Like high school students with a looming deadline for a term paper, members of the House-Senate conference committee working to revise the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act didn’t leave a moment to spare. But they managed to agree to a comprehensive updating of the act, known as IDEA, in time for passage before the end of the 2004 session. Failure to vote out a bill would have sent the legislation back to the beginning of the process, after two years of work marked by a high degree of bipartisan cooperation.

While the new legislation stops short of guaranteeing that the federal government will pay 40 percent of the costs of special education, it does authorize significant additional spending that, if followed up by appropriations to match, will bring the federal share to that level. Federal spending would rise from the 2005 authorized level of $12.4 billion to $26.1 billion by 2011.

IDEA governs the educational experience of 6.7 million students with identified physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. The new version makes changes large and small in virtually every aspect of special education, from discipline to assessment to teacher qualifications and professional development.

Members of the House-Senate conference committee met on Nov. 17, 2004 to approve the legislation. Conference committee members, speaking almost wistfully about the bipartisan process that had allowed them to complete the work in time, were almost unanimous in their view that the new legislation will improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities, and relieve some of the financial pressure on local districts.

Representative John Boehner, R-OH, chaired the conference committee. He said the new law will “focus the education of our special needs students on results, rather than dotting i’s and crossing t’s.” Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called the new law “an extra-strong piece of legislation that is going to move the ball down the field” for special education students.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, ranking minority member of the committee, termed the bill an important step forward in the “long and arduous march for the civil rights of children with disabilities.”

Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-VT, was the only member of the committee to vote against the bill. “As we approach the 30th anniversary of the original IDEA law, it is unconscionable that we, the Congress, will have once again failed to fulfill our commitment to pay the 40 percent share we promised almost three decades ago,” said Jeffords. The legislation then won easy final approval in the House and Senate on November 19.

Here are some highlights:

The 40 Percent Promise; Flexible Spending
When Congress first passed legislation establishing the rights of disabled children to a free and appropriate public education in 1975, language in the law indicated that federal funds would cover 40 percent of the costs to local districts of special education services. However, that spending was not mandated, and annual appropriations from Congress never reached anything close to that level.

In recent years, the federal share of funding for special education costs has risen from $2.3 billion in FY 1996 to $11.1 billion in FY 2005. That is about 18 percent of the overall cost.

While advocates pushed for the 40 percent funding level to be guaranteed in the new legislation, they did not succeed. That was the main reason that Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-VT, chose to cast the lone dissenting vote on the conference report. Conference member Rep. George Miller, D-CA, voted for the report, but said he remained “concerned about the level of funding. We have continued to ignore a 30-year-old pledge to fully fund this law.”

Another provision of the revised law offers some fiscal relief to states, though advocates worry it will come at the expense of special education students. Each state now be able to spend a certain portion of locally-generated special education dollars on other educational programs, as long as the state is in compliance with IDEA.

Discipline
After funding, revisions to the discipline provisions of IDEA were among the most difficult for conferees to agree on.

The original House-passed legislation would have made it much easier for teachers and schools to remove special education students from their classrooms and schools for disciplinary reasons, regardless of whether the behavior was related to the disability. That marked a major turning away from protections in the 1997 IDEA. In conference, negotiators chose a middle path. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, said he recognized the changes “cause uncertainty and anxiety for many parents,” but that he believed the final language was “a workable compromise.”

Under the new law, teachers and schools will be able to discipline special education students more easily, but will still have to demonstrate that the behavior is not caused by the disability.

Alignment with NCLB
A major goal of the reauthorization of IDEA was to bring it into line with No Child Left Behind. Two areas of particular concern were how to apply NCLB definitions of highly-qualified teachers to special educators, who often hold degrees in special education, but not in all of the many subjects they are called upon to teach; and how to apply NCLB requirements for ongoing assessment of student’s academic achievement within the wide range of students receiving special education services.

States and teachers did not get hoped-for relief in the form of more time for teachers to be certified as “highly qualified,” but they did get a partial break in that teachers who meet the standard in at least one subject by the 2006-2007 school year will have additional time to meet the standard in other subjects they teach. Teacher’s groups warn the new requirements could lead to large numbers of resignations and early retirements, and worsen the existing shortage of special education teachers.

The new legislation requires states to include students with disabilities who take alternative assessments in their NCLB accountability systems. That means that students who cannot, for instance, take the statewide achievement tests given regular-education students to measure achievement will have their progress monitored by other means, and schools and teachers will be held accountable for those results. It also provides for research to determine which alternative assessment systems are most valid and reliable, and how to align them with state content standards.

Addressing Over-Identification of Minorities
Under the revised IDEA, each state will have to come up with policies and procedures to prevent the disproportionate representation by race or ethnicity of students in special education. Rep. Boehner, who chaired the conference committee, said that too many minority students wind up in special education because “they simply had not been taught to read.”

States that fail to address this issue will be eligible for assistance from the Department of Education, but could face the loss of funds if the problem persists.

Continuity for Highly-Mobile Students
While minorities are one group that tends to be over-represented in special education, homeless children and children in foster care are another. However, because these children tend to switch schools frequently, and occasionally are out of school entirely for periods of time, they are less likely than most to actually receive the services they need or to have up-to-date education plans.

The revised law addresses part of this problem by requiring schools to recognize and follow the recommendations of a student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP) from the time the student begins attending the school. The existing IEP remains in force until a new one is completed and agreed to.

And More…
There’s a lot more to think about in the new law: language intended to reduce paperwork, allow for piloting of multi-year IEPs, reduce litigation, encourage parental participation, bar schools from requiring children take medications as a condition of attendance, increase the number of special education teachers, improve data collection, and improve transition planning for disabled students as they near the end of their eligibility for educational services under IDEA.

Talk Back

Connect for Kids is interested in what you think about the changes. Send us your thoughts, with an e-mail to Susan Phillips (susan@connectforkids.org).