorized a variety of activities that support the IDEA State grant programs, including research, demonstration and outreach projects, professional development of teachers and related services personnel, parent training, technical assistance to States, dissemination, technology development, and media services. The authorities for these programs expired at the end of fiscal year 1995.

While much good work has been done in each of the programs, we believe the expired authorities are fragmented and too narrowly focused in their current form. Many activities are limited to particular age ranges or disabilities in ways that do not make sense. Having numerous authorities also makes effective administration difficult.

At the same time, we strongly believe that the underlying functions carried out under the 14 authorities are central to the Federal role in improving results for children with disabilities. Therefore, we are again proposing a consolidation of these programs into 5 new authorities: Research to Practice, Professional Development, State Improvement Grants, Parent Training and Information Centers, and Technology Development and Educational Media Services.

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, as we all sit down to re-examine the current services our public sector is offering to disabled people and their families, I urge you to consider the good work being done under the IDEA.

IDEA programs serve youth from birth through age 21.

Early Intervention

Part H of IDEA focuses on early intervention for infants and children up through age two. Part H is a relatively young program, only 11 years old, and it is an important addition to the IDEA. It was designed to give States several years to plan and set up comprehensive Statewide systems of early intervention services and now supports all States as they provide these services. Among other things, Part H funding is used for "early identification" efforts that help schools and families pinpoint disabilities that could affect a child's learning and development.

Currently all States are participating in Part H programs and have agreed to serve all eligible infants and toddlers. They are reporting significant progress in implementing their systems and are serving ever-increasing numbers of children.

Under Part H systems, the States served 174,288 infants and toddlers with disabilities in 1996, an increase of over 22 percent since 1993.

States are reporting positive cost-benefit ratios and future savings for every dollar spent in early intervention because fewer future services are needed, including institutional services.

Another IDEA early intervention program -- the Preschool Grants program -- prepares youngsters to enter school ready to learn. All states are providing services to all identified eligible 3 through 5-year olds. Between fiscal year 1991 and 1996, the number of children served under this program increased from 367,428 to 549,154, a 49.5 percent increase. This represents approximately four percent of all pre-school children in America.

Research and Technology

Many of the IDEA's discretionary programs fund research and development of technological tools to help disabled individuals participate in everyday life.

The creativity of disabled persons is badly needed by America, but often it is hidden by the individual's limited ability to hear, see, use muscles, or communicate. Disabled persons' insights, wisdom and skills can be freed by computers, voice enhancers, wheelchairs, and other technological devices. Telecommunication systems, captioning, and audio-description devices can open information pathways for disabled students.

Unfortunately, the market for this technology is small, due, in part, to the time and expense required to develop and test new innovations. As a result, private companies are often reluctant to support research and development of technology for children with disabilities.

IDEA-funded researchers have successfully marketed and distributed their products through collaboration with this country's leading commercial vendors. These marketing and distribution activities have had an added benefit by providing useful products not only for individuals with disabilities but also for their non-disabled peers within the general population.

For example, the Kurtzweil Machine "reads" written text and translates it into both Braille and speech. This research-proven tool can support learning and independence among the over 200,000 blind persons who are presently enrolled in school or employed in our country's workforce. Moreover, the Optical Character Recognition technology, which is at the core of the Kurtzweil Machine, allows personal computers to directly receive, edit, and send facsimile messages. Thus, advanced telecommunication technology, developed with IDEA support, is being used by millions of general education students, office workers, and other computer-users throughout the country.

IDEA has also supported the development and implementation of captioning for people with hearing impairments, allowing millions of Americans to have access to TV and motion pictures.

Special education technology, developed and validated with IDEA support, has also contributed to advances in individualizing instruction for children with disabilities in States and localities across the country.

There are hundreds of thousands of disabled individuals who are now gainfully employed thanks to the types of technology developed and disseminated through IDEA-supported programs. Let me tell you about just one.

Ursela Battle is a data entry clerk. As an employee of Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc. she is helping keep our nation a world leader. Ms. Battle works on a contract for the U.S. Navy and its Space program.

She was born with cerebral palsy, has no speech, and no voluntary movement of her limbs.

"We always knew Ursela had a lot inside," her mother says. "It was just a question of giving her the means to share her gifts with others."

As a youngster in a public school class for children with multiple disabilities, she communicated by pointing to letters with a paintbrush taped to her forehead. But spelling out words this way was exhausting and slow. Ursela began to flourish educationally only after she was given a computerized device that allowed her to quickly display words in mathematical code. Her parents then discovered the reading ability she had been developing all along.

However, Ursela could communicate only with the few people who knew her code. Later she received a "light talker" device which she operates by turning her head. With it, she controls a sound synthesizer that produces an easily understood artificial voice.

During her last year in high school, Ursela participated in a program that helps students with disabilities go from school to work. She visited various work sites and got on-the-job experience. She got her job with Booz-Allen through this program. The same device that allows Ursela to operate her artificial voice also allows her to operate computers at work.

Personnel Preparation

Currently, IDEA personnel-preparation funds are supporting training programs at 250 colleges and universities with each of the states represented. These programs are preparing over 33,000 personnel.

Parent Training and Information Centers

The Parent Training and Information Centers program helps ensure that parents can effectively participate in decision-making. This program supports grants to parent organizations for the purpose of providing training and information to parents of infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities and to persons who work with parents, to enable parents to participate more fully and effectively with professionals in meeting the educational needs of their children and youth.

Currently, 72 projects are supported through the program, with at least one in every State.

Over the past 2 years, the PTIs have been developing and providing information to parents on school reform so that parents can help ensure that students with disabilities participate in school improvement efforts such as state-wide assessments and standard-based curriculum reform.

Centers have also concentrated on disadvantaged parents who frequently are poorly educated and have greater difficulty participating.

These centers have served tens of thousands of parents and families and have been instrumental in improving educational results for students with disabilities.

Technical Assistance

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I would like to thank you again for giving me the time to speak today.

I would like to conclude by stressing that the Clinton Administration is prepared to assist the Congress in its efforts to review and extend the IDEA, a law we feel is fundamentally good.

We are pleased that all of the groups--disability, education, and advocacy--came together to support additional FY 1997 funding, resulting in the largest increase in funding that the IDEA has ever enjoyed. This shows the value of us all working together. We hope that this increase will result in these dollars being wisely spent to benefit teaching and learning for disabled children.

We are committed to building confidence in the process and are prepared to work with both the House and Senate to help strengthen the law to ensure that children with disabilities have the opportunity to learn challenging materials and attain high standards, with the expectation that they will participate and succeed in school, in gaining employment, and as citizens of their communities.

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