[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 7, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E61-E62]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IDEA IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 1997

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. WILLIAM F. GOODLING

                            of pennyslvania

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, January 7, 1997

  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, today over one dozen of my colleagues and 
I have introduced the IDEA Improvement Act of 1997, amending the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA]. I have long been 
concerned about ensuring that all children receive a high quality 
education. There is nothing more important to the future of our country 
than providing the opportunity for a high quality education for all 
Americans. My colleagues and I believe this can be achieved by working 
together to build on what works: that means improving basic academics, 
increasing parental involvement, and moving dollars to the classroom.
  In my view, this bill represents a significant step toward local 
schools delivering a high quality education to all children with 
disabilities. I have long supported improving the quality of education 
for children with disabilities. Last year, I worked hard for the 
passage of the IDEA Improvement Act of 1996, H.R. 3268. That bill 
passed the House in the 104th Congress by a unanimous vote. I have also 
long pushed the Appropriations Committee for increased funding for the 
Part B Program. Last year, my efforts were rewarded with over $700 
million in new funding being appropriated to IDEA.
  Like H.R. 3268, the IDEA Improvement Act of 1997 focuses the act on 
children's education instead of process and bureaucracy, gives parents 
greater input in determining the best education for their child, and 
gives teachers the tools they need to teach all children well. These 
are the changes that are necessary to provide a high quality education 
for all children with disabilities.
  The changes in the IDEA Improvement Act will have a real and positive 
impact on the lives of millions of students with disabilities. When 
enacted, the bill will help children with disabilities learn more and 
learn better, which should be the ultimate test of any education law. 
Students with disabilities will now be expected, to the maximum extent 
possible, to meet the same high educational expectations that have been 
set for all students by States and local schools. There will be an 
emphasis on what works instead of filling out paperwork. No longer will 
teachers be forced to complete massive piles of unnecessary, federally 
required forms and data collection sheets. These changes will mean more 
time for teachers to dedicate to their students, and fewer resources 
wasted on process for its own sake.
  The IDEA Improvement Act will help cut costly referrals to special 
education by emphasizing basic academics in the general education 
classroom. In the 1994-95 school year, 2.5 million of our Nation's 4.9 
million special education children were there because they have 
learning disabilities. Many of these problems could be addressed with 
better academics in the early grades.
  The IDEA Improvement Act has addressed this issue in several ways. 
First, following every evaluation of a child for special education 
services, school personnel will need to consider whether the child's 
problems are the result of lack of previous instruction. Too often, 
children whose primary problems result from a lack of reading skills 
enter special education because their problem was not properly 
addressed with basic academics. This change will result in fewer 
children being improperly identified as disabled because of their 
actual need, lack of skills, will be noted and addressed in a general 
education setting.

  Second, the bill's discretionary training program will provide 
necessary training for general education teachers that is not being 
provided today. Current Federal training grant programs ultimately 
focus on their resources on pre-service training for special education 
teachers, because universities that receive the grants decide what the 
priorities for training are. While such training is important, where 
local teachers and schools are given the opportunity to decide what 
priorities are most important, they consistently cite in-service 
training, particularly for general education teachers, and pre-service 
training for early-grade general education and reading teachers. This 
bill will refocus Federal efforts by putting the decision making power 
with States and local schools, who are in a better position to 
recognize and serve their local needs. This will mean teachers will be 
better trained to teach children in the critical early grades, which 
will lead to better taught children and ultimately, fewer special 
education referrals.
  Third, the IDEA Improvement Act will eliminate many of the financial 
incentives for overidentifying children as disabled. The change in the 
Federal formula, which I will talk about shortly, will reduce the 
Federal bonus for identifying additional children as disabled. 
Hopefully, States will follow suit, moving toward similar formulas. The 
legislation will also ensure that States do not use placement-driven 
funding formulas that tie funds to the physical location of the child. 
Such incentives encourage children to be placed in more restrictive 
settings, from which they are less likely to ever leave. They also 
encourage placement in special education in the first place, 
particularly children with mild disabilities that might best be served 
in general education classrooms with more assistance, instead of 
separate classrooms.
  The legislation will also help ensure that assignment to special 
education is not permanent. Children are often referred to special 
education in early grades and then never leave. Part of the problem 
lies with the child not keeping pace with their peers. Special 
education plans often have no link to the general curriculum. 
Therefore, children remain in special education because they lose 
contact with what other children their age are learning and can no 
longer keep up. This legislation will ensure that the general 
curriculum is part of every child's Individualized Education Program 
[IEP] or justifies why it is not.
  The bill will assure parents' ability to participate in key 
decisionmaking meetings about their children's education and they will 
have better access to school records. They will also be updated no less 
regularly than the parents of nondisabled students through parent-
teacher conferences and report cards. Parents will be in a better 
position to know about their child's education, and will be able to 
ensure that their views are part of the IEP team's decisionmaking 
process.
  The bill ensures that States will offer mediation services to resolve 
disputes. Mediation has proved successful in the nearly three-quarters 
of the States that have adopted it. This change will encourage parents 
and schools to work out differences in a less adversarial manner. The 
bill will also eliminate attorney's fees for participating in IEP 
meetings, unless they have been ordered by a court. The purpose of this 
change is to return IEP meetings to their original purpose, discussing 
the child's needs.

  Our legislation will reduce litigation under IDEA by ensuring that 
schools have proper notice of a parent's concerns prior to a due 
process action commencing. In cases where parents and schools disagree 
with the child's IEP, the school will have real notice of the parent's 
concerns prior to due process. We hope that this will lead to earlier 
resolution of such disputes without actual due process or litigation.
  Local principals and school administrators will be given more 
flexibility. There will be simplified accounting and flexibility in 
local planning. No longer will accounting rules prevent even incidental 
benefits to other, nondisabled children for fear of lost Federal 
funding.
  The bill will make schools safer for all students, disabled and 
nondisabled, and for their teachers. Expanding upon current procedures 
for students with firearms, we will enable schools to quickly remove 
violent students and those who bring weapons or drugs to school, 
regardless of their disability status. The bill will ensure that such 
children can quickly be moved to alternative placements for 45 days, 
during which time the child's teachers, principal, and parents can 
decide what changes, if any, should be made to the child's IEP and 
placement.
  The legislation will also ensure that disability status will not 
affect the school's general disciplinary procedures where appropriate. 
In discipline cases, the child's Individualized Education Program team 
will determine whether the child's actions were a manifestation of his 
or her disability. If they were not, schools will need to take the same 
action with disabled children as they would with any other child. This 
would include expulsion in weapons and drug cases where that is 
permitted by local or State law.
  Finally, I would like to talk about the funding which will determine 
how much of the Federal appropriation each State will receive. Let me 
say first of all--no State will lose funds through the first 5 years of 
the transition to the new formula. This bill moves from allocating 
funds to the States based on a ``child count''

[[Page E62]]

of children with disabilities to a population-based formula with a 
factor for poverty. The new formula is based 85 percent on the number 
of children in the State and 15 percent on State poverty statistics. 
This is a major step in the move to reduce the overidentification of 
children as disabled, particularly African-American males who have been 
pushed into the special education system in disproportionate numbers.
  In addition no State should ever receive less than it received in 
fiscal year 1996. Because of the substantial increase in IDEA Part B 
funding appropriated by the Congress for fiscal year 1997, 49 States 
will never receive less than they received last year. And that final 
State will never be affected if there are modest increases in IDEA 
funding between now and fiscal year 2007, and if not, only then in 
2007.
  The Clinton administration recognized the problem with the current 
system when it presented its proposal to the 104th Congress, suggesting 
a population-based formula with future funding. Many of my Democratic 
colleagues also recognized the importance of this change when they 
introduced that bill last year as H.R. 1986. In 1994, the Department of 
Education's Inspector General recommended changing the formula exactly 
as we have changed it in this bill. They called the current formula a 
``bounty system'' that encourages putting children in special education 
when they should not be.

  The IDEA Improvement Act of 1997 reflects an 18 month process of 
bipartisan efforts to improve upon IDEA. Because of the bipartisan 
passage of last year's bill, the bill we introduce today contains only 
a few technical changes from last year's bill. These changes include 
moving forward by 1 year various implementation dates within the bill 
and the inclusion of private school and charter school representatives 
on State advisory boards. The latter change was inadvertently left out 
of the bill as it passed the House in June 1996. In all other ways, the 
IDEA Improvement Act of 1997 is identical to last year's bill.
  Ensuring a quality education for students with disabilities through 
the IDEA Improvement Act of 1997 is my committee's No. 1 educational 
legislative priority. As such, Subcommittee Chairman Frank Riggs will 
hold a pair of hearings in February with full committee consideration 
coming soon thereafter. It is our intention to have the IDEA 
Improvement Act of 1997 passed by the House prior to the end of this 
spring.
  Before closing, I would also like to comment on the developments of 
the last 8 weeks that led to this bill's introduction. In November, 
Subcommittee Chairman Frank Riggs had a number of conversations with 
interested individuals and groups about IDEA and our committee's plans 
for introducing a new IDEA Improvement Act. At that time, 
Representative Riggs stated our committee's intention to leave certain 
provisions out of the 1997 bill that were included in the 1996 bill. 
These provisions related to the ability of States and localities to 
discipline all students, including students with disabilities whose 
actions are unrelated to their disability, in accordance with local 
policy. This would include expulsion without educational services where 
that practice is permitted by local law for students with weapons or 
illegal drugs.
  At that time, we had decided to leave those 1996 bill provisions out 
of the 1997 bill, essentially making the bill silent on the issue of 
ceasing education services to children with disabilities who have been 
expelled because of their conduct. We intended to do so as a sign of 
good faith to the disability community, who had indicated their 
discomfort with those provisions--a sign that we intended to have a 
full public debate on this issue. I expected that this gesture would be 
taken as a welcome sign by these groups. My expectation was that they 
would respond by indicating their willingness to participate in a 
vigorous public debate about this and other important issues 
surrounding the education of children with disabilities. I was greatly 
disappointed to learn that this was not the reaction of the disability 
community.
  On December 20, 1996, the cochairs of the Consortium for Citizens 
with Disabilities sent a letter to me and Representative Riggs asking 
that we postpone introduction of IDEA reform legislation. They said 
that while they applauded our earlier decision to introduce legislation 
that was silent on the issue of cessation, they had other concerns 
about other issues addressed in the 1996 bill. More pointedly, the 
letter remarked that ``no disability organization supported [the 1996] 
legislation.''
  The cochairs wrote briefly about the consensus process that led to 
the final form of the 1996 bill, and thus, the IDEA Improvement Act of 
1997. The consensus process occurred last year when disability and 
education groups asked me if the bill's markup could be postponed so 
that these groups could make consensus recommendations. About 85 
percent of the ``consensus group'' recommendations were incorporated 
into the 1996 legislation. The cochairs' letter said that the 
disability community's purposes in supporting the consensus document 
was ``to keep the legislative process moving'' and that they ``have 
never supported, and will never support, the consensus document as an 
acceptable final set of recommendations that should be enacted into law 
without further revision.''
  I was saddened to receive this letter. I simply find it hard to 
believe that it would be inappropriate to introduce legislation to 
reform a law when very similar legislation has been actively debated 
during the previous 18 months; has seen six distinct incarnations 
circulated or introduced; has seen four hearings held during the 104th 
Congress; and has seen passage of that legislation by the House of 
Representatives without a single dissenting vote less than 7 months 
before.
  I was troubled as well by the group's position on the consensus 
recommendations and their incorporation into our 1996 bill. Neither I, 
nor any of our committee's members, believed that the consensus 
recommendations would be enacted into law without change. We understood 
that further debate and a conference with the Senate would be necessary 
before the law would be enacted.
  Given this letter, I must believe that certain segments of the 
disability community are not interested in debating these important 
issues. They are not interested in releasing a working legislative 
document to the public at large for the consideration of all interested 
parties. That position is absolutely contrary to mine. As chairman, I 
am interested in an open discussion of reform options in a public 
hearing where everyone can comment on a range of proposals. The IDEA 
Improvement Act serves that purpose well, and I am proud to be its 
sponsor.
  While I had previously stated that I intended to introduce a bill 
that included a sign of good faith for the disability community, I must 
take the cochairs' letter as a rejection of that sign. For that reason, 
I have chosen not to introduce such a bill. Instead, I have introduced 
a bill that saw unanimous passage just 7 months ago in the House.
  The IDEA Improvement Act is the most important change to America's 
special education system since the passage of Public Law 94-142 in 
1975. Overall, America's special education system as currently 
structured has not accomplished what is necessary to educate all 
children with disabilities. There is broad agreement on the need to 
change. Results are important. Accountability is important. I believe 
this bill will help give America's children with disabilities what they 
were promised 21 years ago: the real opportunity to receive a high 
quality education. I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort.

                          ____________________