ED.gov

2) See testimony of Robert Pasternack, Ph.D., assistant secretary, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, March 21, 2002, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

3) See 20 USC section 1411(a)(1).

4) See 20 USC section 1412.

5) See Commission meeting held February 25, 2002, in Houston, TX, transcript pages 206 and 251.

6) The Commission recommends that the current method required by the Secretary for a state to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the Secretary, that the state has in effect policies and procedures to ensure that it meets each of the conditions as specified in the statute, be replaced by requiring that states provide an assurance that such policies and procedures are in effect.

7) Commission letter requesting information from OSEP dated February 8, 2002. Letter from Commission Deputy Executive Director Troy R. Justesen, Ed.D., to OSEP Acting Director Patricia Guard.

8) However, OSEP has consulted with the Department of Justice on several occasions regarding issues in a particular state.

9) See Commission meeting held February 25, 2002, in Houston, TX, transcript pages 205-300.

10) See Study of Personnel Needs in Special Education Fact Sheet dated January 7, 2002. See http://ferdig.coe.ufl.edu/spense.

11) Wolf and Hassel, p. 322.

12) Cullen provided testimony before the Commission on April 16, 2002, in New York, NY.

13) Coyne et al., 2001; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2001; Gresham, 2001; Langenberg, 2000.

14) National Research Council, 2002.

15) Lerner, 1989; Kavale & Reese, 1992.

16) National Research Council, 2002.

17) Kellam et al., 1994.

18) Moderate and severe mental retardation is usually identified on the basis of the genetic or neurological disorder that causes it and as such, is covered under the “other health impaired” category. Children with mild mental retardation are most often identified on the basis of test scores. The needs of these two populations may be very different. See Commission meeting held March 6, 2002, in Denver, CO, testimony of Mark L. Batshaw, M.D., pages 183-231.

19) An exception is developmental delay, which is used in only a few states and then is typically assessed like the high-incidence disabilities.

20) Among the reports we reviewed are: Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and the Progressive Policy Institute in 2001; Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education, published by the National Research Council in 2002; and papers presented at the White House Summit on Early Childhood Cognitive Development in 2001.

21) See footnote 18.

22) Stuebing et al. (in press).

23) The Commission recommends that current federal regulations for the identification of children as having mental retardation indicate clearly that IQ tests may be subject to cultural bias and that other methods for identification, such as direct classroom observation and assessments of adaptive behavior, are essential for the identification of children as having mental retardation.

24) The Commission greatly appreciates the assistance of the American Institute for Research support in allowing the Commission to cite the above information. See Chambers, Jay G., Parrish, Tom, and Harr, Jenifer J., What Are We Spending on Special Education Services in the United States, 1999-2000?, Advance Report #1, American Institutes for Research, March 2002. See http://seep.org for more specific data about special education finance.

25) Total current spending is equal to total spending less the amounts expended on school and district facilities (e.g., school buildings and district offices).

26) The law and the regulations specify how APPE is to be calculated, and its calculation excludes certain sources of federal and state funding from total educational expenditures prior to final determination of APPE. IDEA section 602(7) specifies the following definition for APPE:
(7) EXCESS COSTS — The term “excess costs” means those costs that are in excess of the average annual per-student expenditure in a local educational agency during the preceding school year for an elementary or secondary school student, as may be appropriate, and which shall be computed after deducting
(A) amounts received—
(i) under part B of this title;
(ii) under part A of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965; or
(iii) under part A of title VII of that Act; and
(B) any state or local funds expended for programs that would qualify for assistance under any of those parts.
The purpose of these calculations was presumably an attempt to estimate the baseline cost or expenditure on a general education student with no special needs.

27) See Testimony before the Commission by Julie Cullen, New York, NY, April 16, 2002, discussing the types of categorical referrals that do drive placement.

28) See Cedar Rapids Community Sch. Dist. v. Garret F. by Charlene F., 526 U.S. 66, 119 S.Ct. 992 (1999).

29) A “safety net” is a state-based program allowing local districts or education service agencies to seek reimbursement for appropriate costs, or a percentage of costs above a certain cost threshold or in a certain category of expenditures (such as out-of-district placement costs). The safety net program is managed by a board or official who decides whether expenditures are reimbursed and at what level. Reimbursement would be discretionary based on demonstrations of need in addition to the other criteria—costs above an established level from all local or regional available revenues for the student, and weighed against all legitimate expenditures associated with the student’s appropriate program.

30) A “risk management pool” is a nonprofit insurance cooperative among local districts or education service agencies that performs the same function as a safety net without the discretionary component.

31) This component of the research will be important in helping OSEP refine the concept of “excess cost” as distinguished from “additional expenditure.” This should also include some collaboration with NCES as to how one might improve upon data collection on school spending and school revenues to provide a better estimate of the average annual per-pupil expenditure for a general education student with no special needs.

32) These percentages should be applied against the total state appropriation of Part B funds, and not complicated by the unnecessary calculations currently imposed by IDEA.

33) See Commission meeting held April 9, 2002, in Coral Gables, FL, transcript pages 86-142.

34) See Center for Education Reform: Charter School Highlights and Statistics (2002). http://edreform.com/.

35) The “least restrictive environments” provision improvements are more fully described in testimony provided on April 16, 2002, in Brooklyn, NY, by Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky, Ph.D., director of the National Center on Educational Restructuring and Inclusion at the Graduate School and University Center at the City University of New York.

36) See Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 108 S.Ct. 592 (1988), which we hold as a fundamental principle of special education for children with disabilities who are removed from a current educational placement.

37) See Commission meeting held in San Diego, CA, on April 23, 2002, transcript page 141.

38) Ibid, pages 157-161.

39) Trupin, Sebesta, Yelin, and Laplante, 1997; National Organization on Disability, 2000; Zemsky & Odell, 1994; McNeil, 2000.

40) Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education, 1996.

41) Getzel, Stodden, and Briel, 2001; Hurst and Smerdon, 2000; Stodden, 2001.

42) U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 1997.

43) This Commission wishes to be clear about our use of the term “competitive employment.” Our view is that employment be in the same settings and under the same circumstances as that of people without disabilities, with or without reasonable accommodations.

44) The Commission heard considerable anecdotal evidence that a lack of health care coverage discourages people with disabilities from seeking employment. More individuals with disabilities want to work but hesitate because of a fear of losing their Medicare Part A health care coverage. However, recent changes to the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act expanded Medicare Part A for Social Security Disability Insurance recipients who obtain employment from the previous four years to eight and one-half years.

45) See the Ticket To Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999.

46) Children in foster care have drop-out rates twice their peers and are less likely to graduate from high school. They have high rates of emotional and behavioral problems yet often do not receive mental health services.

47) See WIA section 203(1).

48) This matter is either a statutory conflict or an issue of interpretation by the OVAE office. If it is an issue of interpretation, an Executive Order directing interagency coordination will lead to the matter’s being resolved by changes in administrative practice. If it is a statutory issue, the Executive Order will lead the offices to identify the need for WIA to be amended to allow IDEA-eligible students who drop out of school to access adult education services. In either event, the example demonstrates the value of such an Executive Order.

49) The statutory provisions governing this agreement are found in sections 612(a)(11-12) of IDEA and sections 101(a)(8)(B) and 101(a)(11)(D) of the Rehabilitation Act.

50) The 1998 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act were enacted as Title IV of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-220).

51) For example, one OSEP-funded study reviewed IEPs and transition plans in nine school districts and found that the long-term transition goals were, for the most part, not related to the annual goals on the student’s IEP (Hasazi, S.B., Furney, K. and DeStefano, L., 1999).

52) See testimony provided by Susan Brody Hasazi, Ed.D., before the Commission on April 18, 2002, in Nashville, TN, transcript page 58.

53) N.O.D./Harris 2000 Survey of Americans with Disabilities.

55) NLTS, 1993. See also the Accountability section of this report.

56) Justesen & Justesen, 2000.

57) While the Commission recognizes that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is responsible for enforcing section 504, RSA would likely be the appropriate agency to collect and analyze this data with OSEP.

58) SPeNSE, Study of Personnel Needs in Special Education, sponsored by OSEP, included telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of local administrators, special and general education teachers, speech-language pathologists and paraprofessionals in spring and fall 2000. For more information, see http://ferdig.coe.ufl.edu/spense.

59) ERIC, 2001; Fideler, Foster, and Schwartz, 2000.

60) Twenty-third Annual Report to Congress (USED, 2001).

61) Smith, McLeskey, Tyler, and Saunders, 2002.

62) Kozleski, Mainzer, and Deshler, 2000; Smith et al., 2002.

63) Thomas Parrish et al. Note the current trend in special education licensure is, “moving toward licenses in fewer and broader categories….” For the most part, special education licensure, “maintains a separate set of competencies linked to disability type….” See Parrish, Thomas B., et al., Funding Special Education (1999), pages 52-53.

64) See Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos070.htm.

65) National Research Council, 1998.

66) Title II of the Higher Education Act should be amended to require teacher education programs to publicly report the competence of general and special education program graduates relative to educating students with disabilities. In those circumstances where a license or certification has been granted to a teacher or specialist who has not completed an approved program of study in a college or university subject to Title II, a competency assessment comparable to that required for college and university program graduates must be developed and reported publicly.

67) National Research Council, 1998.

68) Testimony provided on March 6, 2001, in Denver, CO, by Thomas M. Skrtic, Ph.D., chair of the Special Education Department, University of Kansas, and Mary T. Brownell, Ph.D., of the University of Florida, and Rebecca L. Hamilton, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh. See transcript pages 89-130.

69) For example, we find that few preservice teacher education programs even offer elective courses focusing on transition services. We are concerned that quality professional development training in transition issues is severely lacking.

70) National Research Council, 1998.

71) Goodlad, J., “Producing Teachers Who Understand, Believe, and Care,” Education Week 16(48): 36-37 (1997).

72) Testimony provided before the Commission on February 25, 2002, in Houston, TX.

73) Smith et al., 2001.

74) National Center for Education Statistics, 1997.

75) Melnick and Pullin, 1999.

76) Testimony of Robert Pasternack, Ph.D., assistant secretary, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, March 21, 2002, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

77) Among those experts providing testimony before the Commission were Lynn Fuchs, Ph.D., Susan Brody Hasazi, Ed.D., Paul Wehman, Ph.D., Doug Fuchs, Ph.D., Don Bailey, Ph.D., Mark Wolery, Ph.D., Wayne Sailor, Ph.D., Don Deshler, Ph.D. and Donald Lee MacMillian, Ed.D. The Hearings and Witnesses section lists all experts appearing before the Commission.

79) These improvements were most clearly outlined by Ann P. Kaiser, Ph.D., who appeared before the Commission on April 18, 2002, in Nashville, TN. See transcript pages 267-381.

80) OSEP staff that is now responsible for carrying out this review process internally could be redirected to other activities.

81) See National Research Council. Improving student learning: A strategic plan for education research and its utilization, 1999.

82) Letter from Commission Executive Director C. Todd Jones to OSEP Director Stephanie Smith Lee, dated February 8, 2002, requesting information from OSEP.

83) See National Research Council. Improving student learning: A strategic plan for education research and its utilization, 1999.