It is looking more and more likely that the Republican Congress will reauthorize a very bad version of IDEA (H.R.1350 and S.1248). IDEA is the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act and is the law that stipulates that children with disabilities must be appropriately educated by public schools.
I have posted things about IDEA before and sometimes get flack. Let me just say two things:
- If the Republicans in Congress are championing something this hard (as they are this version of the reauthorization) its gotta be bad.
- This is as important as civil rights laws for children with disabilities. What the Republicans have done is the equivolent of gutting Brown vs. Board of education.
Read on:
Under the Reauthorization of IDEA plan the Republicans are pushing:
--Accountability will be minimal (no short term objectives in IEPs) so if your child is not progressing or getting needed services, you will have nothing to base your claims to the school on. No recourse.
--Suspensions, expulsions, unilateral interim change of classroom placement will be easy - Let's just get rid of those special needs kids that pull down our school's test scores and make it hard for teachers...at least that is the attitude of schools. According to the senate's proposals,schools would be able to discipline (suspend, etc) and pull a child out of
their classroom and put them in an interim alternative placement for disruptive behavior. Some parents will just home-school when the school
starts punishing kids left and right for manifestations of their disability.
--Parents lose much of their due process rights. So if the school breaks thelaw, you very well may not get reimbursed for your attorneys fees EVEN IF
YOU WIN THE CASE. I don't know any other form of lawsuit that says the plaintiff can only collect a small portion of their attorney's fees if they
were in the right. CRAZY!
--As far as full funding solving everyone's problems -- Don't hold your breath. Under S. 1248, the school can use a large percentage of IDEA funds for the regular ed. kids. Although I favor full funding, I don't think it will in and of itself solve our problems as all
the school administrators and legislators claim.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
- Please call, fax, email and visit your Senators and ask them to Vote No to S.1248. There's a toll free number you can call: 1-800-839-5276. To find other contact info for your Senators, go to www.senate.gov or www.congress.org.
- Please sign the SpedVoters online petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/nos1248/petition.html
- Please follow what's happening by going to Our Children Left Behind(http://www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com) and The League of Special Education Voters (http://www.spedvoters.org).
