[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 25435]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 1350, INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION 
                        IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2004

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                            HON. TIM MURPHY

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 19, 2004

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Speaker, for many years, discussion of the 
Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) has focused on what has and 
what has not worked well.
  Let me draw upon my first hand experience as a psychologist who has 
participated in many of these discussions regarding learning disabled 
children, who were patients of mine. Many of these Individualized 
Education Plan (IEP) meetings were bogged down by procedures, paperwork 
and policy rather than working to help a child's reading, writing and 
arithmetic.
  As a result of my experiences with IDEA, I am convinced that the law 
needed to be updated in order to properly refocus our efforts on to the 
task of educating our nation's children. And, I believe that the 
``Improving Education Results for Children With Disabilities Act of 
2003,'' (H.R. 1350) provides many of the needed changes.
  As the Chairman of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, I am 
particularly pleased with the bill's provisions to improve the 
definition of `specific learning disabilities.' This conference report 
allows alternate assessment methods, such as the Response to 
Intervention Model (RTI), for measuring yearly progress to protect 
against the overidentification and misidentification of disabled 
children. RTI will ensure that children receive scientifically based 
instruction as soon as possible instead of relying on the outdated IQ-
achievement discrepancy model as the sole measure of a student's IDEA 
eligibility.
  And while many children need and benefit from pharmaceutical 
assistance to overcome their disabilities, far too often, people turn 
to medication in lieu of creating a solid working team of parents and 
educators to ensure the education of our children.
  The reauthorization of IDEA establishes policies that prohibit school 
personnel from requiring a child to be prescribed medication in order 
to attend school or to receive IDEA services. Medications for disabled 
students should only be prescribed by physicians with expertise in 
treating disabled children and only when necessary.
  In the area of discipline, past practices prevented school personnel 
from holding children with learning disabilities responsible for their 
behavior and students with learning disabilities were held to different 
standards than mainstream students. For the same severe offense, a 
mainstream student would be expelled while a learning disabled student 
would be returned to the classroom.
  To help children learn accountability, teachers must be able to hold 
them responsible for their actions. To teach children that good and bad 
behavior has consequences, the school must be able to enforce these 
consequences.
  We must also recognize that special education services are expensive 
and that with these federal mandates must come increased funding. I 
applaud the work of my Republican colleagues for increasing funding for 
special education grants to the States by over 383 percent for a total 
of $11.1 billion in the past 10 years. However, we must increase that 
funding to levels that better meet the needs of our children.
  While we all are concerned with the funding of our nation's special 
education programs, I join the National Education Association, the 
IDEA, Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association and the National 
Schools Boards Association in supporting the ``Improving Education 
Results for Children With Disabilities Act of 2003,'' (H.R. 1350). I am 
also aware of many of the concerns raised by parents, teachers and 
students regarding the implementation of IDEA, and I will work with my 
colleagues to revisit these issues to ensure that teachers and parents 
have the tools necessary to provide America's children with the 
education they deserve.

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