As we all work together to ensure that ALL children
in the United States of America have access to a free and appropriate
education, we must remember our own history. The schools districts of
this great land have faced a similar fear, in including a large portion
of our children in school based programs, children with visible
differences. In this case, the issue was in integrating African-American
children into school. During this transition, many felt that these
individuals were somehow less valuable, and feared the impact their mere
presence would have on the schools. As we all know today, this fear
proved to be False Evidence Appearing Real. FEAR is a powerful barrier.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of
1997
(IDEA '97), is only now being implemented. Several school districts
have implemented it wonderfully. This demonstrates that IDEA'97 is a
good law. The main reasons many schools are not implementing IDEA '97
are very basic and human. Most adults in this country have not had the
pleasure of getting to know anyone with a disability. For years, we as a
society have placed individuals with disabilities in institutions,
stripping them of their civil rights -from childhood- and sentencing
them to a life of imprisonment for merely being different. The powers
that were deemed them "unable to learn" or "uneducable." We now know
this is not true, and IDEA is intended to provide protections for one of
the most basic of American civil rights, access to an education. Without
this inclusive and quality education, our children will be unable to
fulfill their dreams and -potentially- live independent, non-government
financed and controlled- lives. The better the quality of this
education, the less our children will be a burden on taxpayers. They
will, instead, be taxpayers themselves.
The only way this mindset can be changed is at the
local level. Each community in this great country has different
resources and needs. Solutions must be crafted at the local level. For
this change to happen, parents need the Federal government to provide
them with great tools to bring about change. Our children need the
protections provided by IDEA '97 in the following areas:
· Discipline -
with full Functional Behavioral
Assessments (FBA) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIP) which require
schools to sit down with the child and family and look for the root
causes of the disruptive behavior. Most times, this is because of unmet
disability based needs that are impeding a child's access to an
education.
· Current IEP Structure -
with full short term goals
and benchmarks, which currently hold schools accountable for progressing
through a modified curriculum: unique to the child. This current format
also reduces the burden to teachers, to provide them with a checklist to
provide to parents. With the elimination of these, teachers will be
forced to provide hand written papers outlining a child's progress
several times throughout the year. This tool is essential for parents to
bring about local change.
· The promise of funding -
Parents and schools are in
agreement in one area; IDEA needs to be better funded. Please fulfill
the commitment and promise made to our children decades ago. IDEA has
already reduced the burden to taxpayers to provide support to
individuals with disabilities, and that payoff has only just begun.
Many school districts and States create the problems
of excessive paperwork by viewing IDEA solely as a legal compliance
issue. They fear what will happen to their "testing scores," if these
"uneducable children" are truly included. Parents need the ability to
hold each State and local school district accountable for educating
their child. Our children can learn, and want to live independent lives
in their local communities. With the changes proposed in HR 1350 and S
1248, parents will loose these most critical tools. In addition, schools
will have the excuse of waiting for "new regulations" from the
bureaucracy in Washington, DC, and State bureaucracies, while waiting
for delays for such regulations, in light of these ill-informed, parent
and student damaging, atavistic changes. For those of us who know that
the original Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed in
1975, based on the shame of the Nation on the plight of people with
disabilities, who, then, had no right to education, the current bills
are a giant step back to the days when parents, who happened to have
children with disabilities, were told to either do everything on their
own or, place their child in a Federally-funded institution (at a cost,
today, of over $100,000+).
We do not accept these proposed changes. IF the
Federal government wants to play any role in special education, it
should not do so, in a manner that destroys our families. People fear
change and put it off for as long as they can. Only now is IDEA '97
being fully implemented in some districts. Please give us a simple
reauthorization of IDEA, and we are committed to its implementation over
the next five years to use the tools it provides to bring about positive
local change.
Be Involved! Contact Congress!
Stay current about changes and proposed changes to IDEA.
IDEA Reauthorization Issues & News:
http://www.wrightslaw.com/news/idea2002.htm
Commentary By Ed Burke
We are a group of motivated citizens who, despite
poor funding and great personal sacrifice, come to Washington to
influence public policy and support reelections. There are 54 million
Federally-determined Americans with disabilities. Beyond this, in spite
of current Federal policy to the contrary, most Americans attempt to
support their family members at home. These are all potential voters.
The small gains we have made over the past three
decades have been based on having a basic right to an education: as
everyone knows the gateway to opportunity in America. The current bills
for the reauthorization of IDEA are unwise and based on fear and the
misinformation of Congress. They are not acceptable to us, or the
millions of American who live the disability experience on a daily
basis. We would be most willing to work with you to either improve these
bills, or to help with a simple reauthorization of current (admittedly,
imperfect)law, while we can work together , to create a fair law, that
provides parents of students with disabilities with a sensible
“tool-box” for helping their own children, empower State and local
government to evaluate the efficacy of their efforts, and to maximize
the future independence of students with disabilities in the mainstream
of American life. Our kids are valuable: and we deserve A LOT better
than your current legislative proposals.
We have very busy lives. We have no desire to have to
deal with our national government in order to address what we, as
citizens of a democracy, have codified as basic civil rights issues.
However, the current IDEA reauthorization bills represent an insulting
rebuke to our efforts to bring our children with disabilities, under our
current rights, to full participation in the life of our nation. They
represent a return to the horrors of the past.
We know most Congressional Representatives and
Senators to be moral people, of honorable convictions. We urge you to
simply reauthorize current law. Real people with disabilities and their
families depend on you. We really do.
Contact Your Congressman About
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act '97.
Make Your Voice Heard!
