JANUARY 30, 2004
DEFENDING THE WRITE THING
The weekend is here and maybe all of us can take a little time to finish sending our letters off to our Senators.
Hey, but what happens if the Senators or their staffers ask us questions?
Naturally, it is important to tell them your own stories and points of views about what is needed for your child to succeed in school. That is most important. All of us have something to say, stories to tell, and opinions of how things should be. This adds to the richness of our dialogue with the Senate office personnel.
You may find Sandys Parent Talking Points for the Senate Bill (S.1248), posted on this weeks Home page (January 28, 2004), helpful if you are asked for specific areas of concern and need to provide a bit more detail.
If you chose to fill in the blank and use our January 29, 2004, template letter (and just put in your Senators name and your own contact information), you might need some additional talking points. To address this, we have developed a brief Q & A section below that might help you develop answers of your own when asked by Senate offices or the press about areas of concern outlined in the template letter. Again, these are just tools to help if you are stuck finding your own voice in all of this, yet want to do something to help our kids.
(Top of Q & A)
Q: Why is it that only the Senators on Capitol Hill can provide help to kids and families right now?
A: In the legislative process, the next volley is in the Senates court. S.1248 is on the Senates calendar for action during the week of March 22, 2004. Senator Frist ultimately controls what falls on that calendar.
Q: What makes this an extremely dangerous and reckless IDEA reauthorization train?
A: (1) Safety nets for children with behavioral issues, who receive special education supports and services primarily for those issues, have been removed. (2) Short-term objectives and benchmarks have been eliminated, and there has been nothing added to replace them in terms of assessing students progress. (3) Supports necessary for parents to assist in the critical role of IDEA enforcement have been compromised.
Q: How will many families suffer physically, emotionally, and financially if this reauthorization goes through as is?
A: The current reauthorization proposals, including S.1248, put at risk the present physical infrastructures that allow the schools to educate our children. They shift the pressures of accountability from the schools to the children and their families. Moreover, potentially damaging amendments on the Senate floor threaten to further compromise due process protections, which would increase the financial costs for families needing to challenge the system and hold it accountable. Families stand to lose three times. First, their children will not receive what they were to receive in the first place. Second, their own taxpayer dollars will be used by school districts to defend schools rather than to provide the disputed services. And finally, should an attorney fee cap amendment pass, such that the amount of legal fees a prevailing parent can recover from the school district becomes severely limited, there will likely be fewer attorneys willing to represent families, or those still willing to do so may have to increase their fees to a level that would be unreachable for many families who do not have substantial disposable income or savings.
Q: Why is there no valid reason for having to bring Part B of S.1248 to the Senate floor this year?
A: Part B is permanently authorized. That means that it will continue in effect permanently; therefore, it does not need to be reauthorized. (Please note: We are not referring to ALL of IDEA, we are just referring to Part B.)
Q: Why is S.1248 already obsolete?
A: The drafting of S.1248 started before all of the No Child Left Behind rules were rolled out. For example, rules pertaining to increased flexibility for meeting No Child Left Behinds requirements for educating students with disabilities were just published in the December 9, 2003, Federal Register. We dont even know what the effect of this new rule will be on students with disabilities since it is so new. Thus, S.1248 fails to take into account critical subsequent developments.
Q: What is an example of an unintended consequence resulting from this IDEA reauthorization that could compromise students access to learning and threaten their futures as productive citizens?
A: With provisions that give schools more power to move students with behavior issues into another setting, pending a review to figure out if the behavior was related to the disability or not (guilty until proven innocent), schools may be able to escape accountability for those students with disabilities. No Child Left Behind does not require the inclusion of test scores for children who do not attend a particular school for an entire school year; thus, the incentive exists for schools to misuse this power.
Q: How will S.1248 compromise access to the general curriculum?
A: There is much talk in the public arena of students having their present placements compromised with the high stakes of No Child Left Behind. This could result in more children being placed in more restrictive environments, in which access to the general curriculum is not always the first priority nor as easily implemented.
Q: How does this IDEA reauthorization banish all hope of having many more of our students with disabilities make AYP and become proficient by 2014?
A: S.1248 offers fewer, rather than more, support to students and families as compared to current law (IDEA 97). For No Child Left Behind to work as intended, students with disabilities will need more support and enforcement of their education plans, not less. If this IDEA reauthorization process were really focused on and grounded in the realities of No Child Left Behind as it stands today, the hope of AYP and proficiency for more students with disabilities might be a possibility. But until this happens, and the dialogue shifts to one based upon a realistic assessment of where No Child Left Behind currently stands and asks how IDEA can be used to give our students access to NCLBs promise of proficiency, we are better off sticking with IDEA 97.
(End of Q & A)
Should you need more information, you can find it by checking out any or all of the links below.
Achiever, January 15, 2004: New Rule Increases Flexibility for Students with Disabilities
www.ed.gov/news/newsletters/achiever/2004/011504.html
Center for Law and Education: IDEA Alert and An Open Letter to Senators Gregg and Kennedy re/IDEA and NCLB
www.cleweb.org
Document from National Coalition of Parent Centers IDEA Update
pub60.ezboard.com/fourchildrenleftbehindfrm14.showMessage?topicID=107.topic
Michigan's State Board of Education Draft Position Paper Commenting on IDEA reauthorization
pub60.ezboard.com/fourchildrenleftbehindfrm17.showMessage?topicID=182.topic
Our Children Left Behind: Breaking News Page
www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com/pages/2/index.htm
Our Children Left Behind: Resources Page
www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com/pages/5/index.htm
TASH Commentary on S.1248
pub60.ezboard.com/fourchildrenleftbehindfrm14.showMessage?topicID=102.topic
Thank you for everything that you are doing to help our kids get a better IDEA.
It is energizing to hear from you! Let us know how you are doing.
Shari Krishnan, today's parentvolunteer@ourchildrenleftbehind.com
©2004 Our Children Left Behind.
Our Children Left Behind [OCLB] was created and is owned/operated by parent volunteers (Sandy Alperstein, Tricia & Calvin Luker, Shari Krishnan, and Debi Lewis). Permission to forward, copy, and/or post this article is granted provided that it is unedited and attributed to the author(s) and www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com. For more about OCLB or to share information, please contact parentvolunteer@ourchildrenleftbehind.com.
