IDEA Update: Some Wins, Some Losses

In April, 2003, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held markup hearings on the "Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act of 2003," to reauthorize Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The results were mixed, according to the NEA. Following is an NEA memo summarizing the actions:

Here's what we won:
Increased authorization levels: Rep. Porter (R-NV) offered an amendment to raise the authorization levels for IDEA Part B to 11.07 billion in FY04 (up from $10.3b in original bill) and to 13.57 billion in FY05 (up from $11.96 billion). This will represent an increase of $4.7 billion over the next two years if appropriators abide by these levels. These figures are also consistent with the levels called for in the negotiations over the House Budget Resolution. If appropriators stick to these levels, the federal share will rise to 21% in FY04 and 24% in FY05. Better than nothin' . . . .
Voucher amendment withdrawn! Rep. DeMint (R-SC) withdrew his amendment claiming that if I had been given "this flier" (referring to NEA's analysis), "I probably would voted against the amendment, too, if the bill did all that this says it does." He stated that he wanted to withdraw his amendment in the hopes that he could "further clarify with Committee members what the purpose of his amendment is." He claims that it is NOT a voucher bill because it merely allows federal dollars to follow state dollars where "choice" programs already exist. (Translation: Florida McKay program). He said the second purpose of his amendment is to allow states to use Part D (professional development and research funds) funds to research, design, and develop "innovative programs" that afford parents more choices. (Translation: For all states other than FL, here's some federal money to help you set up McKay plans in your own state.) Going into the markup, we knew we had enough votes to defeat the amendment, so it's likely that Mr. DeMint was encourage withdrawing and saving his amendment for the floor. We will need to really keep the heat on because much propaganda will be distributed to Members of Congress, particularly to Republican members from their party leadership. We have a special education voucher alert on the Legislative Action Center page, so please encourage folks to go to nea.org/lac to write their Representatives.

Enhanced Professional Development: NEA worked with Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin to craft an amendment encouraging states to develop more online professional development resources for teachers and paraprofessionals about special education. We also suggested that Kind to include a requirement that the Government Accounting Office issue a report determining what online resources are currently available. His concern was particularly about teachers and paras who are in rural areas who may not have access to a lot of PD opportunities and can't take off work to travel large distances to attend PD training or conferences.

Risk-sharing: NEA worked with Rep. Kind on an amendment dealing with high-cost/low incidence students. His amendment sets aside up to 4% of the state's administration money to form risk-sharing pools with states, LEAs, or other consortia to help alleviate the budgetary impact that these particular students can have on a school or school district.

Further reduction of paperwork: Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) offered an amendment, which was accepted by voice vote, to state that if all parties of an IEP team agree that a child no longer needs special education services, a formal exit evaluation need not be conducted. This will mean one less meeting and again, less time-consuming paperwork. CTA's IDEA Task Force has been in close contact with California members -- particularly Davis and Woolsey, educating them about the priorities for our members.

Partial Victories:
Raised the cap on State Grants (Part B) from 12% to 13.5%: NEA worked with Committee Democrats to educate them about a cap that was inserted into H.R. 1350, which would essentially tie the amount a state can receive to the percentage of children ages 3-17 that are identified for IDEA services. Under H.R. 1350, if that percentage exceeded 12%, the state would get no additional federal funding for those additional students. The cap was inserted as a way of reducing over-identification of students as "special education students." Reps. Andrews and Holt offered an amendment to eliminate the cap, which they debated and withdrew. They then offered an amendment to raise the cap to 13.5%. NEA's initial estimates were that 7 states would immediately lose funding if the 12% were to have remained in place, and another 7 states might be affected in the near future. By raising the cap to 13.5%, only two states (RI and WV) are affected. These are key states for us because Sen. Byrd, Ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, is certainly not going to stand by and allow his state to lose funding. Further, we have a very good relationship with Sen. Chafee, who should also be helpful in the effort to completely eliminate the cap, once we hit Conference.

Professional Development Money for All states: Rep. Wu offered an amendment that NEA proposed to create a new formula-based funding stream for professional development. (Only 42 states currently receive PD money under the State Improvement Grant program). One of the specific purposes of this program would be to expand professional development about identification practices and techniques to ensure that children are being properly referred (not over-identified or under-identified) for special education services. Rep. Castle pledged to work with Rep. Wu to see if some agreement could be reached prior to full consideration on the House floor. Wu then withdrew his amendment. We'll continue to push this.

Here's what we lost:

Mandatory Full funding of IDEA: Reps. Woolsey, Van Hollen, and McCollum offered an amendment to make all new IDEA funding mandatory and to ensure that IDEA is fully funded in six years. Debate began on Wednesday and continued on Thursday morning. Vote: 22-26 Amendment Failed.

Full funding of NCLB
Rep. Van Hollen offered an amendment to fully fund up to the authorized levels the No Child Left Behind Act. (This amendment would have actually appropriated full funding over the life of ESEA).

Mandatory full funding of IDEA
Rep. Woolsey also offered the text of the Bass bill from last Congress (H.R. 737 from 107th Congress) making all Part B funding mandatory over the next five years to reach 40%. She noted that 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats currently on the committee were co-sponsors of this bill. Vote: 22-26 Amendment failed.

Other items worthy of note:

Rep. Castle introduced a substitute bill that made the following changes to the bill marked up in subcommittee last week:

• Requires states to have policies and procedures in place regarding disproportionate representation of certain student groups in the overall special education population.
• Requires 2%, instead of 1% in the original bill, of Part D funds (professional development and research) to be directed to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
• Allows federal IDEA funds to be used for professional development in identification techniques and training to reduce disproportionality.
• ncludes related service providers in the categories of education personnel eligible for professional development.
• Amends the research section to require that the head of OSEP participate in the planning and execution of the research in special education, which is to be carried out by the new Institute of Education Sciences (formerly OERI - Office of Education Research and Improvement).
• In the "cooling off" period proposed as a way to reduce disputes, the bill clarifies that the school district has 15 days to meet with the parents (rather than the whole IEP team) to initiate a discussion about how to resolve the complaint(s).

These are all changes that were supported by NEA.

Amendment to Reinstate Manifestation Meetings and Functional Behavior Assessments
Rep. Tierney offered an amendment to reinstate the requirement to have a manifestation meeting and to conduct a functional behavior assessment. (Note: NEA does support reinstatement of the requirement to conduct functional behavioral assessments, as well as the creation of behavior intervention plans). This issue will be a hot one in Conference. Vote: 22-26.

No harm done on "highly qualified"
We were concerned that there might be an amendment to further exacerbate the problem of the "highly qualified" definition under the new ESEA as it relates to special education teachers. Fortunately, no amendment was offered. We are continuing to work with staff on this and may have some news as early as next week about some potential help on the Senate side. Stay tuned.
Motion to Report the Bill out of Committee
Vote: 29-19.

Next Steps:
The Senate is likely to introduce a bipartisan bill around 5/1 after Members come back from the April recess. Full floor consideration by the House could be scheduled as early as the week of 4/28.

Go to the Cyberlobby on the Members Only site for more background on this topic and a direct e-mail link to your congressional representative.

Go to Share Your Photos for a picture of U.S. Rep. Ron Kind discussing IDEA and other topics with WEAC members in his district.

Posted April 17, 2003