[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SPECIAL EDUCATION: IS IDEA WORKING AS CONGRESS INTENDED?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 28, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-12
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
75-592 WASHINGTON : 2001
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on February 28, 2001................................ 1
Statement of:
Guard, Patricia J., Acting Director, Office of Special
Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education; Melinda
Baird, JD, Knoxville, TN; Gary Mayerson, JD, New York, NY;
Bill East, executive director, National Association of
State Directors of Special Education, Inc.; and Ed
Amundson, National Education Association................... 123
Hooley, Hon. Darlene, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon............................................ 38
Lamontagne, Ovide, Manchester, NH; Ginger Brown, Columbus,
IN; Stephanie Fry, Indianapolis, IN; Pat Antenellis,
Framington, MA; Carolyn Nunes, special education program
manager, San Diego, CA; Kevin McDowell, general counsel,
Department of Education, Indianapolis, IN; and Marca
Bristo, chair, National Council on Disability.............. 44
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Allen, Hon. Thomas H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Maine, prepared statement of...................... 330
Amundson, Ed, National Education Association, prepared
statement of............................................... 310
Antenellis, Pat, Framington, MA, prepared statement of....... 85
Baird, Melinda, JD, Knoxville, TN, prepared statement of..... 137
Bristo, Marca, chair, National Council on Disability,
prepared statement of...................................... 104
Brown, Ginger, Columbus, IN, prepared statement of........... 65
Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Indiana:
Charts concerning special education...................... 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 22
East, Bill, executive director, National Association of State
Directors of Special Education, Inc., prepared statement of 301
Fry, Stephanie, Indianapolis, IN, prepared statement of...... 72
Guard, Patricia, J., Acting Director, Office of Special
Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education, prepared
statement of............................................... 127
Hooley, Hon. Darlene, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon, prepared statement of..................... 40
Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio, prepared statement of................... 332
Lamontagne, Ovide, Manchester, NH, prepared statement of..... 47
Mayerson, Gary, JD, New York, NY, prepared statement of...... 198
McDowell, Kevin, general counsel, Department of Education,
Indianapolis, IN, prepared statement of.................... 93
Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 35
Nunes, Carolyn, special education program manager, San Diego,
CA, prepared statement of.................................. 56
Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, editorial entitled, ``Special
Education, Discarded Vow,''................................ 31
SPECIAL EDUCATION: IS IDEA WORKING AS CONGRESS INTENDED?
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2001
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:45 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Burton, Morella, Shays, Horn,
Barr, Davis, Platts, Weldon, Putnam, Schrock, Waxman, Owens,
Maloney, Norton, Kucinich, Tierney, and Schakowsky.
Also present: Representatives Cunningham, Pence, and
Sununu.
Staff present: Kevin Binger, staff director; Daniel R.
Moll, deputy staff director; S. Elizabeth Clay, Nicole
Petrosino, and Jen Klute, professional staff members; Marc
Chretien, senior investigative counsel; Sarah Anderson, staff
assistant; Robert A. Briggs, chief clerk; Robin Butler, office
manager; Michael Canty and Toni Lightle, legislative
assistants; John Sare, deputy chief clerk; Corinne Zaccagnini,
systems administrator; Sarah Despres, minority counsel; Ellen
Rayner, minority chief clerk; and Earley Green, minority
assistant clerk.
Mr. Burton. Good afternoon. A quorum being present, the
Committee on Government Reform will come to order and I ask
unanimous consent that all Members' and witnesses' written and
opening statements be included in the record, and, without
objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that all articles, exhibits and
extraneous or tabular material referred to be included in the
record, and, without objection, so ordered.
During the 106th Congress we began looking at the increased
rates of autism. As we did that, we repeatedly heard from
families that they were facing serious challenges obtaining
services from their schools. Any family that is raising a child
with a developmental delay or a learning disability or a
physical disability faces tremendous challenges on a daily
basis.
Through this investigation, we have already learned that
families are physically, emotionally and financially exhausted.
Why is it that when we have a Federal law that requires that
every child receive a free and appropriate public education,
many families are having to go to court to receive these
services? And it's very costly.
The committee received thousands of e-mails, telephone
calls, and letters and faxes from families, teachers,
administrators and organizations about the implementation of
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA].
Congress has focused on the educational needs of the disabled
for over 25 years. In 1975 Congress passed the Education for
All Handicapped Children Act, the EHA Act, and the EHA
guaranteed that eligible children and youth with disabilities
would have available to them a free appropriate public
education.
We have heard a great deal in the past hearings about the
increased rates of autism, and my family's been touched by
that. In 1999 there were 2,462 children ages 3 to 21 in Indiana
diagnosed with autism. With the dramatic rise of autism--in
fact, we have a chart that shows the increase and how it's been
rising--with the dramatic rise of autism will be a dramatic
rise in requests for special education services. Are schools
across the country prepared to handle the needs of children
with autism? It used to be 1 in 10,000 children were autistic.
Now, it's 1 in 500 and in Indiana, my home State, it's 1 in
400.
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Mr. Burton. Are teachers and administrators trained in the
changes in the Federal laws regarding special education? Are
families fully informed early in the process about their
rights? In the State of Indiana, requests for special education
services for children with autism increased by 25 percent in
just 1 year. What does this mean for the local school
districts?
The Indiana Resource Center for Autism is piloting a parent
training program. This program helps parents of newly diagnosed
children with autism spectrum disorders understand the impact
of autism on their child and their family. They explain the
various program options available, how to support and educate
their child, how to access services across Indiana and how to
identify and access appropriate and effective special education
services, including their rights under the Federal law.
While we focus our discussion on the educational challenges
of families with autistic children, the implementation of IDEA
and the importance of schools complying with congressional
intent applies to all children, all children with special
education needs. We have tremendous input from parents with
children with Attention Deficit Disorder, with Downs Syndrome,
children who are hearing and/or vision impaired, and children
with physical limitations.
President George W. Bush said with the introduction of his
education blueprint, the Federal role in education is not to
serve the system, it is to serve the children. And that's all
of the children.
I agree with President Bush 100 percent. While there are
many issues we could look at regarding special education and
the implementation of IDEA, what we must keep in mind as we do
this, is that it is about our children. We are talking about
making sure that each child, every child, has an opportunity to
excel to the best of their own abilities through a free and
appropriate public education. I just noticed they put my
grandkids up there, and if you want to know what my grandkids
look like, there they are. The one that's smiling is my
granddaughter, and the one who is not smiling is our grandson
Christian, who is autistic.
The President's blueprint offers four objectives:
increasing accountability for student performance, focusing on
what works, reducing bureaucracy and increasing flexibility,
and empowering parents.
As we heard from thousands of families across the country,
we found similarities in their desires in the four objectives
of the President's education blueprint. We repeatedly heard
that parents did not want their children to be warehoused or
placed in classes where they were not intellectually
challenged. We repeatedly heard from the disability community
and families about the need for accountability for schools that
do not comply with the law.
We heard from families that they want their children to be
in programs that are going to improve their children's lives.
For some children with autism, that might be 1 hour of speech
therapy 5 days a week, rather than 30 minutes 2 days a week.
For other children it may be 40 hours a week of applied
behavioral analysis at an early age to improve the child's
educational experience and ability to interact and communicate.
For a child with physical limitations, it may mean having a
full-time aide assigned to assist them in a regular classroom
or access to a computer with special communication software.
Smaller classroom size in both special education and regular
education classrooms was repeatedly mentioned.
We also have heard from teachers and administrators about
increased paperwork burdens. We need to find the proper balance
in meeting reporting requirements while taking advantage of new
computer technology that can make these reporting requirements
easier and less burdensome.
Families across the country do not feel that their schools
are following the IDEA law. A majority of over 2,500 families
we heard from had to fight for services. And that is almost
criminal. The law requires that these parents get the help they
need and not have to go to the legal remedies necessary to get
these services.
We repeatedly heard from families that the schools do not
inform them of the programs available to their children or of
their rights under the law. We also learned that families spend
tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket to obtain
educational services for children as well as to hire lawyers to
fight for their children's educational needs, and some of these
people have been forced almost into bankruptcy because of that.
Today we will hear from a broad spectrum of witnesses.
Unfortunately, one of our witnesses, a very good friend of
mine, Ms. Sally Duncan Griffith, could not be here as planned.
She had a valuable story to tell about raising a disabled
child. Unfortunately her child was hospitalized this weekend,
in critical care, and our prayers go out to the family.
I'm pleased that Congresswoman Darlene Hooley of Oregon is
here today. She has introduced H.R. 659, a bill to achieve full
funding for Individuals with Disabilities Act, Part B, by 2006.
Congress made a commitment that the Federal Government and
State and local governments would share in the expense of
educating children with disabilities. We made a commitment to
contribute up to 40 percent of the average per-pupil
expenditure of educating children with disabilities, and to
date the Federal Government has never contributed more than
14.9 percent. We pledged 40 percent. This has got to change and
we are going to try to help get that done.
The chart shows that Congress has repeatedly increased
funding of IDEA even above what prior administrations have
requested and we are talking about Republican and Democrat
administrations.
I will be working with my colleagues in the Congress to
ensure that we step up to the plate and fulfill our commitment
to the IDEA and to the disabled children of this country. And
as we do this, it's important the schools use this money for
special educational children and not for other projects.
The intent of a Federal investment in special education is
to fund the additional cost of providing educational services
to disabled children. These funds may mean better pay for
teachers and aides, more teachers and aides for the classroom,
more and better training for regular and special education
teachers on specific disabilities such as autism, and better
educational tools. It was never congressional intent that
taxpayer dollars be spent on hiring attorneys to fight parents
in long and expensive court battles that will keep children
from getting these services. The role of special education
directors, teachers, and administrators is to serve the
children and not the system.
The new mantra at the Department of Education is that no
child be left behind, and you have heard that several times
recently. It is very important that no child be left behind,
including any child with any kind of disability.
Our new First Lady is to become an ambassador for
education. She is going to devote her energies to recruiting
teachers across the country. And I applaud her in this endeavor
and will be sending her a personal letter. And I'll ask my
colleagues, Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat, and others on
both sides to sign that letter, making sure that she include in
that recruitment special educational teachers, speech and
occupational therapists that we desperately need in our school
systems across the country.
We in Congress may also have to be creative in special
education career development. For instance, maybe we should
look at developing student loan repayment programs similar to
medical school repayment programs; this loan repayment program
would be for individuals who will become special education
teachers or speech therapists who will teach for a 5-year
period in rural or inner city schools or areas identified to be
in desperate need of special education teachers and/or speech
therapists.
When Congress passed legislation to require a free and
appropriate public education to all children with disabilities,
we never envisioned that parents would have to fight for these
services. We never envisioned that schools would refuse to
accept the diagnosis of a doctor and then not evaluate a child
for 6 months or a year, which is a lifetime in many kids'
lives, delaying all services until the school evaluation is
obtained.
With an autistic child, early and aggressive intervention
is universally recognized as imperative. A 6-month delay can
have a detrimental effect on the child for years and maybe
their lifetime. The delay may also mean that over the long-term
the child will have fewer communication skills.
When Congress passed IDEA we never envisioned that schools
would tell parents if we provide it for your child, then we'll
have to provide it for everyone. We repeatedly heard from
families that schools used this as an excuse not to provide
services. If the service is an appropriate service to meet the
educational needs of a disabled child, any child with the same
disability in the school should be offered the same access that
is appropriate.
And I'd just like to say that for those of you who don't
know it, my grandson is autistic. I went with my daughter to
her school. We went there because she was getting 1 hour of
help a week with his speech impediment, his speech problem, and
they talked to us for about an hour, and they decided that 1
hour was sufficient, even though they had correspondence from
doctors on his case that said he needed at least 2 hours of
speech therapy a week. And I asked them, because it became
apparent during the meeting--this is in my District,
incidentally--it became apparent during the meeting they had
made the decision before we even got there. I said to them, why
did we even come here if you've already made up your mind? Why?
Now, you know, I'm chairman of this committee and Henry's
one of the leading Members of Congress on the Democrat side. If
we go to a school with an autistic child or grandchild and we
get this kind of response, what does that mean for the average
citizen that doesn't have any influence? And that's why a lot
of people feel like they don't have any place to turn. Well, we
are going to try to change that and I know that people on both
sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, feel this way,
and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that
happens.
Now, I recognize my colleague Mr. Waxman for his statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]
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Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing me and
I want to thank you for holding this hearing. And I will join
with you on that letter to the First Lady encouraging her to
include special education as part of her mission.
I'm pleased that we're holding this hearing to examine the
implementation of an important civil rights law that protects
children with disabilities, the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act [IDEA]. This legislation was passed to ensure
that children with physical, mental and emotional challenges
receive a free and appropriate public education provided, to
the extent possible, alongside children without disabilities,
in mainstream classes, using any accommodations needed to
support his or her placement.
Unfortunately, implementation of and compliance with IDEA
throughout the Nation is inconsistent. The National Council on
Disability, the independent Federal agency that monitors IDEA
implementation, found that former Education Secretary Riley's
efforts to monitor compliance and take enforcement actions were
more aggressive than any of his predecessors' efforts combined;
yet, despite Secretary Riley's efforts, Federal enforcement of
IDEA continues to be ineffective.
What that means in practical terms is that some children
who are by law entitled to educational services don't get them
and must seek legal recourse. Part of the blame for this
situation lies with Congress. IDEA calls for the Federal
Government to provide up to 40 percent of the additional costs
of educating children with disabilities. However, Congress has
historically appropriated funding for only 12 to 13 percent of
these costs. That's wrong. Instead of appropriating the $17
billion that would be necessary to meet our full Federal 40
percent obligation to the States, Congress for this year,
fiscal year 2001, has appropriated only $6.3 billion, and that
in itself was more than a 20 percent increase over the $5
billion that was provided in fiscal year 2000.
When the Federal Government does not do its share, every
dollar that a State must divert from regular education to cover
special education costs that Congress should have paid for is a
dollar that leaves our students and our schools shortchanged.
As the Los Angeles Times put it last Thursday in an editorial
entitled, ``Special Education, Discarded Vow,'' without
substantial help, school districts end up raiding other
instruction, pitting child against child. And I'm going to ask,
Mr. Chairman, that this editorial be made part of the record.
Mr. Burton. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Waxman. In the last Congress, former Education and
Workforce Chairman Goodling introduced legislation that would
have authorized full funding for IDEA by 2010. This legislation
was supported by every member of the Government Reform
Committee on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Goodling's bill
passed the House but stalled in the Senate. There are several
bills pending in the House again this year, including one
introduced by our first witness, Representative Hooley, and I
hope that we can all agree to meet our obligation to the States
and to the children who need this funding and follow
Representative Hooley's leadership.
Another issue that I want to raise is a little-known
loophole in that 1997 amendment to the IDEA that permits local
school districts to shift education funding to noneducational
purposes. As a result, local school districts this year could
shift $270 million that would otherwise have been spent on
special education into their general treasuries. This number
will only continue to rise the more we commit at the Federal
level to IDEA.
I commend Mr. Tierney and Mr. LaTourette, both members of
this committee, for their bipartisan introduction of H.R. 714
which would close this loophole and require that all funds
allocated for IDEA be spent on educational expenses. Other
members of this committee, including Mrs. Morella and Mr.
Lantos, Mr. Kucinich and Mrs. Mink, have joined me in
cosponsoring this important bill, and I hope this legislation
helps ensure that all the money designated for education is
spent appropriately.
I do not want to convey the impression that IDEA has been a
failure. It has not. Before 1975 when the first version of the
law was enacted, many children with disabilities were not
educated at all. The original Education for All Handicapped
Children Act brought about 1 million disabled kids into the
education system for the first time and provided services for
millions more who were attending school without the support
they needed to overcome the challenges of their disabilities.
In the years since, the educational rights of children have
been expanded and today approximately 6 million children with
disabilities receive services under IDEA. Today we're going to
look at ways those children are helped by the law and how we
can do a better job of providing the educational and related
services they need.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for coming today. I
look forward to their testimony. I want to indicate to the
witnesses and others here that, unfortunately, different
committees scheduled their hearings at the exact same time, so
I'm going to be bouncing back and forth, but we will have the
record, and that record will be very helpful for all of our
colleagues to be educated further on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your leadership and we look
forward to taking this record and trying to correct the problem
to make sure this law, which was a good one, is implemented the
way it should be. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you Mr. Waxman.
Further discussion? Mr. Barr.
Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The only thing I'd like to mention is as we conduct our
oversight today and throughout this session under your
leadership, Mr. Chairman, regarding IDEA, while the primary
focus will be funding and to take steps to ensure that the
program is meeting the needs of the American people as
addressed already by Congress, there are some perhaps what
might be considered tangential but very important issues that I
hope we address.
One is to address the issue of violence in our schools and
to ensure, as we tried to address in the last Congress, that
some of the perhaps unintended consequences of IDEA do not
hamper local schools from protecting students. If a student who
falls under the provisions of IDEA poses a danger to the other
students or to teachers, for example, by bringing a weapon to
school, we don't want to see the danger perpetuated by IDEA,
tying the hands of the local school to take disciplinary steps
to protect the other students.
That's something, as the chairman is aware, we addressed in
the last Congress. It remains somewhat unresolved, and I would
hope that would be part of our oversight because, of course,
throughout all of these efforts, Mr. Chairman, first and
foremost must be the protection of our students and our
teachers. So I do hope that remains and will be part of our
oversight efforts regarding IDEA.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you Mr. Barr. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
having this hearing today on a very important subject. I thank
all of our witnesses whose written testimony has already been
helpful to many of us, and I'm sure the record of this hearing
will continue to be helpful.
Let me just recount a little bit of the history on this.
The Federal role in education has always been a limited one and
for some period of time didn't exist. I think most people
realize that. The obligation to educate our children rests 100
percent with the States, and I think that's something we
shouldn't forget. The absolute fundamental obligation to
educate our children, all children, is with each and every one
of the States in this country.
Unfortunately, we found out before the 1960's that
obviously States are not meeting that obligation. They were not
educating and identifying many, many, many children with
special needs. As a result, a series of acts were enacted by
the Federal Government, giving States the option, if they chose
to get Federal help, to meet certain standards, thresholds,
with which they had to comply; virtually, State opted to accept
the Federal assistance and to take the help that was available.
Now, in the early authorizations, it was authorized that
the Federal Government would contribute up to 40 percent of
moneys expended on IDEA. That was certainly a noble goal but
unfortunately something that the Congress at that time
apparently knew it wasn't going to be able to meet, because
since the very first appropriations the amount was far less
than that 40 percent.
I commend my colleague, Ms. Hooley, for putting the bill
before us--she's going to speak to it today--to raise that
amount, and I think it is appropriate to try to do that. I just
think we should not lose focus that this is the Federal
Government hopefully coming in to be helpful, hopefully setting
some standards, minimum thresholds, and hopefully encouraging
States to live up to their commitment and their obligation to
educate children.
The last part of that is I thank Mr. Waxman for making
comment on the bill that I filed with Mr. LaTourette and which
others on this committee, Mrs. Morella, Mr. Lantos, Mr.
Kucinich and Mrs. Mink, have cosponsored also. The way the law
is currently constructed, we could continue to give a higher
percentage of Federal money and some of that may well go right
out the window. If our intention is in fact to make sure that
we increase the percentage of Federal money that's given
through IDEA, then we're going to have to close that loophole.
We're going to have to make sure that once we hit the $4.1
billion mark that States aren't able to draw out 20 percent of
that amount and put it somewhere else. Right now, we would have
no way of telling where they're going to put that, and it
amounts to some $270 million so far.
At the very least, we ought to obligate the States to keep
that $270 million in the field of education, and if we're
entirely successful, hopefully they'll put as much as is needed
into special education so this program works the way it's
intended for everybody.
So we look forward to working with the chairman and the
rest of this committee, as well as the Education Committee on
which I and some others also serve, to get this job done. And
we thank everybody for making their testimony available us to
here today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. I think that's a very good bill, and I wish you
would add me to your bill with Mr. LaTourette.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you. Mr. Chairman in the interest of
time, my excellent statement that I have before me urging that
IDEA be raised to the Federal commitment of 40 percent I will
ask be included in the record, and I am concerned about a
backlash toward those students with disabilities if we don't
fulfill our commitment. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Constance A. Morella
follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you, Chairwoman Morella. It shall be
done. Did you have a comment, Ms. Schakowsky?
Ms. Schakowsky. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for holding this hearing. I want to thank Representative
Hooley. I look forward to her testimony and give a very special
welcome to Marca Bristo who is chair of the National Council on
Disability, from Chicago, my hometown, and a very good friend
and really one of the Nation's leading advocates for persons
with disabilities. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Ms. Schakowsky. Further discussion,
Mr. Horn.
Mr. Horn. Just briefly, I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman
for getting this important topic. There are thousands of people
and parents that will be welcoming this airing of the issue.
Over a year ago, Charles Bass, colleague from New
Hampshire, had told us that we should assume that 40 percent,
because we've never got it up to the full level, it ought to be
there because it is squeezing other students out of the system
to get enough money to help the students that we are talking
about.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not an eloquent written
statement, just a heartfelt one. Thank you for holding these
hearings. I thank my colleagues for being here and thank our
witnesses for their willingness to wait and our panelists for
participating; and also to say that I, too, want to join others
in saying that every year we should work toward full funding of
IDEA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Shays. Mrs. Davis. Mr. Putnam.
Very well. We now will recognize the gentlelady Mrs.
Hooley, and I would like to start off by saying I appreciate
you introducing your bill and I wish you would add me to it. I
think we should have strong bipartisan support for it, and
anything I can do to be of help I will do. Can you turn on your
mic and pull it closer to you, Ms. Hooley.
STATEMENT OF HON. DARLENE HOOLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Ms. Hooley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
comments and I would like to associate myself with those as
well as Ranking Member Waxman, and thank you for allowing me
this opportunity to testify. And I'm going to be very brief
because you have the really important people sitting behind me
that you want to hear from.
And this is an issue as has already been introduced as
talking about children with special needs. Again, this bill was
introduced almost 26 years ago, and it was estimated at that
time that the cost of educating a special needs child would be
about twice what other students cost, and that we said we would
pay 40 percent of that excess cost, and you are all aware we
haven't done that. This year was the best year we've ever done,
to bring it up to 14.9 percent.
But let me give you an example of a typical student with
disabilities from my district. We'll call this student Susie.
She's an autistic child, like your grandson. The cost of a
special education teacher for Susie is about $64,000. An
instructional aide costs a little over $29,000. Susie requires
3 hours of physical therapy per month. The cost is a little
over $1,100 per year. An autism specialist consultant comes in
to work with Susie 9 hours per month, which costs $3,647. Other
costs include $627 for 2 hours per month with a registered
nurse, $500 for special supplies and equipment, and $14,800 for
transportation services. When you add all of that up, Susie for
1 year costs $109,377.
Now, other children in the school without special needs are
$5,675. We thought when we enacted this--we didn't think it
would be that high, but it is. And if you looked at one school
district where there are 98 children that have disabilities, if
they all required the same amount of time and effort that Susie
requires, their bill would be over $10 million a year. Now,
they don't all do that, but that's just to give you some
numbers.
Special education can be expensive, but I don't think
anyone will argue that these children deserve the services
they're receiving, and likely more. And as you talked about,
Mr. Chairman, a lot of these children don't get the services
they need.
By not paying our share of the costs, the Federal
Government is putting States and local communities between a
rock and a hard place. When the State of Oregon and the Salem-
Keizer School District have to make up that money we aren't
providing, they're taking that money for someone else or
they're not providing the services.
I have introduced legislation, with many of you sitting up
there, that would really try to address this 40 percent issue,
and it is time we talk about it, we pass resolutions and then
we don't put our money where our mouths are, and this would
take the next 5 years and say we are going to increase the
funding by $3 billion a year to get to the 40 percent by 2006.
I think that is a reasonable plan, you know, and it is really
based on somebody's wonderful idea when we increased funding
for the National Institutes of Health, but we said we're going
to double it in 5 years. I think we need to get IDEA's funding
up to 40 percent in the next 5 years, and I think with all of
your help we can do that. I think it's time we kept the
promises we made to our children.
Thank you. Happy to answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Darlene Hooley follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Well thank you, Ms. Hooley. I think you've
covered it very well and we certainly will support your
legislation.
Ms. Hooley. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. The costs that you talked about, let me just
ask one or two questions, and make a comment.
Ms. Hooley. Sure.
Mr. Burton. The costs that you're talking about for
children with various physical disabilities and handicaps such
as autism.
Ms. Hooley. Right.
Mr. Burton. They're not all that expensive.
Ms. Hooley. No they're not all that expensive.
Mr. Burton. The child you mentioned had some physical
handicaps as well as being autistic?
Ms. Hooley. Right.
Mr. Burton. So I wouldn't want my colleagues to think that
every child is going to cost $100,000 a year because they have
disabilities. Many of them--and I'll take my grandson as an
example--he only requires 1 extra hour a week of speech
therapy. And so a lot of the children are like that. Some have
the majority of problems, greater or less, and so I don't know
what the average cost would be. But I think our colleagues,
when they start thinking about the budget we're facing and the
budget the President prepared last night, the first thing they
think is, oh, my gosh, we are going to blow the budget out the
window if we start doing some of these things.
The fact of the matter is, if you averaged it all out, it
would be something that's manageable, workable, as long as we
meet our commitment.
Ms. Hooley. It is something that is manageable for all of
us, and again, this was an example of a very high-end child.
You're right, there are some that are twice. There are some
that are one-third more, some like your grandson that are a
little bit more. So the range is huge but it is--what I tried
to do is illustrate that you do have this wide range, and for
school districts also to provide the services--and we want them
to provide the services and we want them to be willing to
provide the services, but we also need to do our share. And
that's really the only point I'm making, is it's time that we
step up to the plate and do our share.
Mr. Burton. Ms. Schakowsky, do you have any questions? Any
questions Dr. Weldon?
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the things I'm
interested in is medical costs associated with dealing with
these children. The intent of the law was to make sure that
they get a proper education. But often there are medical issues
that get tied up in the proper education and I think that's one
of the issues we are struggling with. You mentioned physical
therapy on the child that you cited. You don't have any more
details on that at all----
Ms. Hooley. I don't.
Mr. Weldon [continuing]. That you could provide me? Maybe
in the future you could.
Ms. Hooley. I would be happy to get more details and
provide those for you.
Mr. Weldon. It's a fine line sometimes: When is it medical
and when is it educational? And you can't educate them unless
their medical needs are being taken care of. But when you start
looking at these very expensive kids, a lot of times the health
issues are becoming a major factor.
I appreciate your leadership on this, and I do want to
thank you so much for your testimony, and I'll be looking at
your bill as well. And I have signed letters to the effect of
increasing the funding to the full 40 percent level in the
past, and I hope that I'll be able to sign on to your bill as
well this year. Thank you so much.
Ms. Hooley. Thank you. I just want to make one response to
your comment. And you're right; it is sometimes a fine line.
But when you talk about physical therapy, sometimes that is how
to hold a pencil or pen in your hand so that you can actually
do the work. Thanks.
Mr. Burton. Any more questions from any Members? Any other
questions? Mr. Horn.
Mr. Horn. I'd simply like to short-circuit the system, and
please add me to your bill.
Ms. Hooley. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Any further comments or questions?
Ms. Hooley. Any other people that would like to be added,
you can just raise your hand. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. OK. Well, thank you very much Congresswoman.
Ms. Hooley. Thank you so much.
Mr. Burton. Appreciate it. We'll now have our next panel
come forward, and if I don't pronounce your names properly,
forgive me.
Mr. Ovide Lamontagne; Ginger Brown of Columbus, IN;
Stephanie Fry of Indianapolis; Pat Antenellis from
Massachusetts; Carolyn Nunes, special education program manager
from San Diego; Kevin McDowell, general counsel, from the
Department of Education in Indianapolis; and Marca Bristo,
chair of the National Council on Disability. And we will have
some of these very fine individuals introduced by Members of
Congress who have been here with us today.
And first of all, let me ask you all to be sworn, those of
you--would you stand and raise your right hands?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Burton. I'll now recognize the great Congressman from
the great State of New Hampshire, Mr. Sununu, for an
introduction.
Mr. Sununu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm grateful to see
the number of members that have come to the hearing today and
certainly pleased that you are engaged in this extremely
important discussion about education first and foremost. And we
heard in the President's address last night, and of course in
the comments of the committee members today, how important that
issue is and, in particular, your focus on IDEA and in special
education.
This is a critical issue, not just here in the Nation's
Capital, but back at home. Anyone that's visited with parents
and teachers, school board members and administrators have
heard many of the concerns that have been echoed here today
raised. This is a significant unfunded Federal mandate. Despite
the fact that as a member of the Budget Committee, I am pleased
that we have doubled funding over the last 4 years, we know
there's much more work to do, and moreover it's not just a
matter of resources. This is a complex problem. It is a complex
Federal regulation. It has issues regarding administration and
planning, adjudication, resolution, the issues of health care
as well that were just raised by Congresswoman Hooley and
Congressman Weldon and others. We need to make sure that this
program works, that it works effectively, that it delivers a
benefit and addresses the needs of students.
And I'm very pleased to be here today to introduce a
resident of my district, a teacher, former member of the Board
of Education in New Hampshire, a former chair of the Board of
Education in New Hampshire, Ovide Lamontagne.
Ovide has a professional experience dealing with education
in general, and special needs education in particular, in his
capacity on the board of education. He's also worked, of
course, as a lawyer and as a counsel for the State Senate in
New Hampshire and had to wrestle with these issues in a
professional sense, but he also is able to provide a personal
perspective as a parent as well. And I think we're fortunate to
be able to draw as legislators on a panel like this that is
represented by not necessarily elected officials, but by
parents, administrators, teachers, with that personal
experience administering special needs education, working with
the unfunded mandate, dealing with some of the cost constraints
back home, to bring their perspective here and to ultimately
help us to make this important program work better for the
parents and the teachers back home.
It's my distinct pleasure to introduce Mr. Ovide
Lamontagne.
Mr. Burton. Welcome, Mr. Lamontagne. I have got that name
correct now. I'm going to work on my French. And,
Representative Sununu, welcome back. You were a very valued
member of this committee for some time and we miss your smiling
face and your great intellect as well. Mr. Lamontagne.
STATEMENTS OF OVIDE LAMONTAGNE, MANCHESTER, NH; GINGER BROWN,
COLUMBUS, IN; STEPHANIE FRY, INDIANAPOLIS, IN; PAT ANTENELLIS,
FRAMINGTON, MA; CAROLYN NUNES, SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAM
MANAGER, SAN DIEGO, CA; KEVIN McDOWELL, GENERAL COUNSEL,
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, INDIANAPOLIS, IN; AND MARCA BRISTO,
CHAIR, NATIONAL COUNCIL ON DISABILITY
Mr. Lamontagne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Incidentally, before you start, because we have
so many panelists, if you could try to keep your remarks as
close to 5 minutes as possible, we'd appreciate it.
Mr. Lamontagne. Will do. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
members of the committee, committee staff, guests and fellow
witnesses. First of all, thank you, Congressman Sununu, for
that kind introduction. I had the pleasure of being on the
campaign trail at the same time that Congressman Sununu was as
an initial candidate, and we are indeed pleased and fortunate
to have Congressman Sununu representing not only the State of
New Hampshire but also the national interests here in Congress.
I have prepared remarks which I have submitted to the
committee, and I would like to stray from those remarks with
your permission, Mr. Chairman, to address a couple of points.
First of all, I do have experience as a former chairman of
the State Board of Education of New Hampshire, working 3\1/2\
years as a volunteer, 20-hour-a-week job, basically as a
volunteer, as most people do who work in the State boards, and
I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that not a day went by in my
service when I did not receive a call from at least one parent
every day, one parent at least calling me, pleading with me to
try to do something to help them in their situation with their
children.
And your particular experience, Mr. Chairman, relating that
even you as the chairman of the committee attending a school
district IEP planning meeting, feeling that if it that's
difficult for your family to achieve the services you feel is
important, how much more difficult must it be for our working
families, those families who have children in need of services
to obtain those services.
I must say that in my view the appropriate role for the
Federal Government and the States is somewhat like
Representative Tierney alluded to, which is that primarily the
role of educating children should remain with the States. But
in 1975, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, this
Congress acting then assumed for the Nation a priority, a duty
that the Nation would require and encourage the States to
educate every child with or without special needs--in this case
with special needs--and in exchange for that imposition of
duty, this Congress provided a mechanism which included funding
to meet that national duty.
President Bush in his State of the Union Address was quite
correct in challenging us as a Nation to leave no child behind.
In 1975, as a matter of public policy, this Congress tried to
articulate that for our most vulnerable of children, those with
special needs.
The 40 percent target was never met as part of the quid pro
quo, if you will, for States to elect to participate in IDEA.
And it is important, I think, to understand this is an elective
system. The standard that the duty to provide an adequate
education, a free appropriate education to all children is not
elective. The program itself is elective.
And in 1995 I commissioned a task force in New Hampshire to
evaluate special education, and the first question I asked the
task force of citizens, educators, board members, was to answer
the question, should New Hampshire continue to participate in
IDEA. We decided after evaluating it that, yes, we should, for
all the right reasons. And we're asking the Congress and I'm
asking the Congress on behalf of the State of New Hampshire and
on behalf of all State leaders in education to meet the
obligation of fully funding IDEA.
Now, I must also address a point which I think is a
misconception about IDEA. IDEA is not a reimbursement program
for services. Forty percent is not keyed to the amount of money
that is spent by a State in providing educational services.
Forty percent is a formula that's derived by counting the
number of children who are identified with special needs times
the average per-student expenditure of the State times 40
percent. It is a block grant in that sense, but it is not a
reimbursement formula.
And the first point that I ask the Congress to consider
here is to change the funding mechanism of IDEA so that we
empower people to access those services. We empower,
incentivize the system to access the services on a
reimbursement basis, not on a State grant basis alone.
Second, we need to empower parents and put the power of the
decision about where those moneys are expended in the hands of
parents. If we can do it through--by amending the IDEA to
include some voucher provisions, to the extent that services
are available in the community outside of the regular employees
of the school district, that will empower parents, and allow
parents to opt-out of an IEP if there is not meaningful
assessment and not meaningful results for that IEP.
And last, in order to avoid continuing to divert moneys
into the legal proceedings and legal process, I urge Congress
to require, as an intermediate step, ombudsmen to mediate, if
you will; mediators to meet with parents and school districts
to resolve disputes before the due process provisions and
proceedings can begin, before lawyers get involved and before
those funds are diverted.
The Congress has a great opportunity now to meet its
obligations. I'd ask this Congress to look at both fully
funding and making meaningful reforms to IDEA for our millions
of children. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lamontagne follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you Mr. Lamontagne. I will have some
questions for you, as my colleagues will in just a few moments.
We'll now recognize the Congressman from the great State of
California, Mr. Cunningham, for an introduction, and thank you
for being with us today. This gentleman was an ace in Vietnam,
one of the great pilots that we ever had during the Vietnam
War. He's a legend among the pilots in the U.S. Navy. He taught
at the top gun school. In fact, he even showed Tom Cruise how
to act like a pilot in that movie Top Gun, and so we'll now
recognize the gentleman from California.
Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, but now I'm just
an old fat guy.
Mr. Chairman, I'm very honored to be able to introduce
Carolyn Nunes to the committee and to you. The San Diego City
School Superintendent is a man named Alan Bersin. He was a
Clinton appointee. I'm Republican, but he's got my full
support.
I was the subcommittee chairman that rewrote IDEA. I'm now
on the Appropriations Committee so I have got my heart into
this area. And the reason that I'm honored to introduce Carolyn
Nunes is that Alan Bersin has met with the parent groups many,
many times and has had an outreach program, realizing that many
of the children have been underserved within the IDEA program.
That's why he put Carolyn Nunes in charge of the administration
of the IDEA program for special needs of San Diego City School
District, one of the largest city school districts in
California.
I know what's in her heart. She's been a teacher for 22
years, and now an administrator. She went into the profession
to help children with special needs. That's where she wanted to
teach, to make sure that no child, as Mr. Lamontagne said, that
no child is left behind. But I think it's important to realize
and understand from the parent groups, from the teachers in
many areas, what are the limiting factors on the schools that
prevent the services that Carolyn and the superintendent want
to get to give to the children and to the parent groups.
That's why I'm very honored to introduce Carolyn Nunes. I
know what's in her heart because she's my sister-in-law. She's
the sister of my wife, Dr. Nancy Cunningham, who is the
director for Education of Encinitas Union School District. My
whole life is filled with educators and I have two built in
lobbyists and I'm very honored to introduce Carolyn Nunes.
Carolyn.
Mr. Burton. Welcome. You have to push the button on the
mic.
Ms. Nunes. Thank you, Chairman Burton, and committee
members, and thank you, Congressman Cunningham.
For the past 22 years I have served in San Diego City
School District in the field of special education as a special
day class teacher and currently as an administrator for the low
incidence programs and related services for students from birth
to 22. In addition, I coordinate the input for the collection
of data on special education students. I appreciate the
opportunity to address the committee today regarding the
implementation of IDEA and the challenges in special education.
The San Diego Unified School District currently serves over
142,000 students in 184 schools. Of those students, almost
16,000 have active IEPs and receive special education services.
Ninety-two percent of our current budget provides direct
instruction for the support of students receiving special
education services. The following addresses some of our current
issues, as well as our recommendations for possible solutions.
Nationally we have witnessed an alarming increase in the
number of students identified with autism. Families are
bombarded with the latest in the new forms of treatment for
autism. All who view and read this information in the media
make assumptions that such services are research-based and
conform to best practice.
There are a variety of instructional strategies and
methodologies that are available. As educators we realize that
using only one instructional strategy for all students is not
appropriate.
Today, a multiple of agencies are funding services for
students with special needs. These agencies, although funded by
Federal dollars and driven by Federal legislation, are under
different rules in different systems. Although these agencies
have a common purpose, to provide services for students, these
systems become a barrier. At times, although with good
intentions, Federal laws frequently promote the system of
disconnect.
More emphasis must be placed in the area of research in
educational approaches which will promote student achievement
based upon the student's ability and level of independence.
School districts are currently finding the need to retrain
teachers in strategies and techniques used for students with
autism.
We would recommend the development of special grants for
the purpose of ongoing professional development for the
training of certificated and classified staff in the field of
autism. Although Congress placed limitations on the recovery of
attorney's fees in the 1997 IDEA reauthorization, little has
been done to reduce the significant rules such fees continue to
play in the decisions that school districts, and even parents,
make regarding appropriate educational programs for students
with disabilities.
Early independent review, without all the formal
requirements of a due process proceeding, may temper each
side's expectations and lead to a quicker and fairer
resolution. I suggest mandating school districts to participate
in alternate dispute resolution in all due process proceedings
and reducing reimbursement for attorney's fees proportionately
for parents when they fail to participate.
I believe that special education has resulted in a system
driven more by the need to comply with numerous requirements of
both Federal and State laws and regulations than in genuine
educational needs of students with disabilities. The California
Department of Education has developed a process of sanctioning
school districts who do not meet the zero tolerance level of
compliance with the time lines for review of annual IEPs and 3-
year reviews, and the system does not allow for reporting
extenuating circumstances for missed time lines.
While our district has made great strides in electronic
capture of information regarding the status of students
receiving special education, 100 percent of compliance is
difficult to achieve. At times, IEP teams are faced with
breaking one regulation in order to meet another. Requests for
data collection and reports by various agencies at the
national, State and local level impose a strain on the
district's ability to provide information in a timely manner.
Data collection at the State level should allow for
reporting extenuating circumstances that prevent time lines
from being met. Definitions regarding placement settings,
disability categories, and designated and related services
should be consistent across agencies. Data repositories should
be developed so that they can be accessed by any interested
agency from a central location.
Thresholds of compliance should reflect on the percentages
of students reported. Compliance should be driven by quality
and student outcomes as opposed to checklist compliance.
On behalf of the San Diego City School District, we
appreciate the opportunity to comment on these issues. We also
hope that our comments are helpful to the committee as they
continue to investigate the IDEA. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nunes follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you, Ms. Nunes, and we'll have some
questions for you as well.
We now, I think, have Congressman Pence from Indiana, one
of our new Members, and a very good friend of mine. He's
actually only 21 years old. That gray hair is just to make him
look older, but Congressman Pence has an introduction. Welcome.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's an honor to be
with you today and it's an honor to take a moment to introduce
a distinguished fellow Hoosier from my hometown of Columbus,
IN, Ginger Brown. Ginger is the proud mother of two, but she
is, Mr. Chairman, the courageous mother of young Bobby Brown,
age 5. And as we will hear today, Ginger fought an
extraordinary fight over the last year and a half to bring the
strictures of the IDEA to bear on the local school system in
Columbus, IN, particularly championing the Applied Behavior
Analysis Approach.
I'm honored to introduce Ginger to this committee today,
and I'm honored to call her a constituent. She seems to me to
be a wonderful example of citizenship and, more importantly,
parenthood. So I give you Bobby's mom, Ginger Brown.
Mr. Burton. Ms. Brown. Congressman Pence, thank you very
much.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Chairman Dan Burton, for inviting me
here to speak on behalf of my son, Bobby Brown. I would like to
just go over the last year of his school, which would be from
August 1999 to the year 2000. When Bobby began the school year
he was unable to do anything independently. He was not able to
put his coat on. He was not able to brush his teeth. He sat
around and he banged his head on the floor. He did hand
flapping, stereotypical behavior of children with autism.
I looked forward to putting him into an early childhood
program, hoping I would see lots of success or at least forward
motion in Bobby's advancements. As the year progressed, I only
received notes from his teachers that Bobby was not making the
gains. Bobby was unable to even understand the smallest of
steps in order to be taught the larger steps. The teacher
suggested that I seek out an independent behaviorist and have
my son evaluated and try to implement a program.
I sought out a behaviorist in Applied Behavior Analysis
from New Jersey who designed a program for my son. I asked her
to implement the program both in the home and in the school to
help Bobby to be able to tolerate being in the school and being
able to sit at circle time and music time and participate with
his peers.
When the program was designed, the teachers felt like it
was not adequate and did not want to pursue it in the school. I
decided to go ahead and pursue the program on my own. The
school year was coming to an end, and I approached the director
at the time, and explained to her what I was seeking was a one-
to-one program of Applied Behavior Analysis with my son. I went
ahead and hired a team of girls to work with my son. It was a
40-hour a week program. Remember, my son was not independent in
any way. He was unable to use the restroom.
Within 3 months he was able to be potty trained. He was
able to sit for 1 hour at a table and work. He was able to
relate to his sister. He was able to relate to me and to his
father.
Bobby continued his progress and the school year was
nearing to start for the year 2000 and 2001. When the year
began, I went to the school and asked the school if they would
be willing to help me continue the program. I had data sheets,
I had video footage and I had graphs. I took the behaviorist
from New Jersey in with me and explained to them exactly what
Applied Behavior Analysis was, the importance of one-to-one
teaching for a child like Bobby.
What the school actually told me was that unfortunately a
mistake had been made in the computers in the State of Indiana
and that too much money had been given to their district. They
now were held accountable to repay $1 million and would not be
able to educate my son. I also asked them if they could help me
fill out an application to send in to the State, and they said
they would do that.
We filled out the application. We sent it in to the
Department of Education of Indiana. I got the letter back and
it made perfect logical sense to me when I read it, and I
called and talked to a director who informed the reason why the
application was turned down is it didn't match the IEP. There
was nothing in the IEP that reinforced the needs of what Bobby
was getting, that I was giving to him.
When I went back to the school and explained this to them,
they said that they understood Bobby was making progress. The
teacher supported that he had made incredible gains since last
year. He had made gains in areas that they had no way of
teaching him, but still they were not going to help me out
financially. They said that it was entirely too expensive for
them to take on.
I actually spent five meetings with the school district in
IEP meetings, a total of 20 hours, trying to resolve the issue.
Still, I was paying for Bobby's program. I was paying to send a
trained aide in ABA into the school. I was paying for his in-
home program, and I was still getting no assistance. They did
finally say that they would call the Indiana Resource Center
and ask for someone to come in and give a 2-day overview of
what ABA was. ABA cannot be learned in 2 days. It cannot be
taught to someone in just a matter of 2 days to take over and
do the data sheets, fill out the graphs and report back to the
head person in charge of the ABA program.
Actually, what the Indiana Resource Center suggested to
them was that they continue with the people that I had in
place, that it was beneficial to Bobby. Still, the school
denied this. I was left no option but to go ahead and continue
the due process.
During this time period, the directors actually switched;
the one resigned, and we had a new director come into the
community. The new director was a little bit more open to this,
but we still went ahead with due process. But now I can say
that my son has received a free, appropriate public education,
but unfortunately it has cost a lot more both to the district
and to myself because of having to go due process.
When people ask me what I would like to see, I would like
to see the schools be open-minded when parents go in and they
have data sheets that show last year for 9 months my son made
zero progress, but in 3 months I potty trained him. That's a
hard task to do with a child with autism, but it was successful
for my son.
Applied Behavior Analysis is the way of the future of education
with some children. I would like to see the districts have an
open mind.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Real briefly, can you tell us how much you
personally had to expend to get those benefits?
Ms. Brown. I personally spent $30,000 out of my pocket to
do the ABA program for my son, and then I spent an additional
$17,000 in attorney's fees.
Mr. Burton. So it cost you almost $50,000.
Ms. Brown. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burton. I will now go to Ms. Fry. Ms. Fry, I'll
introduce you. Since we don't have some good-looking young
Congressman, you have to settle for one of these old fogies up
here. So, Ms. Fry, you're recognized.
Ms. Fry. Thank you for inviting me here to testify. My name
is Stephanie Fry.
Mr. Burton. Excuse me, Ms. Fry, you're one of my
constituents, I understand.
Ms. Fry. I believe so.
Mr. Burton. Well, can I shine your shoes or anything?
Ms. Fry. We'll think about it. I have three children, three
boys, all born on Fridays in October. All of my children have
autism. I brought pictures so everybody can see. They don't
look any different from anybody else. They may act different. I
don't expect any special red carpet treatment for them. All I
want from a school is an education for my children.
My oldest son was diagnosed in June 1991 with autism. The
doctor told me, here's your diagnosis, come back and see us in
3 months. What am I supposed to do now? So I called the parent
support group and I found a preschool in our community that did
early childhood intervention and they took him on during this
summer.
Mr. Burton. Would you pull the mic a little closer so we
can hear you better?
Ms. Fry. He went to school for about a month and then was
off a month for summer break. During the month he was off, he
regressed quite significantly. He still was not speaking more
than 20 words. He was not toilet trained. He could not play
appropriately. He had stem behavior. There were many, many
issues.
The administrators at the preschool told me when he went
back that fall that once he turned 3 years old they could no
longer take him, but the new law had been passed that school
districts were required to take a child at age 3 and teach
them. So I called the local school district and I spoke to the
director of special ed and she said that they had to do a
psychological testing on him before he could attend their
school. There was no possible way that he could go before the
testing was done. And I said, well, I have a doctor's diagnosis
that says my child has autism. And she said, well, he may not
be autistic enough. And I'm still wondering what ``autistic
enough'' is.
He did go to school on his third birthday, having known no
one there, did not know the teacher, did not know the students,
had never been there, and for an autistic child it is a very
difficult transition. I sent him to school and waited as
patiently as I could for him to arrive on the big bus, just
like all the other kids. And when I went to get him off the
bus, he had a fat lip, a very large fat lip. And I said, what
happened? And all the bus driver could tell me was he fell. I
had not been called by the administrators. I had not been
called by the teacher. I just got the surprise of taking him
off the bus, and this was our first experience with public
school. I later found out that he had been following the
teacher because he knew that she was in charge, and she turned
and he ran into a table, but I was just very, very concerned at
that point.
He did learn. He learned very, very well. He learned to
comply with them, he learned to sit in circle time. He liked to
listen to the songs. He did everything he was supposed to do.
He was in a classroom with a teacher, two aides and eight
students. We moved to Warren Township, school district in
Indianapolis, in 1993. He started the preschool there. That
year he was due to go to kindergarten. When the time came to
place him, he had been in preschool about 2 years, and I was
concerned that moving him to a regular classroom, even though
he had made so many gains, it would not be enough. I was told
least restrictive environment, this is what you get. So I said
OK, and we put him in.
They told me they had to ask the kindergarten teacher if
she would accept an autistic child in her classroom before they
could place him. She agreed and so he was there. She had no
training in autism. The resource teacher that he had, the part-
time special ed teacher did have training but was not in the
classroom at all times.
He did very very well in kindergarten with 18 students, 1
teacher, a part-time aide and a part-time resource teacher. He
learned, and again he was moved on to first grade. This was a
whole new transition because this was a whole day of school
instead of half a day. He had more academic things asked of
him, more patience issues asked of him. He became frustrated,
sensory overload, and had many crying episodes. The teachers
did not know what to do with him, and they tried peer tutors,
which is regular students helping to keep him on task. He did
not deal well with that. What he did was, he would sit under
his desk and cry. So they would send him to the office. He
spent more time in the office than he did in his classroom.
I did not know what to do. I expected the school district
to do what was best for my child, and they didn't. He moved on
to second grade because he did learn. That year our school
district started year-round classes. He moved to another
school, new teachers, new special ed teachers. He did fairly
well, but again the frustration issues were there. He had
trouble complying with what they were asking him to do, but he
learned. He still learned, despite all this. And that's one
thing I'd like to say. He--through it all, the kids are able to
do so much, even though we don't know the things that are in
there.
He was promoted to third grade. At the annual case review
going into third grade, the resource teacher asked me to cut
his hours back and said that he didn't need as much help as he
was getting, which was 25 to 50 percent. So we're down under 25
percent of the time of a full school day that he would get
help. I said OK. She said if there was any trouble it could be
easily changed. That was the worst year that we had. The third
grade is when they start adapting to new curriculums, extra
harder work, things like that, and he could not maintain with
what the other students were doing. He had acted out. They put
him in a resource classroom, which is when they put all the
students with learning disabilities or other disabilities in
the same room, only to get a blanket service so they can
qualify all their services for each person at the same time.
I don't feel this is right. I have been told over the years
that teacher training is not necessary. Over that whole time we
have never had a teacher that's been trained in autism, a
regular education teacher, and he has always been in a regular
education classroom.
The teachers called me to ask what I had done to cause him
to be upset. They called me often to ask me things that were
very, very rude. I was also told--I asked for an aide because I
thought that would help--if we give you an aide we'll have to
give everyone an aide. We don't need to train the teachers
because we won't see another autistic child in our regular
classroom for another 10 to 15 years. There were a lot of
things I was told that were very, very wrong, but I didn't know
that the parents had rights.
I didn't know that I did not have to sign an IEP that I
didn't agree with. And my son was in fourth grade before I
found that out. The school district did not tell me what was
available. All they'd said was, this is what we can give you,
we cannot give you any more due to funding.
I have two other children with autism. My youngest is in a
moderate to severely handicapped classroom. He is moderately
autistic. He has made great strides in the last year but is
still very far behind.
My middle son is Autism/Asperger Syndrome. He is in regular
classroom with no support. He does extremely well. Academically
he is at or above his peers. He does not need any resource help
or anything else. Last year in kindergarten his teacher was
very argumentative. She would call me often and ask me to come
in and calm him down. He would not comply with what she asked
and he understands verbal language very, very well. She would
stand next to him and call me, and I could hear him in the
background crying because he knew she wanted me to take him out
of there.
Mr. Burton. Ms. Fry, can we get on with your children when
we get to questions? I have a number of questions I'd like to
ask you. This was the Warren Township School System?
Ms. Fry. Yes.
Mr. Burton. And they're still in the Warren Township School
System?
Ms. Fry. Yes.
Mr. Burton. OK. Can I ask you some questions after we get
through some of the other witnesses?
Ms. Fry. OK.
Mr. Burton. Be with you in just a few moments.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Fry follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Ms. Antenellis.
Ms. Antenellis. Yes.
Mr. Burton. Would you like to address the committee?
Ms. Antenellis. Sure.
Ms. Antenellis. First of all, because I couldn't bring him
for our sanity, I brought you a picture of my son Connor. My
story is probably very similar to other stories----
Mr. Burton. How old is Connor?
Ms. Antenellis. Connor is 6 now. But I'd like to thank you
and the committee members for inviting me here to testify. I
believe that my experience as a mother of an autistic child,
and now as a provider of services for autistic children, will
give you information that will help you make some changes. The
main reason I have come to Washington is a simple one: to
encourage the special education system to provide access to
Applied Behavior Analysis for young children diagnosed with
autism.
My story is one of a legal battle with the educational
system that turned out to be the ultimate success. Depending
upon whom you talk to in my town, I'm either a tireless
advocate for my son or the mother from hell.
My son Connor's story is very typical. He had a very normal
early childhood, and at 16 to 18 months lost all his skills. He
lost his eye contact, he lost his language. He started to abuse
himself and gouge his eyes. At that time I was told there was a
75 percent chance he would never speak and an 85 percent chance
he would be retarded, but I was determined that Connor was not
going to be one of those odds.
I pressured the Department of Health in our Early
Intervention System to provide us with an ABA program, which
they did do. In 9 months Connor made over 15 months' gain. When
he started ABA he had a 7-month speech and a 10-month cognitive
level and he was 27 months old. So he was 15 months behind in
all levels. At the end of 9 months he had gained a minimum of
15 months in almost all areas and was able to be back in our
world. If I called his name, he said ``What?'' He came to me,
he was able to understand things that I asked of him, when a
year before the house could burn down and he wouldn't get out,
but he could hear a Cheerio drop at 50 paces.
I began the transition to the school system about 6 months
prior to his third birthday. It was my understanding that the
school system would provide Connor with a program that would
help him achieve his maximum feasible benefit, and that was
Massachusetts standards at the time. I was mistaken. The school
system felt it had to offer only what they deemed was an
appropriate placement. It did not take into account the
recommendations from the medical professionals from Children's
Hospital nor the progress that he had made under his current
program. They felt they knew better than anyone else what
Connor needed.
They did offer an integrated classroom program but it
lacked the learning tools that had been so successful for
Connor. He was entitled to an education that would ensure he
would reach his maximum potential. That meant he needed his
school program supplemented with an ABA program. Then began a
3\1/2\ month battle with the school system.
As a credit to the school system, it did continue his ABA
program while we negotiated services. On a personal level, it
was the worst 3 months of my life. I lived in fear that they
would take away the services Connor so badly needed. Without
these services, Connor would regress and never make the strides
he had the potential to make. I truly felt as if I was in a
fight for my son's life and his future. It seemed to me as if
my son had a form of cancer and ABA was the chemotherapy that
would cure it. What right did the school system have to deny
him the services that had proven so successful? Of course, it
all boiled down to cost and not the best interest of my son.
I tried to negotiate with the school system on my own but
got nowhere with them. I couldn't afford to hire a lawyer but
in the end, to get the services needed, I got legal
representation. The battle was finally settled in mediation,
one step short of a formal hearing. The school agreed to
provide 12 hours of ABA, down from the 20 he was receiving. I
accepted it because I knew I couldn't afford more. In total, I
paid over $5,000 in legal bills. This was my own money, spent
to obtain the services that my child should have had from the
beginning. In addition, I supplemented out of pocket for an
additional 2 years, the ABA services that the school system did
not provide.
When the dust finally cleared, Connor had a good program. I
felt that I had done the best within my powers and financial
limitations to provide what he needed. The program stayed in
place for 2 years, and Connor made gains which can only now be
considered phenomenal. It is clear from the evidence that the
education provided works.
Today, Connor is a success story. He turned 6 last month.
He has defied all odds, and today he reads at a 10-year old
level, has an above age level vocabulary, has no self-abuse
behaviors, and has his first best friend. Remarkable for a
child who had a 75 percent chance of never speaking and an 85
percent chance of being retarded.
Does he still have issues? Yes, but we're working on them.
Will he ever be cured of autism? No, but he will be able to
function as an active and productive member of society,
probably making more money than I will.
I credit much of Connor's success to the hard work he has
done and the constant vigilance that I keep on his program. I
go to the school once a month. I watch his classroom, I watch
his teachers. The minute they are out of line I'm on them. They
don't have an option not to answer to me.
But I also see in the system the other children in his
classes don't get that. No other child in the school system
diagnosed with autism, some as severe or worse than Connor,
they don't get the services. And when they ask me how I got
them, I said I fought for them. They have no idea how to even
begin. I have never seen a child go to a school system and be
offered ABA. I actually had a special education director once
tell me, we provide services for early intervention now through
the State of Massachusetts, and he wrote to me and said, what
will my money buy me? Not what's in the best interest of the
child or how can your services help me, but what will it buy
me.
And I think the long run of IDEA is that we either pay for
these children now or we pay for them for the rest of our
lives. If these children can't make the gains when they're
young and they're early--and as you know, autism is not an easy
disability--we will pay for them when we're long gone, and
society will pay much more than the 40 percent that you talk
about now. And the only sort of disheartening thing that I
heard today is that 40 percent hopefully by the year 2010.
Well, by 2010, Connor will be almost graduating from high
school. I really hope that it will be within your power to fund
that sooner so the children that are there and in the system
now can get what they really need.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Antenellis follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Before we go to our next witness, let me just
say that I agree with you, and we ought to move as fast as we
possibly can, and you may rest assured that we will. And I
personally apologize to every parent that has a child with a
disability, because I was ignorant of the facts until it
happened to me. That's one of the big problems that we face: Do
we have to wait until we're hit in the face with a shovel
before we realize the need? And I plead guilty to that, but we
are going to do our best to rectify that. And I know Ms.
Schakowsky and others feel that way as well, because you're
absolutely right, if these kids who are autistic and who are
disabled now, for whatever cause, if they're not helped while
they can be helped, they will be a huge burden on society later
on and we will pay a great deal more than we'll have to if we
don't deal with it right now.
Mr. McDowell.
Mr. McDowell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also
appreciate being sworn in today rather than being sworn at,
which seems to be the experience of State agency personnel.
My name is Kevin McDowell. In 1972 I was drafted into the
Army.
Mr. Burton. You're from the great State of Indiana.
Mr. McDowell. Great State of Indiana and also the Sixth
Congressional District.
Mr. Burton. Yes, and I think I talked to one of your
compatriots at the agency today, if I'm not mistaken.
Mr. McDowell. Pardon me, sir?
Mr. Burton. I think I talked to one of the people at the
Department of Education today. That's where you work; is that
correct?
Mr. McDowell. Yes I work for Dr. Suellen Reed. I'm the
general counsel for the Department of Education.
Mr. Burton. Yes.
Mr. McDowell. In 1972 I was drafted into the Army, that
being the only lottery that I've ever won, but as I left the
Army, I found myself in Fort Gordon, GA, which is near Augusta,
which is the mecca for all golf. But for those who are
literary-minded, that is also near Wrens, GA, the birthplace of
Erskine Caldwell who wrote Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre.
And there's a stretch of road that runs for 20 miles from
Augusta to Aiken that's called Horse Creek Folly; has a road,
but most of the roads are unimproved and the people poverty
stricken. And my first teaching job was with delinquent
children, extreme poverty, under a Title I program that was in
place at the time.
From there I have had the opportunity to come back to
Indiana to teach both in institutions with students who had
emotional disturbances--at that time autism was not a separate
category, it was included with emotional disturbances--both in
institutions and in the public schools and in the private
schools.
And from that time for the last 15 years--I was in private
practice as an insurance defense lawyer--and the last 15 years
my responsibilities have been with the Department of Education
and its 28 divisions and offices, not the least of which is
Special Education.
As I indicated in my written testimony, during those years
I have observed a number of different things, not the least of
which is that parents of students with disabilities tend to go
through the same stages that Dr. Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross
described as those who come to grips with a terminal illness.
And I hate for that to sound so ghoulish or Draconian, but you
will find that is the case. And that was my observation then
and it was my observation in 1985 when I found out that my own
daughter had autism. It was a surprise, and thus became an
odyssey that brought to bear many of the experiences I had
already had dealing with families of children with significant
disabilities well before that had ever occurred.
That is mostly an irony. It's not the reason for what I do,
because I would have done what I'm doing today anyhow. But
there are a number of different things that have occurred over
time, and certainly Public Law 94-142 which Mr. Chairman
mentioned at the beginning, and its progeny, including the
reauthorization in 1997, have been major laws that have
provided services that would never have occurred at all, and
it's not because there are people out there who are not well
intentioned. They are. But sometimes some things do need to be
done in order to benefit the whole.
However, that does not mean that the law itself does not
have areas that require some tinkering, for want of a better
term. And, Mr. Chairman, the list you gave me was a number of
different areas that you wished for me to address and I will,
very quickly. I will not elaborate upon the written testimony I
gave you, but it does serve as the basis for some of the
comments I do have today, including addressing your concern
about the empirical data that needs to be collected, which I
also notice that Patty Guard will be later testifying about
what efforts there are in this regard.
To go through the list of questions that were posed to me,
you want to know if schools are following Federal laws and
providing a free and appropriate public education. There are
some things that I will bring to your attention now. I'm not
going to list every single thing that I see in my office that
prevents this from working as it should, because to do so would
require me to put all of my ``begs in one ask-it.'' And I think
maybe it might be a better situation that later on as you move
into more specific areas, my office would be more than happy to
provide you an abundant amount of information regarding all
these different issues, including the legal analyses in transit
we identify that's on our Web site, which is also a part of the
written testimony that I gave you, some things that are
occurring that are preventing parents from working together
with schools, things you would not imagine.
For example, a number of schools enter into collective
bargaining agreements that restrict the meeting of IEP teams to
contract hours. That means that if a parent wants to have an
IEP team meeting, whatever it may be called from State to
State, they can only meet during contract hours, not before and
not after. Makes no difference if you're a single parent that
has a job and if you miss one more time you're going to lose
your job. These IEP meetings occur right now, and I'm sure that
some of the parents can tell you they have had those
experiences. Some of the administrators have likewise had
those. We don't know those occur until they come to us.
Other provisions in the collective bargaining agreements
restrict who can make decisions about grade placement. Well,
that's an IEP team decision. That raises an issue. Some give it
solely to the student's teacher. And you also have the other
problems that have occurred in those areas and that we heard
one today about the kindergarten teacher. The kindergarten
teacher has to agree to take a student? You know, that does--
unfortunately, that sounded like an Indiana case, and we
actually have had some situations where when we found them out
we have corrected them.
That is not how it works. You don't ask someone whether or
not you take a student into your classroom in that stint; but
on the other hand, that teacher needs to have specific
training, not just in autism, because autism's not a very good
descriptor. You have to have training in how autism is
manifested in that student. That is not a good descriptive. In
fact using the term ``autism'' is not. And that's why in our
rules implementing them under disorder, to cover them all, so
that schools and parents will make decisions based upon the
need for educational services, because there are some
conditions that adversely impact educational performance;
because if we just use the term ``autism,'' the student with
Asperger syndrome down here is not under autism as that's
defined in the DSM-IV. It's not. And so you get this problem;
school officials say, well, it's not autism because it's not in
the DSM-IV, therefore, they don't need services. Not right.
And we've told schools before that when we talk about
educational performance, and I give 35 to 40 different
presentations in Indiana alone every year to all these various
groups, there's a number of things I stress to them.
Educational or academic performance is not the only concern.
In Western culture we certainly prize academic performance,
but we prize social adeptness more than we do academic
performance. And that may sound strange. I've been teaching for
27 years, and those who have taught and those who have observed
know that if you're socially adept, a multitude of sins and
transgressions will be forgiven. But if you have ineptness,
that sets you apart, no matter how gifted you are in other
areas. So it's not just academics. That's not the sole
determiner.
As far as legal costs involved in resolving disputes and
who pays those fees, I think you heard from Mrs. Brown today.
What she described was our extraordinary funding system that we
created in Indiana where we will wrap services around a student
so they don't have to go to residential facilities; but the
school has to demonstrate to the State that there is
educational justification for that service. That educational
justification is in the student's individualized education
program, the IEP. They didn't put it in Mrs. Brown's IEP. And
what happens, we wrote our rules in such a way as to say,
Schools, if you don't put it in your IEP, you may be
responsible for the cost of that service. You need to justify
it.
That's born out of a class action lawsuit that schools
initiated against us--unfortunately, litigation is one of the
things that I have to do--so we made sure that we put that in
there so that we don't have people who are trying to pass
services along that they don't agree with. But rather than
discussing that with the parents, they try to pass it along to
the State and then make the State look like a bad guy, which is
pretty much what happened in Mrs. Brown's case.
She can certainly give you her own rendition of it.
As far as attorneys' fees, the attorneys' fees provision in
IDEA is not really encouraging a lot of attorneys to go into
this area. As a result, parents do not have available to them
competent counsel who can help them.
I realize a lot of people say, maybe we should keep the
attorneys out. I'll tell you right now, as an attorney who
represents a State agency--and we get involved in these
hearings a lot--I would much rather have the school and the
parent being represented by counsel who understands the law.
But unfortunately the way the funding has been set up over the
years, protector advocacy, LSO and a lot of the other services
like that cannot handle these cases anymore. As a result, they
really are not available to parents, competent counsel. If you
have competent counsel, these things typically don't go to
hearings.
Mr. Burton. Mr. McDowell, I don't know how many questions
the staff has sent to you.
Mr. McDowell. They sent me two pages full of questions.
Mr. Burton. Did they? Were they answered in your statement?
Mr. McDowell. Not all of them, because I needed to know
what data was sent to you from our Division of Special
Education. For that--we coordinated that together. I realize
that I've gone over time.
Mr. Burton. That's OK. Could we do this? Could we go to Ms.
Bristo? And the questions that you think are relevant and we
need to talk about--and we will be asking you questions in just
a few moments--maybe we could get back to that.
Mr. McDowell. Sure. Yes, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McDowell follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Ms. Bristo.
Ms. Bristo. Good afternoon, Chairman Burton and the
distinguished members of the committee. Thank you very much for
inviting NCD, the National Council on Disability, to
participate in this important hearing.
As you know, the National Council on Disability is charged
to provide policy guidance and research support to Congress and
the White House about Federal statutes and programs pertaining
to people with disabilities. Before 1975, the educational needs
of more than 8 million students with disabilities were not
being met.
Since 1975, when IDEA was passed, the doors have been
opened to untold numbers of students with special education
needs in America. However, over the years, parents have told
us, and we have found, that the promise of IDEA is not being
fulfilled, and too often parents and families bear an undue
burden of enforcing IDEA. We were delighted last night to hear
President Bush reaffirm his commitments to the New Freedom
Initiative and to ``leave no child behind.'' Taken together,
they represent a new opportunity to improve the implementation
of this important civil rights legislation.
We agree with our President that increased funding and
enhanced accountability by our public schools are two critical
elements to ensuring that no child will be left behind,
including the 6 million students served through IDEA.
It saddens us to tell you that NCD's research embodied in
our report, ``Back to School on Civil Rights,'' which I will
leave for the record, indicates that all 50 States were out of
compliance to varying degrees with the main provisions of IDEA.
It is also troubling to report to you that there were no
serious consequences for continued and persistent noncompliance
with IDEA.
All too often the burden of enforcement rests on the
shoulders of parents. NCD believes that preventing
discrimination and ensuring educational equality of opportunity
is an appropriate role of our Federal Government. It is time to
put that responsibility back to the Federal Government in
upholding the constitutional guarantees afforded to millions of
children with disabilities.
A complete copy of our report has been entered into the
record. I would just like to summarize a few key findings and a
few key recommendations.
Ninety percent of the States had failed to ensure
compliance in the category of general supervision where States
are expected to hold local school districts accountable; 80
percent of States failed to ensure compliance with the law's
free appropriate public education requirements; and 72 percent
of the States failed to ensure compliance with the placement in
the least restrictive requirements of IDEA.
NCD made a variety of recommendations in our report. I'm
only going to point on a few priorities here today.
First, the Departments of Education and Justice should
develop national compliance standards with enforcement triggers
and mechanisms and with involvement of stakeholders.
Second, Congress should authorize and fund the Department
of Justice to independently investigate and litigate IDEA
cases.
Third, increases in IDEA funding should include portions to
build enforcement complaint handling and technical assistance
to ensure top to bottom accountability.
Congress crafted a statute in 1975 that, if faithfully
implemented, will consistently produce quality outcomes for
students with disabilities. We firmly believe that if IEPs are
based on the unique needs of students, if instruction is
individually designed, if IEPs are faithfully implemented, if
the least restrictive environment requirements are followed,
and if there is failure to comply with IDEA that there will be
real consequences, students will achieve quality outcomes while
enjoying maximum independence in interactions with their
nondisabled peers.
Compliance with these IDEA requirements is a sufficient
condition for quality outcomes. Funding and accountability are
interconnected parts of the solution.
Improvement in the implementation of IDEA will take the
concerted efforts of parents, advocates, State and local
governments and leaders such as those conducting this important
congressional hearing.
I want to express our deep appreciation of the important
work we are engaged in here today. And to the chairman, to
welcome you on board for the important journey of opening
opportunities for people with disabilities. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bristo follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry I'm a little
late getting to the starting line. Let me just start off the
questioning by asking the parents of children who are autistic,
if we could, at what age did you notice your children were
autistic?
Let's start with you, Ms. Brown, real quickly.
Ms. Brown. I noticed my son was autistic at 18 months, and
he was legally diagnosed at 2 years and 4 months.
Mr. Burton. OK, 18 months.
Ms. Fry, when did you notice your children became----
Ms. Fry. They showed signs at birth, all of them.
Mr. Burton. All at birth.
And Ms. Antenellis.
Ms. Antenellis. Connor was 18 months.
Mr. Burton. 18 months. And I guess you're the parents.
Let me just ask you those of you who noticed the signs of
autism at 18 months, had you had any kind of inoculations of
the children in close proximity of the time that you noticed
them to be autistic?
Mr. Brown. Yes, I did.
Mr. Burton. How close in proximity?
Ms. Brown. I started noticing a difference at 12 months
with the DPT, and 18 months is what I considered to be the
final blow with the MMR.
Mr. Burton. Ms. Antenellis.
Ms. Antenellis. Same thing. He started to decline around 16
months, right after his shots.
Mr. Burton. Which shots were they?
Ms. Antenellis. I think it was MMR, but I can't say that
was it, because it was a very slow decline.
Mr. Burton. Was this just the one shot, or did you have a
series?
Ms. Antenellis. We had all the shots that were required by
law because that's what they told me I should do up until 18
months. He had whatever shots there were at 18 months also, and
he has not been vaccinated since.
Mr. Burton. I was just curious about that.
I guess this is a general question for all of you, and
we'll start with you Mr. Lamontagne. Could you give us the top
two or three things that you think should be done by the
Congress or by the Justice Department to make sure that
children who have these disabilities are taken care of
properly? And we're going to write these down because we're
going to try to pursue these through the Congress, at least I
am, and I think my colleagues will.
Mr. Lamontagne. I think the first and obvious one is to
fully fund the Congress' commitment to IDEA; second, to
incentivize the delivery of service by converting the funding
mechanism from a pure block grant--I'll call it that for a lack
of a better term--to a reimbursement-for-services program; and
third is to shift the model from a bureaucratic one to a
delivery-of-services model, which would mean having support
services for parents at the school district level, including an
ombudsman in the event of a disagreement between the school
district and parents.
Mr. Burton. So you're saying an ombudsman would solve the
problem hopefully before there was any legal action?
Mr. Lamontagne. Precisely. An ombudsman whose charge is to
be a problem solver, not simply an advocate for one side or the
other.
Mr. Burton. Ms. Brown. Oh, Ms. Bristo has to leave at what
time?
Ms. Bristo. I need to leave at about 25 of.
Mr. Burton. Why don't we go to you next, and then we'll
come back to Ms. Brown.
Ms. Bristo. The main message we have for you is what I
reported to you today: Enforce the existing law. We have heard
from parents all around the country that the problem isn't with
the law; it's for the failure of any consequences to occur.
In the course of our evaluation, we found that, for
example, the Department of Education had only withheld funds
once in the entire history of the law. We believe that as long
as noncompliance is rewarded with continued funding, or no
other real action to create improvements, we perpetuate the
problem.
Mr. Burton. Let's take the State of Indiana for instance; I
talked with the people that were charged with the
responsibility of making sure the law was followed regarding
IDEA. They said when they were contacted by parents like my
daughter, who were having a problem with the school, that they
would get a hold of the local person in that particular county
and that they would pursue it and tell the school if they
didn't comply--or the school district, if they didn't comply--
the funds would be withdrawn.
Is that what you're talking about?
Ms. Bristo. Yes.
Mr. Burton. So there is incentive for them to comply?
Ms. Bristo. I would direct you to the substance of our
report which looks at seven priorities, including at the State
level, so you could take a look at your own State.
I am happy to say that the Department of Education has
recently begun a process to improve their monitoring mechanism
and the National Council is encouraged by that; we believe
that's a real step in the right direction. But we really
believe that at the heart of this is putting too much of the
burden for our civil rights on the shoulders of parents who are
working very, very hard over time just to provide the basic
services that other kids often take for granted.
Mr. Burton. OK.
Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown. I would like to see the schools held
accountable, especially in a situation when the graphs and data
and video footage has been presented for them, and how they
could continue to deny a program for a child who has made
progress under that specific program.
The other thing I can only offer is that anyone who would
be brought in as a neutral party to help supervise the IEP
meetings and the school before parents have to go--due process,
not be paid by the State, somehow the Federal Government is
involved in that.
Mr. Burton. If it was an ombudsman, no matter who paid
them, they're supposed to be nonpartisan. But you think they
would be if they were paid by the State?
Ms. Brown. Right. The reason why I say that is because also
this past year I attended a seminar, and at that seminar I saw
many school officials in my district. The closing statement of
that seminar was, ``The problem here is, parents who have
children with autism want a Cadillac; and I am here to tell you
all you have to offer is a Chevy.''
Mr. Burton. Who made that statement?
Ms. Brown. The conference I attended was Melinda Baird, I
believe is how you pronounce her last name.
Mr. Burton. Oh, she's going to be a witness here. We will
ask her about that in a few minutes.
Ms. Schakowsky, why don't I let you have some time, and I
will get back to these folks.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Pretty much everything I know about disability issues and
disability rights I've learned from Marca Bristo, and today you
can continue my education if I could ask you a few questions.
I wanted to ask if you thought the requirements for regular
teacher certification should include training on special ed.
Ms. Bristo. Absolutely. Increasingly, we're learning that
the more we can educate all teachers for the diverse Nation
that we are in, including people for whom English is a second
language, people with disabilities, people in rural areas, the
better educated our children would be.
More and more of our disabled children are in mainstream
classrooms, and we believe that the recruitment efforts that
the First Lady will be undertaking, it's important to target
those as well as enhance the requirements for certification to
include more than just the basic Special Ed 101 training that
currently is the case.
Ms. Schakowsky. Are we providing services across the board
equally or are some children with disabilities getting better
results or access to IDEA than others?
Ms. Bristo. The National Council looks at disability from a
cross-disability perspective, so I will situate my comment in
that context.
I think you have heard from the parents here today, the
children who received the best educational services under IDEA
are the ones whose parents were lucky enough to find out what
the law was, who had access to other people to help them
through the maze, and if all else didn't work, had the ability
to retain legal counsel.
Now that's a lot to ask of our parents. Those people stand
a much better chance of getting good results for their kids.
And to that end we believe that there are existing mechanisms
that Congress could support further than they have. The parent
training centers, a national network to provide technical
assistance to parents to help them understand the rules and
regs and what to do when disability affects their lives, we
believe is a good place to start.
But in our efforts to reduce litigation, it's important to
note that litigation is a really important part of the
repertoire of tools. In those instances where the courts have
taken some cases, we have some models of enforcement that we
would be well served to look at. My own State of Illinois right
now, is operating under a court order to implement the least
restrictive environment aspects of the law with the same kind
of enforcement triggers and mechanisms and standards that the
National Council is calling for; and we're seeing considerable
improvements.
Ms. Schakowsky. We've heard testimony today about the costs
of attorneys. Are there low-cost special education attorneys
available to represent parents anywhere?
Ms. Bristo. Again, no. As you probably can ask and have the
parents here speak to, not only are there not a cadre of well-
funded and well-educated parents, there is also just a dearth
of people who are really knowledgeable in this area of law. And
increasingly, as people decide whether or not they are going to
take these cases, the parents also have to prepare themselves
many times for multi years of helping to front those legal
expenses until the attorneys' fees kick in.
A lot of people fall by the wayside before then. They
simply give up. And I think we have to ask ourselves the
question, in those instances when it gets just too burdensome
to enforce the law for your child, is it not the children whom
we are leaving behind?
Ms. Schakowsky. And short of attorneys, are there not lay
advocates or people who can help the parents, give them
information about what their rights are and help them run their
way through the system?
Ms. Bristo. Yes, as I said, the parents' training networks,
the independent living centers, the protection and advocacy
programs; but again, often these organizations are stressed
with an overwhelming number of requests for information, and
more needs to be done in this important area.
Ms. Schakowsky. I really appreciate the real testimony of
real-life people and the kind of struggles that you're going
through. And there are obvious holes that we have got to fill
so that the burden is somewhat lifted and you can provide
exactly what your children need; and I certainly pledge my
support for that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Barr [presiding]. The time of the gentlelady from
Illinois has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Weldon.
Mr. Weldon. Thank you. I have a question which I guess I
would like to direct to some of the education professionals we
have here on the panel.
IDEA was passed, I guess, 20 or 25 years ago, and there are
a lot of people who are arguing that the incidence of autism
began to increase significantly in our population. And a lot of
times we say ``disability,'' and I think when they hear that,
they're thinking the whole gambit of disabilities--cerebral
palsy, mental retardation, etc.; but how much of what we're
struggling with or dealing with is actually the possible
increase--significant increase of autism, or are you seeing
significant increases in all disability categories?
Ms. Nunes. What we're seeing is--to answer your question in
two components, we definitely are seeing an increase of
students identified with autism. We are also seeing--I will
speak to San Diego particularly. We are also seeing an increase
in other areas, as well. As our medical profession achieves
greater ability to help children who are premature, frequently
these children will end up with some disabilities that we need
to take care of in the education profession. So it is across
the board, but the increase of autism is phenomenal.
When I'm addressing issues regarding IDEA, though, from an
educational point of view, I'm looking across all disabilities.
Mr. Weldon. So if I understand you correctly, you're seeing
everything increase, but you think autism is increasing more
than the others?
Ms. Nunes. At a more rapid rate, yes?
Mr. Weldon. Does anybody disagree with that?
Mr. McDowell. Yes, Representative.
I would not disagree with that. Certainly that experience
is being borne out across the country. There are some reasons
for it, but no one knows all the reasons for it.
One of the reasons we see the increased instances is
because only comparatively recently did the Federal guidelines
even mention it as a separate category; before, it was listed
with emotional disturbance or emotional handicaps. In 1988, we
created our own category for special education; we didn't wait
for the Federal law to do it. So our reporting on the incidence
of autism as an educational diagnosis, as opposed to a medical
one, began in 1988, so we have data from that time. That's one
of the reasons.
The other ones, better identification, the refinement in
mental health professionals on how they've been able to
identify it. We don't know if they simply went undiagnosed or
if there is some sort of an epidemic.
I don't think they all went undiagnosed. There's no one who
can explain why, other than it is a phenomenon that has
occurred.
Mr. Weldon. How much of your resources are expended
dealing--and I realize you're just--I'm asking you to shoot
from the hip and make estimations on dealing with emotional and
behavorial problems associated with the disabilities that
you're dealing with; is that a significant component?
The impression I get in looking at a lot of these cases is
that the pure educational components--in other words, having a
teacher who knows how to teach subjects to a child with a
disability--is a relatively--in many of these cases, a
relatively narrow component of what you're dealing with and
that a huge amount of the associated costs of teaching of
educating these kids under the provisions of the act are
related to things like physical therapy and behavioral therapy.
I'm interested in that mainly because we call it the
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act because we want
these kids to get an education. And the costs are proving to be
much higher than anybody estimated, and the reason for it is
because of these associated, ancillary issues that you have to
bring into play; and I think it's important. If we're going to
sell to the Congress, our colleagues, why we have to begin to
pony up significantly more money to address the issue.
Mr. McDowell. Representative, at the time in question that
was one of the major issues that the chairman asked us to
address. I can say when Congress reauthorized IDEA at section
1418 and 1474, Congress did ask for a study because you have a
number of these competing interests who say this is drawing
money away from that resource, you are robbing Peter to pay
Paul. No one can refute that or support that.
For that reason, the Office of Special Education Programs
within USDOE has contracted with the Center for Special
Education Finance of the American Institutes for Research, and
they are presently involved in conducting this massive national
study, of which Indiana is a part; and we have also opted to
outlay additional money--$800,000 in fact--in order to get a
State-specific study for Indiana that would break it down by
exceptionality area to give student, building and district
types of data to show what those expenses are in eight major
areas.
Unfortunately, the preliminary data tabulation will not be
available until April 30 of this year, and the final report is
due out October 31 of this year. And I am sure that Patty Guard
can give you more information on that other than, we are
involved in this.
The type of data that they have requested is extraordinary,
and the eight questions that they are prepared to answer cover
all the questions that Congress has raised about where is this
money going, what is it doing, is it really affecting other
programs; and that's the type of information that this report
is to generate.
Mr. Weldon. I have just one other question if the chairman
will indulge me and I realize my time has expired.
One of the reasons you can, if you decide you want to go
out to dinner, you can choose from a lot of good restaurants in
most American towns, is because you have money in your pocket
and everybody wants your money. One of the reasons you couldn't
get a decent meal in the Soviet Union is, they had a different
system obviously.
There have been some people who have proposed, and I guess
this is a question I'd really like to direct more to the
parents: Should we really be thinking outside of the box, and
instead of putting more money into the system, empowering
parents by giving them the resources so they can go out and
shop in their community to find the best environment for their
kids?
The reason I say this is, when I look through the e-mails
from the State of Florida, from parents who have struggled in
this area, some of them say they encountered very willing and
cooperative teachers and school administrators that wanted to
make a difference; but one of the themes you see over and over
again is sort of a lack of customer friendliness to dealing
with the problems that they are facing as parents.
Your thoughts? Would you rather have the money so that you
can shop around amongst various public and private institutions
that are designed to teach kids with disabilities, or would you
rather just see us put more money into the existing system--in
other words, a so-called ``voucher.'' It's a dirty word, I
realize, and nobody likes that term; it's been so demonized.
That's really what I'm getting at.
Ms. Antenellis. I think I could answer a little bit of that
from a parent viewpoint.
I think, No. 1--if there were standardized good programs
out there, I think that is an option we would like, but in many
cases my school was forced by me to put a program in. They had
nothing, they had absolutely nothing, so I don't think we have
a lot of restaurants to go to.
Mr. Weldon. Well, there's no marketplace because there are
no customers.
Ms. Antenellis. But I also, second, think that you
mentioned the medical end of it. We have a society where it is
all forced upon the school system. Particularly with the
disability of autism, no medical coverage provides services. I
cannot get speech, I cannot get OT, I cannot get PET for my
child because he has a developmental disability and our health
insurance won't cover it. So it falls--it's incumbent to have
the school system do it. That is the only access he has to the
service.
So there may be some definite medical issues that need to
be addressed, but the health insurance piece has fallen back.
Even in my town when we apply for Medicaid for our special ed
kids, it doesn't go to the special education department; it
gets kicked back into the town fund. So it is not supporting
special education. It goes right back into our town's general
fund, not to pay the specific needs of the children that
they're billing for.
Ms. Nunes. If I could continue on that conversation, when
you were asking about the physical therapy and the related
services, one of the increases that we saw was that as
insurance stopped accepting students or providing services it
fell upon the district or the school districts to then provide
those services as a related service. And our definition is to
provide access to the general education or to the educational
environment. So, yes, there is always a domino effect when one
piece of legislation or one decision is made that it will then
roll back to usually the education department, to usually fill
in.
Mr. Weldon. Thank you very much.
Mr. Burton [presiding]. Do you have some questions, and
then we will go to my colleagues from California.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not sure I have so
much a question as I do a comment, but it sort of plays on what
Representative Weldon said, that we don't have the marketplace;
and maybe the reason for that is, I'm not sure that the parents
know their rights. And I wish I had Ms. Antenellis back when my
24-year-old was 12 years old, and I had a case where the
pediatrician wrote a prescription to the school to test my
child for a learning disability. But he looked normal, acted
normal, and the school said he's just lazy and a daydreamer.
He was not tested. They refused to test. I didn't know I
had that right.
That's my concern: Are we getting the cooperation? I'm
hearing that now. I know that was 12 years ago with my son, I
hear that now in my district that the school, the
administration--I don't know if it's the teachers or where it's
coming from--are not cooperating with the parents, not wanting
to give them the information or even tell them what their
rights are.
My concern there is, is it because we're not funding? Is
that the administration's and the bureaucracy's problem that
they don't have the money, so therefore they don't want to tell
the parents that they have the right because it would cost more
money?
We had a situation in one district where the school went
outside of the county attorney and hired an attorney, spent
$200,000 to fight a parent; and the parent spent, like Mrs.
Brown did, a lot of money and won. But by the same token, we
wasted $200,000 of taxpayers' money; and we have a problem, and
I'm not sure how to fix it. And I'm open for suggestions.
Mr. Lamontagne. I will just make the observation that I
would wholeheartedly agree that simply fully funding IDEA is
not the answer. It's fully funding IDEA, whatever that means
under a reformed model, that creates more power in the hands of
parents and creates more of a choice--a bottom-up, if you will,
demand.
That means an educated parent force, certainly. That means
a system that looks to deliver services, not resist giving
service. That also means removing what inevitably becomes sort
of a battle of dueling agencies when you have social service
agencies and educational agencies all competing for a limited
resource of money, because they are in fact naturally
antagonistic in this situation, much like you've alluded to,
Representative.
My wife and I--and she's here with my children--we've been
foster parents for 12 years of a special needs child, and we've
battled this on his behalf to try to deal with where the
responsibility should lay, and lie. And I think it is very
important the funding mechanism tries to wrap in, if you will,
a package that is going to ultimately be paid by government, a
package to deliver a full array of services to help children
not only learn but be able to receive the services they need as
they progress so they can become members of society.
But to remove it now, which is a top-down bureaucratic
system that I think kills, if you will, the ability of parents,
that discourages and is a disincentive for parents to go out
into the marketplace to look at opportunities. And there is no
market out there to try to educate parents to find what is
available for them.
I would also say sitting here today, thank God for the
mothers and fathers from hell, who have worked so hard for
their children.
Mr. McDowell. If I may add to the comments, I don't wish to
leave the impression that school people are awful people.
They're really not. When I speak to them, I remind them that
even though this may be the third or fourth IEP team meeting
you have today, this is the parent's first; and never forget
that this is their first and don't rush them through it. Be
considerate. Let them talk. Let them be a member. Don't sit
down there and start dominating it because it's time sensitive.
If you think about it, you have to constantly remind
yourself, because having been there--I've been in thousands of
IEP team meetings, and I have to remind myself of that too.
Because I'll say, it's 4 o'clock, it's Mrs. Brown--it's just
generic, not this Mrs. Brown--Mrs. Brown is coming in, and with
luck I can get out of here by 5, and I can still make it and
pick up so-and-so at 5:30. That is not an uncommon thing to
occur.
However, there are other things that are embedded in the
idea that are having unfortunate results. One is, Congress put
in a mediation part, trying to encourage mediation, but put a
section in there that allows the school to essentially punish a
parent who doesn't want to go to mediation by forcing them to
talk to somebody about all the wonders of mediation, and if
they only understood it, they would go to it. Well that's
punitive, and it's off-putting.
Other things embedded in there are simply the use of the
term ``regular education,'' it's all throughout the IDEA, and
that creates this polarization in schools between regular
education teachers and special education teachers and that does
not help. There is no such licensing pattern for regular
education.
My recommendation is, change it to ``general education''
because a child with a disability or a child without a
disability is part of the school community and a teacher is a
teacher is a teacher. And I can guarantee you, as I sit here
right now with 27 years of teaching, I don't think anybody here
is going to deny the fact that there is that polarization in
schools. We're regular educators. That's a special ed problem.
Mr. Burton. Any further questions, Mrs. Davis?
Mrs. Davis. No.
Mr. Burton. I will now yield to Mr. Cunningham from
California.
Let me say, before we do that, we probably do need to
refine the law; and I think you have already worked on that in
the past, Duke, you've worked on refining the law in the past,
haven't you?
Mr. Cunningham. Yeah, but what I put in there didn't come
out of the White House.
Mr. Burton. But the point is, what we want to get from you
today are recommendations on changes in the current statutes
that will perfect it and make it more user friendly for the
parents, so they have don't have to go through these
adversarial programs with the schools.
And so I really mean what I said earlier: We want your
recommendations. We want your input. We want your suggestions
so we can draft some legislation that we can present to the
Congress to try to correct these things, so the parents won't
have to go through these things that these ladies and my
daughter has.
Representative Cunningham.
Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Chairman Burton. First of all, I
guess I have to do a disclaimer. I'm not on this committee. And
none of my thought would be going toward the committee, but I
mentioned, both my wife and sister-in-law are both educators,
but I was also a teacher and a coach, both in high school and
college level, and dean of a college.
And I also sit on the Appropriations Committee. I make the
decisions whether IDEA gets more money or not, or cut. No one,
like Chairman Burton, when you walk out of my office, you have
no doubt where I stand. I don't tell you one thing and come
back with another, and I'm very frank.
On the Appropriations Committee, I support increased
medical research. Is it shots that are causing it at the 18-
month or 2-year period? Is it genetic? Is a genome program
going to help? And I think that's hopeful--maybe not to your
children right now, but hopefully, we can help in the future in
this whole area. And not just with autistic children, but
across the board.
I also support, I think, that our colleges should have
basic instruction courses, not just the IEP or not just the
credentialed teachers in special education, but all teachers to
have increased courses. I think there ought to be funding for
it. I think that ought to be one of your recommendations.
Mr. McDowell. It is.
Mr. Cunningham. I think both the schools and the Eisenhower
grants that we put not just for what you call ``normal
education'' or what the actual term should be, but those
teachers should also receive an upgrade in the law as well as
what the services are, not just credentialed people.
When I first came here, there was 6 percent funding for
IDEA. We've more than doubled that. And I think President Bush,
when he talks about focusing some of the things that we are
looking at--for example, the money going directly to the school
and giving the parents the teachers and the community the
ability to direct those dollars instead of Washington, I think
that helps your cause because more money can be used for IDEA.
A factor with an Education IRA to where you can set up
$2,000 aside for that child the day they're born and when
they're 10 years old it's not $20,000; that's over $48,000 with
compound interest. You can use that without penalty for a
special education child or save it for later on.
What I don't support, the increase of IDEA money, I have
witnessed one child in the State of California is receiving
$150,000 a year to teach that child. I think that is
unreasonable; and it hurts you and it also hurts the school.
On the committee--I was co-chairman of the D.C. Committee--
I capped lawyer fees in Washington, DC. I saved $24 million.
Did I put it in a general fund? No. I went out--and like you're
talking about, you didn't have trained teachers--I trained 33
special educations teachers that went into the classroom with
aides to better teach and train you. I support that kind.
But I don't want to increase it to 40 percent and see it
going to trial lawyers. I want the money to go to students and
their needs.
And one of things I would like to ask Mrs. Nunes, my sister
in law, she talked to me about zero tolerance. I think you need
to know why. The schools aren't bad. I've seen her cry when a
child was underserved, when she was a teacher and she was
fighting for those children.
But I know on the other side the zero tolerance that we
have, and I would like her to just explain in plain words why
this is hurting, just because of the paperwork, and it's
becoming more of a check in the box than the administrators and
teachers being able to go down to help the kids.
I have seen teachers brutalized in the courtroom where
they're quitting the service. You are losing good special
education teachers just because of the paperwork and the
pressure and stuff. I think you want to keep them there, the
trained ones.
Ms. Nunes. The component of the law that requires no IEP or
triennial to be overdue, as I stated in the testimony, does not
provide us with an opportunity, as we were reporting, to give
feedback that there might be some extenuating circumstances
that is a reason why the IEP is overdue. The parents may have
requested that the IEP be held at a later date due to some
family emergency. We may have a dispute in the assessment plan
so we are not able to meet that time line.
The reality of what happens is that reports go in and then
they come back with sanction letters for us to then remediate
or fix those situations, and what we end up becoming is a
system of report generation as opposed to looking at the
student and the student needs. And that's a concern to us.
If I could just take my step here and answer your question,
Mr. Chairman, about the issues that we would like to address as
far as recommendations, when we talk about the funding, again
we would like to stress the educational research. I think that
my concern about hearing vouchers is that now you have agencies
potentially that there's not a standard; that the educational
approach isn't appropriate for the child, there needs to be
some type of standard that says, OK, it's time to move on, we
need to look at something different.
As I stated before, there is not just one educational
approach for students with autism or for any other students.
For example, students with autism display a wide variety of
ranges of ability levels. You may have one student with a
diagnosis of autism who does not relate well in group settings,
but does very well on an individual basis, as I think we have
heard some of the examples here.
However, I have personally been in the classroom with
students and taught students with the diagnosis of autism for
whom being in an individualized instruction programming such as
called out in some strategies is not the best educational
environment; and those students learn better in a group
environment, in small groups.
So I think that my concern is, we take into account the
educational strategies and train teachers.
When we talk about the higher education institutions, I
applaud Mrs. Bush in going out and championing that cause for
us. What I would like to see are competencies that higher
education institutions have to provide more than just an
awareness level of the strategies and techniques that are
needed for all students and to really be able to demonstrate
the knowledge.
And that's the struggle that we're having right now, and
that's the recommendation.
Mr. Burton. Let me say, first of all, the panel has been
very helpful, and we will take suggestions to heart. If there
are further suggestions, real quickly, we'd like to have them
because we want to move on to the next panel.
But I would like to say this, the people who are in the
profession of teaching and the experts that help with special
needs children really do know what they're talking about, and
they can be very helpful; but you also have to consider the
parents, because they live with the child 24 hours a day, or at
least when they're not in school, and on weekends and
everything else. And if a parent feels like they are not
getting the proper treatment or education from the system, they
ought to have a very big say.
That's why the idea that some form of choice for a parent
ought to be there. So if the school isn't doing the job, even
though they have the talent to do it, or because they don't
want to do it or they have don't want to devote enough time for
the child, which is the case of my grandson, then the parent
ought to be able to make sure that child gets the proper
attention.
I always believed when there is an incentive to do things,
people do it better. If a car salesman, for instance, knows
that he will get a bonus if he sells 10 cars instead of 5, he's
going to work a little harder. I believe in the educational
field if a teacher or a school system is going to benefit
because they're doing a little more outstanding job than the
sister school, they're going to try harder.
That's one of the reasons why a lot of us feel like there
should be some competition in education instead of sticking a
child, or a special needs child, into one facility that is not
doing a job, when down the street, or a ways away, there is
another school doing an outstanding job where they can put the
child. If the parent has a choice, they're going to say, hey,
I'm going to put my child where he or she is going to get the
best education, the best special needs education, whatever it
is. If the school that is not performing doesn't do it, they're
going to be without students; and pretty soon they will get the
message, they are all leaving, we'd better start doing our job
a little bit better, or pretty soon we will be without students
and maybe without a job.
So that's one of the arguments, one of the major arguments.
So I don't know whether it's vouchers or whether it's some kind
of choice, but parents ought to be able to have a bigger say
because some person who has more of a bureaucratic tendency
says, we really think your child ought to get 30 minutes a week
instead of 4 hours or 2 hours a week and the parent knows the
child is not progressing.
Yes, Ms. Antenellis.
Ms. Antenellis. I want to take my moment in the sun to just
give you my 2 cents worth of what I think you need to do.
In addition to the teachers, most autistic children have
aides in the classroom. These aides are usually just moms, who
are probably the best people to deal with them, but they don't
have the training, the training does not filter down to the
frontline staff, the recess monitor, the aide, the person in
the gym; so when the autistic child has a problem, they can't
handle it. They don't get paid much. They don't get the
teacher's salary, and they don't get the teacher training.
So I think that the paraprofessionals that work with these
children in the school systems also need to be trained and that
needs to be included in the budget somehow.
The other thing is, I think school systems that are
constantly in violation of children's rights should be taken to
task and be made to be accountable. Even if they have an IEP,
if they're not providing what's in the IEP, they should be
taken to task. If that school system is constantly going to
State hearings and being found against, they should be taken to
task.
There is no accountability in the school systems in the
States right now. Yes, they go back down again and then 2 weeks
later, they're not providing the speech. And the parent has to
go all the way through the process again to get the speech
provided. There's no accountability, and they need to be held
accountable.
Mr. Burton. I can tell you, this morning I talked to the
people in State of Indiana in the special education area, and
they assured me if parents bring to their attention in that
State--and maybe it needs to be done in every State--that
there's violations and noncompliance, they will investigate it
and they will withdraw the funds from the school system, and
they'll tell them, you will not get these funds if you don't do
the job. That's the carrot-and-stick approach that needs to be
used all across the country.
All of your ideas and suggestions will be looked at very
thoroughly.
Ms. Fry, you have one more comment, real quick?
Ms. Fry. Yes, I have my recommendations.
I have been told very often that there are gray areas. The
reason they don't train teachers is because it's a gray area.
We don't have to train them specifically. Their idea of
training is to send one person to a seminar, have them bring
back all the information, photocopy it, pass it out, and
everybody gets to read it; therefore, they're trained.
I don't buy it. I think it's time to color in the gray
areas and make it a little more specific, get the teachers some
training so they understand that when a child is exhibiting a
certain behavior, it's not because they're acting out, it's
because something is wrong. They're not doing it just to be
mean.
Again, accountability. The schools don't seem to have
anybody to say, you're not supposed to do this.
I feel that they should provide the education. I send my
kids to school for an education. I would hope that's what
they're going to get there.
Mr. Burton. Well, we will take all of your suggestions into
consideration. We will draft some revised legislation, and we
may even send it out to you folks who testified here today to
get your input before we present it to the Congress as a whole.
In any event, we will excuse this panel and ask the next panel
to come forward.
Do the people who are coming forward need to take a break
for about 5 minutes? I see pain on some faces. We will recess
for 5 minutes, and we will get started as quickly as possible.
[Recess.]
Mr. Burton. We will reconvene and I would like for you to
stand so I can swear you in, please. This is normal procedure.
You are not being singled out.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Burton. OK. We'll let you have opening statements.
We will start with Ms. Guard and we will just go right down
the row here. Try, if you could--as you heard, restrict your
comments to 5 minutes so we can get to the questions as quickly
as possible.
STATEMENTS OF PATRICIA J. GUARD, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION;
MELINDA BAIRD, JD, KNOXVILLE, TN; GARY MAYERSON, JD, NEW YORK,
NY; BILL EAST, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
STATE DIRECTORS OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, INC.; AND ED AMUNDSON,
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
Ms. Guard. Mr. Chairman and members of committee, last
November we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the signing of
the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now called the
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act [IDEA]. As we
explore the implementation of IDEA, it is important to take
time to reflect on the tremendous progress that has been made
in the education of children with disabilities since the
passage of this landmark civil rights legislation.
Today, more than 6 million infants, toddlers, children and
youths with disabilities are provided early intervention and
special education services. Over 95 percent of students with
disabilities are being educated in the public schools. Post-
school employment rates for youth served under IDEA are twice
that of older adults with disabilities who did not benefit from
IDEA in school, and the percentage of college freshmen
reporting a disability has almost tripled since 1978.
Despite this progress, significant challenges remain. As we
review implementation of IDEA, it is important to recognize
that this law calls for a Federal, State and local partnership.
It's important to understand the roles of each of these
entities in the implementation of this law. The Federal role is
to serve as a steward for Federal investments, to develop
improved interventions through research and development and to
provide financial support and technical assistance to assist
States in complying with the Federal law in correcting the
systemic problems. The Federal role necessitates ongoing
technical assistance to States. Periodic monitoring of
compliance with IDEA, directives for corrective actions and
different levels of enforcement and sanctions relative to the
intensive pervasiveness and persistence of problems within
States.
The State role parallels the Federal role in supporting and
ensuring the implementation of IDEA. By accepting Federal IDEA
funds, States have an obligation to ensure consistent
compliance with the IDEA statutes and regulations throughout
the State. The State's general supervision role entails not
only stewardship of the allocated Federal funds, but also of
the much larger State investments that support children with
disabilities.
The general supervision role also necessitates an ongoing
monitoring presence in the school districts and resolution of
parent or student complaints filed with the State. The State
agency has the obligation to ensure that each child with a
disability is identified and receives appropriate services. In
addition, the State plays a critical role in ensuring that
districts have an adequate supply of appropriately trained
teachers, administrators and other service providers to ensure
that children with disabilities receive high-quality
instruction.
States also have responsibility for setting performance
goals for students with disabilities and assisting school
districts with meeting these goals through identification and
support of promising practices, development of model
demonstration projects in support of other effective research-
based practices.
Local districts develop policies and procedures for
practical implementation of the State and Federal laws in each
school in the district. Local education agencies must make
certain that staff throughout the district are knowledgable of
the Federal and State requirements and that services are
provided to students and families consistent with the IEP
developed by a team of professionals and parents for each child
with a disability.
Parents play a key role, along with school personnel, in
developing, reviewing and revising, if necessary, their child's
IEP, and in determining the type and intensity of services the
child needs and where the services will be provided. If the
parent and local school district staff cannot agree on the
content of the IEP, or the recommended placement, the parent
can file a complaint with the State if they believe the school
district has violated a requirement in the law. The parent can
also ask for a due process hearing and mediation must be
available to parents who request a due process hearing.
The remainder of my testimony will elaborate on the Federal
role. The Part B Grants to States program assists the 50 States
and entities in meeting the excess cost of providing special
education and related services to children with disabilities.
Children with disabilities served under IDEA must be determined
to be eligible under 1 of 13 categories.
In recent years, with the exception of the category of
autism, the number of students receiving special education and
related services has remained relatively stable. The reported
numbers of children receiving services under the category of
autism grew disproportionately as States and local districts
became aware that children with the disorder could be reported
as such rather than under other disability categories. We also
believe the increase in the category of autism is a result of
improved identification and evaluation procedures.
Most funds provided to States must be passed on to local
education agencies. However, a portion of the funds should be
used for State-level activities such as administration,
monitoring, mediation, direct and support services, developing
plans for the State improvement program and helping LEAs
address personnel shortages.
Mr. Burton. Excuse me, Ms. Guard. I think this is the
information that you have already given to us in your opening
statement about the law. I think we're familiar with all of
that.
Ms. Guard. OK. I'm just summarizing my statement. I'm just
about finished. I will talk about the monitoring process.
Mr. Burton. That's fine. Go ahead.
Ms. Guard. OK.
Another Federal role is monitoring and enforcement of IDEA.
Our intent in the monitoring process is to work with States to
identify problems as early as possible and then help State and
local personnel to acquire the tools and skills they need to
correct these problems. We have found that the longstanding
systemic problems cannot be quickly corrected. We've tried to
use tools and mechanisms that allow States sufficient time to
make corrections that will be effective and sustained.
The Department has at its disposal a number of enforcement
tools. It is important, however, that these enforcement tools
be used appropriately. We fully recognize the urgency of and
our responsibility for ensuring compliance with IDEA. The time
a child is not receiving appropriate services is time lost that
cannot be regained.
Another Federal role is to provide support for the
development, dissemination and utilization of effective
services programs to improve results for students with
disabilities. States and schools must have access to research-
based practices that we know work to improve results for
students with disabilities. The IDEA Part D National Activities
program, which represents less than 1 percent of the annual
national expenditure to educate children with disabilities,
enhances the capacity of States to develop infrastructures to
support the full range and effective implementation of IDEA
through a variety of strategies including research, personnel
preparation, technical assistance and dissemination, technology
and studies and evaluations.
For children diagnosed with autism and related disorders
this has meant an increased OSERS focus on funding teacher
training, including distance-learning projects to reach
teachers in rural areas. It has meant developing model
demonstration projects for children with autism that can be
matched to the individual needs of the child. The National
Academy of Sciences is conducting OSERS-funded research to
examine the effectiveness of various interventions for children
with autism. Findings of the study are expected to be released
in July 2001.
In closing, the IDEA is designed to make sure that children
with disabilities have an equal opportunity to meet challenging
academic standards, to learn, to stay in school, to graduate
and move on to post-secondary education and the world of work.
Many of the issues States are dealing with are complex
educational issues that all of the education community is
addressing. We believe that in most cases States and local
districts are working in good faith to improve services to
children with disabilities and to correct noncompliance. We
also believe that no parent should bear the burden of
enforcement just to get an education for his or her child. To
that end, we recognize that if we are to fulfill our role, we
must not simply monitor the States, but we must hold States
accountable and have an ongoing presence providing technical
assistance.
By working collaboratively, we can improve the quality of
education for children with disabilities. We can focus valuable
time and fiscal resources on teaching and learning. Our
children deserve nothing less.
I will be happy to take any questions. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Ms. Guard.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Guard follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Ms. Baird. If you have a prepared statement for
the record, we will be glad to use it in the record; but if you
could stay as close to 5 minutes, it really would be helpful,
so we can get to questions.
Ms. Baird. I will try to be unlike most of my colleagues in
the legal profession and keep it short.
Mr. Burton. Thank you.
Ms. Baird. My name is Melinda Baird, and I'm very honored
to be here today, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to
the committee.
I'm an attorney in private practice in Knoxville, TN, and
I've been working in the field of special education for
approximately 16 years. It may not surprise you to know that I
have a different perspective and view than some of the
witnesses that have testified today. I believe very strongly
that in most cases the IDEA is working.
Over the past 12 years I have provided hundreds of
workshops and in-service training seminars for thousands of
teachers, administrators and parents of students with
disabilities. I would like to say at the outset that I have the
utmost respect and empathy for all parents of children with
disabilities, including those with children who are autistic.
For the past 4\1/2\ years I have been privileged to
represent school districts in Tennessee, Alabama and Florida in
litigation concerning the IDEA and section 504. One
misconception I hope to correct is that parents are advocates,
and school districts are not. I would also like to dispel the
notion that school districts have unlimited funds and are
anxious to pursue litigation.
Litigation in special education is a major concern for
parents and for school systems. However, I believe we do need
to keep it somewhat in perspective. According to the data
compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, more than 6
million students were identified in 1998 and 1999 as being
eligible under the IDEA.
I annually prepare a yearly summary of all Federal and
State court decisions affecting special education, and I've
attached this to my testimony. For school year 2000-2001, my
summary includes a total of 77 decisions. Of these, parents
prevailed in 42 percent of the cases, and school districts
prevailed in 58 percent of the lawsuits. I have prepared such a
summary for approximately the past 6 years, and the edge of
majority goes back and forth between parents and schools rather
consistently.
This number does not reflect the hundreds of decisions in
due process hearings conducted at the administrative level.
However, I think it is remarkable that on average each year
less than 100 lawsuits are filed in Federal and State court out
of a total of more than 6 million students receiving special
education and related services.
I know there's been testimony today concerning the
federally funded protection and advocacy organizations. I can
only speak to my personal experience and information. I can
tell you that in the States of Alabama and Tennessee
particularly, there are extremely active and aggressive
protection and advocacy organizations providing free and low-
cost legal representation to parents of students with
disabilities, including parents of children with autism.
Families also have options that I know you're aware of, such as
filing complaints with the State, with the Office for Civil
Rights or with the U.S. Department of Education.
Schools, on the other hand, must fund all of their legal
costs with no Federal financial assistance. Most school
districts do not have insurance coverage for these costs, and
it is for this reason that school districts are very reluctant
to pursue litigation unless they have carefully considered the
merits of the case.
Without exception, the cases in which I have represented
school districts have involved a difference of opinion as to
what services are appropriate and required to be provided. I
can say that I have never worked with a school district that
wanted to deny appropriate services to a student with
disabilities. In every case I have encountered administrators
and teachers who sincerely believe that they were providing
appropriate services to these students and who wanted to
provide these services.
One of the most active areas of litigation involves
parental requests for particular methodologies, and without a
doubt the issue receiving the most national attention here
today and across the country is educational methodologies for
children with autism. As I said, I practice mainly in Tennessee
and Alabama. In both of these States intensive statewide
training has been conducted and is being conducted, and
significant financial resources have been committed to provide
local school districts with the latest training in a wide
variety of methodologies, including Applied Behavior Analysis,
Discrete Trial Training, and those being the methodologies used
by the Lovaas methodology.
I would like to give you some information that I obtained
this morning, and I'll be happy to provide it to the committee.
In doing research on Education Administration Online, which is
an online data base reporting special education decisions, I
was surprised myself to see a very startling trend, and I think
it's a positive trend in the cases involving children with
autism. There are a total reported of 218 cases involving
children with autism. That includes 59 State and Federal court
decisions and 159 due process hearing decisions from the
administrative hearing. That is total, period. There are no
cases reported prior to 1994.
I can tell you from my own research that prior to 1996,
parents won approximately two-thirds of all autism cases, but
after 1996, parents are not winning that level, and schools, in
fact, are winning two-thirds of the cases. The cases peaked in
1998 with 52. In 1999, there were 33. In the year 2015--and
this year so far there are no reported cases. About half of
those cases involve parents seeking reimbursement for some of
the methodologies that you have heard today. I think these
statistics indicate that schools are receiving training and
that they are getting their act together, so to speak, in
knowing how to provide services for children with autism.
The IDEA has done wonderful things for millions of children
with disabilities and hopefully will continue to do so. I hope
that the committee will recognize the efforts of schoolteachers
and administrators to advocate on behalf of children with
disabilities, not only those with autism.
The IDEA was reauthorized, as you know, in 1997. We got
Federal regulations in 1999. I have been on the road all over
this country trying to help schools understand what they're
supposed to do. It's a big burden, but I believe they have
risen to the challenge. We don't need more laws and
regulations. We do need full funding at the 40 percent promise.
And I'd just like to say in closing that I think it would
be wrong to assume that all complaints filed against school
districts are without merit, but I think it would be equally
wrong to assume that all complaints filed against school
districts have merit. I think the fact that we have the small
number of disputes that we have is, in fact, evidence that the
system is working, not evidence to the contrary, and I thank
you, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Baird follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. Mayerson.
Mr. Mayerson. Yes. My name is Gary Mayerson, and I want to
be sure we don't miss, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak,
and I will try to confine my comments to the 5 minutes, if I
can.
Mr. Burton. Sure.
Mr. Mayerson. Initially, just by way of background, I was
for many years a commercial trial lawyer, almost 17 years, and
I left the practice of commercial trial in order to become a--
basically to launch my own firm concentrating in educational
rights for children with autistic spectrum disorders,
principally an IDEA-type litigation, and I did it because of
what was going on around the country of children being denied
those services. And I saw it time and again, and not in any
particular geographic region. I saw it in New York. I saw it in
Greenwich. I saw it in Tennessee. I did the first ABA case in
Alaska, TX. I have now represented children with those autistic
spectrum disorders in approximately two dozen States now. So
while I never got my flying license, I know you made reference
to Representative Lantos, I certainly do fly the IDEA statute
around the country a lot.
And basically I'm here asking Congress to put me out of
business because what I'm hoping that will be done is that
there will be the sufficient funding, not simply throwing money
at school districts. I don't think that's the answer. I think
it is a question of making sure that the money, just like with
a charity, gets to the people it was intended to serve. That
doesn't mean padded administration upon administration. It
means money actually going directly to the services that are
necessary.
And the other one is the accountability context. There
really are--I believe that while there are enough lawyers out
there that are ready to take retainers to work for school
districts, there are precious few attorneys who are ready,
willing and able to represent children with disabilities, and
in particular children with autistic spectrum disorders. The
learning curve is very high, the pay is erratic at best, and
the results can be catastrophic if for any reason you fail the
child. So for all those risk factors I think a lot of people
shy away from that. It's very difficult to find people who are
willing to take on that kind of case.
Now, I do agree that there are a number of school districts
around the country who are doing a fine job complying with the
IDEA statute or making every reasonable good faith effort to do
so. I deal with a number of those districts around the country.
I'm able to resolve cases before they become a full-blown
litigated dispute. That's the way it should happen, and ideally
I shouldn't even be involved with it. But unfortunately there
are far too many school districts around the country who,
because of whatever reason, fear of precedent, fear of
finances, desire for control, whatever it is, it doesn't
matter, they stonewall the parents. They tell the parents they
can't provide it, they can't find the people to provide it,
they don't have the money for it, or sometimes they even tell
the parents, we are going to provide it, and then 6 months go
by and nothing happens, and meanwhile the child who has this
incredibly limited window of opportunity is dying on the vine.
I must speak briefly about one intervention in particular,
which is included in my submission. That is the Applied
Behavior Analysis intervention. The reason why this is so
important for these children is that it is the only
scientifically supported intervention which is proven to
remediate much of the symptomatology of autism and to get rid
of the behaviors and the interfering behaviors that prevent
these children from fully mainstreaming. There is a very
seminal study from 1987; Dr. Ivar Lovaas. There was a 1993
followup study. Both of these studies show with very intensive
intervention of ABA, given over a 2 to 3-year period,
approximately 47 percent of these children in these control and
experimental groups were able to mainstream and go into regular
education with their typically developed peers and be
considered, ``indistinguishable.''
Whether they're indistinguishable or not for me is not the
important thing. The fact is they're succeeding in the classic,
least restrictive environment setting, and I don't care that it
is not 100 percent, because like any intervention or medical
intervention, some people are allergic to penicillin. Does that
mean we shouldn't give penicillin to children with ear
infections? No. It's the first and only scientifically
supported intervention that's come out to remedy the impact of
autism. That's huge. We don't have any other interventions with
that kind of track record.
The Surgeon General of the United States in 1999 came out
with a report on mental health where he called Dr. Lovaas' 1987
study a, ``well-designed study;'' talks about 30 years of
behavioral intervention and research on that. So this is not
something that's experimental, it's not something that's new.
It's just something that's been proven, and yet school
districts will stonewall the parents and say, we are not going
to give it to you, or we want to choose a different
methodology, and our methodology is the same old special
education that we've been giving for the last 50 years. That's
not right. That goes against the whole grain of what the IDEA
statute was designed to implement.
I've got a number of important examples of how school
districts have victimized families in my written presentation.
Ms. Baird had mentioned the fact that she gives several hundred
presentations, or she's given hundreds of presentations. One of
the presentations that I have highlighted in my package is one
called ``How to avoid Parents' Demand for LOVAAS.'' That's not
what IDEA says. You don't go around spending taxpayer money
educating people on how to avoid parents' demands; or Ms.
Baird's own most recent one, How to Build a Legally Defensible
Autism Program.
And just in closing, I know that my time is already up. I
could stand here for quite a bit of time, and I apologize if I
have gone over at all, but my comments are contained in my
written submissions. Thank you very much.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Mayerson.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mayerson follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. East.
Mr. East. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Bill East, and I'm pleased to represent the
State directors of special education here today. I am executive
director of the National Association of State Directors of
Special Education, an organization based in Alexandria, VA,
with members in the 50 States and Federal jurisdiction.
My organization supports State education agencies in
providing leadership for the implementation of the Federal
special education law, the Individuals With Disabilities
Education Act. In celebrating the advances made possible by
this law, we recognize that special education is a complex
system with many challenges. The 1997 reauthorization
significantly raised the bar for students, parents and schools.
State directors of special education realize that the revised
Special Education Service System can only be implemented with
effective collaboration with general education, a strong focus
on student and system results, and less emphasis on special
education process and paperwork, sufficient numbers of properly
trained personnel and full funding.
Generally, most children with disabilities receive the
services they need. However, the 6 million children served by
this law could benefit from a system with higher expectations
and increased accountability. While the needs of students with
disabilities have always presented challenges for schools and
families, the increasing numbers of children diagnosed with
autism and learning disabilities have created more challenges.
Further, the increasing number of students served outside the
traditional school environments, such as charter schools,
juvenile justice centers and other alternative environments,
make it more difficult to ensure educational quality and
procedural compliance. Schools are working to include students
with disabilities in the general curriculum assessment and
accountability systems in the context of increasingly higher
standards.
State directors of special education welcome these
challenges, but know that the work force is not adequate to
meet current demands. Schools are working to provide free
appropriate public education to all students with disabilities.
However, the system on any given day will probably never be in
compliance if compliance means 100 percent student success rate
or 100 percent adherence to many regulations put in place to
implement the law. It is quite possible to have all the
procedural paperwork in order without good teaching and
learning going on.
The system has adequate procedures to deal with the
disputes between parents and schools with complaint, mediation,
due process and litigation options. We must not necessarily
equate disagreements between parents and schools with
noncompliance. Even within a compliant system, disagreements
about services will occur.
State directors believe that monitoring efforts must be
strengthened, but the focus needs to change from an emphasis on
the special education process to an emphasis on student results
and system accountability.
With each IDEA reauthorization, new amendments and
implementing regulations bump more legal costs into the system.
Sometimes due process hearings and litigations are necessary,
but other times the problems can be resolved in less
adversarial and costly ways. State directors of special
education believe that dispute resolution and mediation systems
should be promoted as more desirable avenues for resolving
complaints.
Federal funding for special education programs has always
been inadequate, and full funding is needed to ensure equal
opportunity. Funds appropriated for special education are
making it into the classroom, but more is needed. Federal funds
utilized by State education agencies also benefit local
schools. As increased funds are made available, State education
agencies must receive more because they are accountable for
implementing the IDEA.
Families and schools face many challenges in providing
services. While these differ from place to place, personnel
issues are on everyone's list. The quality and availability of
personnel is a critical matter demanding immediate attention.
Higher education personnel preparation programs must be
restructured to meet current needs. Schools must better
recognize and utilize the expertise parents have related to
their children's skills and abilities. And finally, the needs
of children from other cultures and languages must be met as
they often move into communities ill-prepared to receive them.
In my written testimony I have some 10 suggestions that are
ripe for support by the Federal Government, and I'll let you
read those, and we may get to them in the questions, and I just
want to emphasize three or four as I close: Continue efforts to
fully fund the IDEA; help States provide sufficient numbers of
properly trained personnel; hold States accountable for student
outcomes, while providing increased flexibility as an incentive
for results; and last, acknowledge the important leadership and
oversight roles State education agencies play in implementing
the IDEA, and support them with the resources to be successful.
Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. East.
[The prepared statement of Mr. East follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. Amundson, did I pronounce that correctly?
Mr. Amundson. That's close enough. Thank you. Thank you,
Chairman Burton. You have my written testimony. I would like to
apply adult learning theory and not read to you what you have
in your hands, and just give you some other comments that may
be relevant.
My name is Ed Amundson, and I serve as the chair of the
National Education Association's Caucus for Educators of
Exceptional Children. In that role for the past 5 years, I have
been involved in the reauthorization of IDEA as well as the
implementation with the Federal partners that were created
under the reauthorization of IDEA with ASPIRE, ILIAD and some
of the other groups.
I speak to you today not in that capacity. I speak to you
today as a classroom teacher who is teaching for more than 20
years. In fact, I can remember my career started when I was in
fourth grade doing a carnival for muscular dystrophy. By the
time I was in junior high school, I was working with aphasia
children and working in summer camp programs. So this was a
life decision that I do today.
I'd like to tell you that NEA has long supported the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It's a good law
that holds lots of promise. In fact, NEA played an integral
role in the reauthorization. At one point when the law looked
like it was going to fail, all the stakeholders, including
parents, State directors of special ed, administrators, were
brought into the building, and they came up with a compromise.
With all compromises not everybody got what they wanted, but
they got what they needed, and we all agreed it was a good law.
I look around this room today, and I see many of those
people, and I like to refer to it as the reunion of the class
of 1997 that worked so hard on the reauthorization, but IDEA
does hold a lot of promise. Unfortunately, lack of information,
inadequate funding, misplaced emphasis on paperwork rather than
teaching has created onerous burdens for educational personnel
and have jeopardized the education for all students.
I can remember before IDEA 97 was Public Law 94-142. When
that law was passed, we would come together in an IEP meeting,
and there was a sense of trust. There was a sense of
accomplishment as we sat with parents, teachers, administrators
and developed a program that would meet the needs of that
child. We all felt good about what we did. We'd hold hands and
sing Kumbaya and feel good that we had done something positive.
Unfortunately today that trust has been broken.
Many times parents come to an IEP meeting feeling that
they're going to ask for things that the schools will not give
them, and many times the schools are afraid the parents are
going to ask for things they cannot give, and the trust is
broken. We no longer have an atmosphere of cordiality. We have
an atmosphere of hostility and lack of trust.
I've talked with NEA members across the country who
routinely express their frustration with the unwanted
paperwork. It was not the intent of IDEA to create more
paperwork. In effect, educators have made a real commitment and
received additional training to teach special needs students;
however, they find themselves filling in the boxes and less
time filling in the kids. What we have now is we have more
focus on the IEP product and no longer focused on the IEP
process.
Much of the paperwork burden stems from the people, the
misunderstanding of what IDEA intended. Many times many State
and local administrators apply paperwork requirements that are
basically to assure they're in compliance, and that's the
problem. Under 94-142, we used to look to see if people were in
compliance. Today the focus is looking to see if people are out
of compliance. That does not lead to good practice. That does
not lead to good education.
We need the Federal Government to provide leadership under
IDEA 97, to let people know what they truly need and what they
do not need in their monitoring process. Too often the district
will have things in there that they do not need, and they're
not told that you don't need this extra paperwork, and when
they're told something is wrong, they don't change it. They add
more to it.
NEA also supports the appropriation of sufficient Federal
resources to hire professionally certified medical personnel to
provide safe quality medical services to our students. In the
school district I teach in, we have over 5,000 special ed
students. We have four full-time nurses assigned to those 5,000
students. One of those nurses is full time in the school for
children with severe disabilities. The other three cover the
other 5,000. That's not an appropriate service for our
children.
Parents have the right to expect the highest quality
services for their children and should not be forced to rely on
ill-prepared educators to perform procedures for which they are
not trained.
NEA also believes that students who engage in violent or
disruptive behavior should be subject to similar disciplinary
actions, including suspension and expulsion, as their
nondisabled peers, where the misconduct is unrelated to either
their disability or improper placement. Too often, however,
fear of litigation prevents schools from taking action even
when students pose a danger to themselves, other students or
school employees. The law allows people to do the job they can
if the law is applied and due process is followed.
Unfortunately many school districts are afraid of litigation
and do not follow the process.
NEA also supports the ramping up to the full 40 percent
over the next 6 years for IDEA funding. Let's be honest, IDEA
funding is a grant program. There was a promise by the Federal
Government that we've never come close to reaching. The current
law provides an excellent framework for ensuring the highest
quality education for all students with disability. With the
proper supports our special education system will meet the
needs of all students with disabilities.
I'd like to close to tell you that we have a parallel
system operating today. The law now that we have before us
allows for the different uses of the funds. We have permissive
use of funds that can allow for early intervention programs
that hopefully will avoid some of the problems we see today. I
remember the day when students could not touch my special ed
eraser if they were not special ed students. The law allows us
that flexibility. However, we have students in the system that
do not have that, were not available to them at that time, and
they present special needs to us. We need to find a way to not
only meet the needs of the students who are coming into the
system today, but to also meet the needs of the students that
are with us.
And finally, when I talk to teachers around the country, I
tell them that they're heroes. What they do every day, they're
heroes. And a teacher said to me, I'm not a hero, I'm just an
ordinary person; a hero is a fireman who runs into a burning
building. Well, I would submit to the members of this committee
that the teachers are heroes. They do run into burning
buildings every day. Unfortunately, like firefighters, they're
not adequately trained or prepared to deal with the problems
that they will have to face when they run into that burning
building.
And last, when I talked to a group of teachers one time
about a student with special needs that was about to be
included in their school, we went around the room and posted on
all four corners of the walls all the concerns these teachers
had about educating this child, and at the end I asked them,
now that we know what your concerns are, what are your fears,
and the teacher looked at me and said, I am a good teacher, and
if I do not know how to meet the needs of this child, I will
fail, and as an educator I cannot do that.
I ask that we look for providing the adequate training and
resources to support the people who do the job every day, and
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Amundson.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Amundson follows:]
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Mr. Burton. First of all, I'd like to ask all of you if you
could--I'd like to ask all of you the same things that I have
asked the other panel, and that is, suggestions that you might
have that could improve the IDEA program. I think it's
important that we realize that there are some shortcomings, and
we're not pointing fingers at any individuals or any group of
individuals, and if we can figure out a way to make it better,
make it more effective without creating more bureaucracy and
more paperwork, then I think that would be a giant step in the
right direction.
So while you're thinking about them, let me just ask a
couple of questions.
Ms. Baird, as Mr. Mayerson was saying, I'm looking at this
program agenda, I guess, for one of your presentations. It
says, special education for early childhood autistic students,
how to avoid parent demands for LOVAAS/TEACCH methodologies.
You know, I mean, maybe that's a legitimate topic, but it seems
to me that maybe could have been worded a little bit
differently, because parents are concerned about the well-being
and the education of their children, and having been involved
personally in one of these meetings and experienced it, I think
that you know parents don't want to demand any more than they
think is necessary for their kids. They want them to be
educated. They want them to be able to be educated. They don't
want them to be a burden on society.
I mean, my grandson, I'm going to give you an example, he's
going to be 6 foot 10. You know, I'd like for him to be in the
NBA so he can support me, you know, and I'm kidding, of course,
but the point is the doctor said he's going to be very big.
Now, he's autistic. He ran around the house flapping his arms
and--but he's doing much better now. His doctor, who is an
expert in this field, said that he needs at least 2 hours a
week of speech therapy, and so he can progress properly. The
school, as you heard previously, had a meeting before we even
got there and had decided that 1 hour was sufficient without
even talking to my daughter or myself.
And those sorts of things really bother parents because
they have an expert in the field, a doctor who studied, who got
his degree in that area, and who has worked with thousands of
children, and a young lady who is 23 or 24 years old in the
school system there, probably a very good speech therapist and
good teacher, made a determination that half of that was
sufficient. And so when I see something like this and a parent
hears about that or hears you making a statement at a meeting
that, you know, parents want a Cadillac, but you guys only have
to give them a Chevrolet, explain that to me.
Ms. Baird. I'd be happy to explain that, and I appreciate
you giving me the opportunity to explain that. I suppose that
the statements you're referring to, although I don't recall it
directly, is from the program that I recently did. The title of
the program was Building a Blueprint for a Defensible Autism
Program. The intent of that----
Mr. Burton. A defensible autism program?
Ms. Baird. Yes. And never in my career have I had such a
response from a title of a program. Let me explain and clarify.
Mr. Burton. Sure.
Ms. Baird. A defensible autism program is one that is
appropriate for the individual child based on that child's
unique needs. The whole intent of that program--and, frankly, I
was a little personally affronted by it, because myself and
Melissa Genaux, who was my colleague, who did the programs,
developed those programs and went on the road to do that for
one reason and one reason only, and that was to take
information to school districts about what they were going to
have to do to develop appropriate programming for children with
autism. In no way was it in an effort to get around appropriate
programming or to somehow avoid it.
And I would love to explain the Chevy versus Cadillac
analogy. That is not mine.
Mr. Burton. Before we get to that, if you could explain how
to avoid parent demands? I mean, gee whiz, you have a parent
who's not a Congressman, who doesn't have all the ability to
raise hell about these things, they don't know the legal
process, and they see that you're talking to people in a school
corporation and you're saying how to avoid parent demands, and
they've got a child that's autistic, how are they supposed to
interpret that?
Ms. Baird. Well, again, Congressman, all I can tell you is
that the intent of the program was to educate schools about
providing appropriate programs. I'm not an expert on autism.
Neither do I claim to be. I'm an attorney who's had some
experience in this field. I have had a lot of experience with
parents making demands for particular methodologies, including
LOVAAS/TEACCH, the Orton Gillingham method for children with
learning disabilities, different methodologies.
So the intent of the program was not to say to a parent,
you can't have what you want. The intent of the program was to
educate school districts. And I might add that in every single
session if you want to get down to the bottom line of the
session, my message to school districts was, and here I will
agree with Mr. Mayerson, that the LOVAAS methodology, which is
conditioned upon the principles of applied behavior analysis
and discrete trial training, has been scientifically proven to
be a positive methodology for children with autism and other
children with severe disabilities, and as a matter of fact, I
have heavily advocated to my clients and to those people who
have come to the seminars that they must include applied
behavior analysis and discrete trial training in any effective
and appropriate program they develop for children with autism,
and I have been very consistent about that.
Mr. Burton. I will have some more questions, but I will now
yield to Mr. Allen for questions.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. I believe you have been here longer. Would you
like to go first?
Mrs. Maloney. Absolutely. And I was listening, I had some
constituents who came to visit me, and I was out in the hall.
Mr. Burton. And I know that you're very resigned to always
being last and everything, but I don't want you to get upset
today. So go ahead.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, but I really would
like to followup on your level of questioning and the theme
that you have presented.
I'd like to ask Mr. Mayerson, are there sufficient remedies
at present to ensure that school districts will comply with
IDEA, and if not, do you have any recommendations for the
committee?
Mr. Mayerson. Well, I think as we've said today that really
is the million-dollar question. I don't think I'll have to call
my lifeline to answer that one. First of all, I think--the
parents have to have faith in the integrity of the system. We
start with that. That means in order to have an impartial
hearing, it really has to not only be impartial in fact, it has
to look impartial.
For example, in the State of Utah, where there's a Federal
lawsuit pending right now to challenge the way that they select
their hearing officers, the fact of the matter is not a child
has ever won in the State, has ever been the substantially
prevailing party ever in the State of Utah, ever. No child has
ever won. Now, that may actually have an impact on the kind of
statistical data that Ms. Baird is collecting recently and have
something to do with the fact that virtually all of the hearing
officers that are on the list--to get on the list, virtually
all of them are connected. They're either the special
administration director of the neighboring school district, or
they're the attorney for the neighboring school district, and a
parent doesn't have a chance. So that's one thing, create an
integrity in the system.
Two, there's a section that you have in this Code of
Federal Regulations, 34 CFR, section 300.403, and what this
section does, it says that if the hearing officer finds that
the parents engaged in some kind of inequitable conduct or
unreasonable conduct, that a child that otherwise would have
prevailed at the hearing, the hearing officer has the
discretion to knock down the award or even to eliminate the
award.
You know what? That's fair, but what's fair is fair, too,
and I say if you're going to have a section like that that
basically puts the onus on parents, that if they're not
unreasonable, that they could lose their child's award, that
you must also have the same kind of accountability for school
districts; and that if, in fact, you have the kind of examples
of patent bad faith that I've appended to my submission, that
if the parent can prove that and has to go through, as I've
recently gone in Ms. Baird's home State of Tennessee, a 30-day
hearing for a family that is teetering on the verge of
bankruptcy, that if a family like that can prove bad faith,
like almost a punitive damage kind of remedy, that I don't want
to encourage litigation, but if it reaches a certain level of
patent bad faith, and the hearing officer so finds, that's the
kind of accountability that I believe that school districts
will be very careful about, because right now if you're the
school district, it's not like the parent that has to go and
open a checkbook. Everybody can point the finger at everyone
else. It's no one's checkbook because it's the district's
checkbook. And if the district has to just give, at the end of
the line of the litigation, after 30 days of hearing, precisely
what they should have given without litigation, maybe some
attorneys' fees, you know what, it's no big deal because many
districts are afraid of precedent. They're saying, you know--
and it's in my submission--they say, we are afraid not of this
child, but of the maybe six or seven other children we may have
to pay for. So we would rather delay this child in a 30-day
hearing and maybe we'll buy 2 years than to give all six of
those children an intervention.
And I just want to point out one other thing about the cost
aspect in answering because this is a huge point. This is the
point, the cost. There is a cost-benefit analysis that's
appended to my papers, was published in a peer review journal,
that shows that you might for these children with autism spend
several hundreds of thousands dollars on an up-front basis to
get them the right intervention, but if you don't do the
lifetime costs of it are totaling several million dollars per
child. That's something I think Congress can easily understand.
Even if you look at this from the perspective of the
administrator, who may be looking at just this year's budget,
let's just fix this year's budget, you have to have a long
view, and if you take a long view, it is more cost-efficient to
provide the intervention up front even if it does take several
hundred dollars. It's not cheap. We give children that need
lifesaving operations $300,000 surgeries, and we should, but we
shouldn't shirk from giving those children the same type of
interventions if it is required to get them into--to have some
kind of functioning so they can join society and have jobs and
be in regular education.
Thank you.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, my time is up, but did you mention that
Ms. Baird had visuals and brochures of how the school districts
did not have to live up to their responsibility?
Mr. Mayerson. Well, yes, there are----
Mrs. Maloney. Could you give them for the record?
Mr. Mayerson. They are in the record, and I put them in the
record. One of them in particular is how to build a legally
defensible autism program. Another one of the brochures is also
in there. Apparently there's hundreds of them, and they are not
for parents. I take issue--although some parents have been
managed----
Mrs. Maloney. They're not for parents? They're for the
school district? Who are they for?
Mr. Mayerson. No. The first brochure that I put in is
called a private briefing for administrators, school districts
and so forth. Maybe a parent might accidentally be able to get
in and see what goes on, and that's, in fact, how I got the
first brochure.
Mrs. Maloney. Do you mean to tell me that they're handing
out brochures on how school districts will not respond to
parents or live up to the law; is that what you're saying? Is
that what you're saying?
Mr. Mayerson. Congresswoman Maloney, not only am I saying
it, I have one of the brochures, which is tab 6 of my
presentation. It's entitled ``A Private Briefing Designed for
School Board Members, Central Office Administrators, Special
Education Directors, Building Administrators and Regular
Educators Focusing on Special Education Issues.'' It was
presented by a law firm in Missouri called Peper, Martin,
Jensen, Maichel and Hetlage, as well as the Missouri
Association of School Administrators and the Missouri U.S.
Insurance Council, which insures the districts when they get
hit with due process complaints. And page 2 is entitled----
Mrs. Maloney. Is that legal to hand out that kind of
information on how to shirk the law basically?
Mr. Mayerson. In fact, I wrote to everybody involved and
expressed my outrage that taxpayer money, which obviously the
school districts that attend this have to pay with taxpayer
money to attend these seminars, and expressed my outrage that
this--such money was going for such purposes, and all that has
succeeded in doing is sanitizing these kind of presentations so
now we have this thing called ``How to Build Legally Defensible
Autism Programs.'' I think it's the same presentation, just
under a different name.
Mrs. Maloney. That's unconscionable.
My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for focusing
sunshine on this issue. I think it's a very important one.
Mr. Burton. I hope that you and possibly Mr. Allen and
others on both sides of the aisle will work with us to create
maybe some corrections to the IDEA law so that we can make sure
that some of these problems are eliminated.
Mr. Allen.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding these hearings. I certainly appreciate the chance to
focus on this particular area, I guess I should say.
Let me just say a few words. I come from the State of
Maine. I represent the district around Portland, ME, and over
the last month I've had about four different meetings, actually
about six, with parents and educators and teachers. In four of
those meetings in specific school districts, we were running
through a list of different problems that they were having, and
in Maine you should know we have about 230 school districts. We
are sparsely populated, we're spread out, and our school
districts tend to combine several different municipalities at
once.
The No. 1 problem mentioned over and over again was the
level of special ed funding from the Federal Government. The
other two were how are we ever going to recruit new teachers,
and how are we going to build new schools, but those were the
three. Special ed was the top.
In Maine I think we've got a special ed program that in
broad measures works and works fairly well; 16 percent of all
Maine children are in some form of special ed. We're doing a
good job, I think, of identifying the kids who need it and
making sure they get the services they need, but we do have
resistance from school boards because despite the success of
the program overall, there is a huge problem.
Special ed spending at the local level is eating up a large
part of the available increases in funding overall. So there
are three groups that are impacted, special ed kids, kids with
disabilities, and the property taxpayers who are now picking up
an undue share of the expense. It seems to me that because the
Federal Government issued a mandate for special ed and then
didn't fund it at the goal of 40 percent, we're putting a
tremendous financial burden on our municipalities and school
boards, and it seems to me--oh, one other thing just by way of
background, Maine does an educational assessment for 4th-
graders, for 8th-graders and 11th-graders, and it takes about a
week. It covers a whole variety of subjects. One superintendent
told me the other day that the fourth grade--in his fourth
grade reading test, 14 percent of the kids failed. Of those,
despite the special help, 60 percent were special ed.
So one of my questions is to you, Mr. Amundson. I am
concerned if we start to do relatively high-stakes testing, it
seems to me we're going to come back to a problem of whether or
not our special ed programs are working well enough so that
kids who are getting these services being brought up to a par
with regular students. That may not be possible, but it seems
to me that the testing issue is very much connected to the
funding issue.
Before I let you speak, I want to say one more thing. I
believe we need to do full funding now, no phase-in, no
nothing, just go straight to full funding now. It is $11
billion more than current levels for the next year, and this is
probably the only time in the next 10 years that we can do it,
and we can only do it if the tax cut, the proposed tax cut, is
reduced by the $150 billion or $200 billion it would take to
fully fund special ed over 10 years. That, I think, would
transform the effect of this program on our local school
districts, and I know you have been calling for it, and other
people have called for it. This is the only chance I think
we'll have to do it, and it seems to me it ought to be done,
but I would like Mr. Amundson or anyone else to turn back for
this question of how a testing--a tougher testing regime will
affect the overall special ed program.
Mr. Amundson. Well, Congressman, several months ago I posed
this question to my special ed class, government class,
seniors. In California they're instituting an exit exam for all
high school seniors in order to receive their diploma, as well
as we have the API, the Academic Performance Index, which is
based on standardized testing at all grade levels, and schools'
performances are judged on these standardized tests.
As an organization, as a teacher, I believe in assessing my
students. I believe that's important to find out the progress
they're making, but I also believe the testing needs to be
curriculum-based and based on the instructional strategies that
I'm utilizing in my classroom and measuring what the students
are learning. Too often the standardized test measures what the
students do not know and doesn't really measure what they do
know. I've heard students say that sometimes they just color in
patterns on the test because it has nothing to do with the
curriculum they have in the classroom, and we are using that as
a measure of whether students or schools are succeeding. I saw
a cartoon in the ``USA Today'' about today's curriculum the
teacher's written on the board. We have art, poetry, recess,
and then standardized testing, and that was today.
I think the testing does have a role, but what I'm seeing
now is many teachers are afraid to have special needs students
in the classroom because if they're going to be assessed on the
success of those students, and the appropriate accommodations
and modifications necessary are not allowed for those children,
then the scores in the classroom could well come down, though
research does show in many cases scores actually go up when
students with special needs are included, because not all
students are learning-disabled or have academic difficulty. But
what does happen is teachers are fearful that they will be
measured on things that they cannot control when they were the
ones who said, I want this child in my classroom, I want to
educate this child, but now that I can't control an environment
of the accommodations and modifications, I may be judged on
that, and I may lose out on moneys or funds that will be given
to the school, and I'm the one who volunteered to take this
child.
So it does have an impact, and I think the exit exam in
itself, we're going to be creating two separate educational
systems, one for children who are on a diploma track and one
for children who are not, and I think that's the concern,
because if you look at what the standards are based on, 100
percent of the curriculum in high schools is geared toward the
Carnegie units and how students apply to universities; 30
percent of the graduate population goes on to complete a 4-year
degree; 70 percent of our population is left out of the goal of
the high school curriculum, and it's not just special needs
students. There are general ed students that are going to be
involved, too. So I think we have a bigger question, not just
on the special ed issue, but it does severely impact in what
people are trying to do.
Mr. Allen. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. If you'd like to ask more questions, I will get
right back to you. Let me just followup on that, and this
really, I guess, doesn't follow the topic of the hearing, but
it seems to me that there ought to be some way to come up with
some kind of a testing program that will be able to test
whether or not the children across the country--some kind of a
standardized test program that would take into consideration
the special needs children and the other kids that are in the
classroom, and I hope that the NEA will maybe work with those
of us in Congress who believe that we've got to have some kind
of a measuring device to decide whether or not kids are coming
out with the kind of quality of education we want.
I don't know that you need to make a big, long comment on
that, but, you know, the President has said I think in his
State of the Union Message and others that he wants testing to
make sure kids at certain grade levels are achieving. And I
understand the concern of teachers who have special needs kids,
and there are others who may not be able to move up as rapidly,
and the average would bring them down and make them look like
they're not good teachers, but there ought to be some system
devised with the help of the NEA and other teachers' unions to
take that into consideration.
Mr. Amundson. Well, briefly, Congressman, you should take a
great deal of pride that the State of Indiana has a very unique
testing system that does not just base itself on standardized
testing, but also has a special three-prong program. Students
can go through and take the standard tests to receive their
diploma. There's a second pathway that students who are
enrolled in a special instructional program, when it seems that
they have difficulty, to be able to do better on the test, and
they receive extra tutoring. And there's a third program that
requires 95 percent attendance as well as a portfolio of
assessment of the student given to them by the teachers of them
to say they may not do well on tests, but they demonstrate
knowledge. And I think Indiana is a model that we're looking at
that other States should be incorporating.
Mr. Burton. Well, that might be one of the things that you
could recommend that we'll take a look at, and I will talk to
my colleagues in the Indiana Education Association, ISTA, and
talk to them about that.
I don't want to get into a big, long debate about these
issues. I know Ms. Baird has one position, maybe Ms. Guard has
another, Mr. Mayerson has another, and Mr. East another. What I
really would like to have is suggestions from you that we can
all take a look at to make it--to make the IDEA program better,
to make it more workable, to make sure that special needs
children do get the best education possible. And so if you
could just real briefly give me a couple of suggestions, or
maybe if you're not prepared to do that right now, get them
back to us. I really would appreciate it so that we can take a
hard look at the current law and see if we can't make it
better.
Parents like my daughter, parents like the ladies and
gentlemen who testified here today who have autistic children
or special needs children, they're so frustrated, they don't
know what to do. Some of them have almost gone bankrupt trying
to take care of their families, make sure their children get a
quality education. So something needs to be done to make sure
they have confidence in the system, No. 1; and No. 2, that the
kids do not become a burden on society when they become 6 foot
10 and they're adults. I mean, my grandson is going to be a big
guy walking around like Shaquille O'Neal, and I want him to be
able to at least get a job. I don't want him to be sitting out
under a tree someplace not able to deal with society. And I
know parents all across the country feel like that.
So give me some ideas that we can incorporate into our
thinking, and I will start with you, Ms. Guard. Do you have any
that you would like--or would you like to get back to us?
Ms. Guard. Yes. I can certainly tell you some of the
challenges that districts are facing as they implement the
current law. I'm not in a position to talk about changes that
we would recommend for them.
Mr. Burton. All right. Well, would you do me a big favor,
and if you could get back to Beth, that's my chief expert on
these issues, if you could get back to her with some
suggestions we'd appreciate it.
Ms. Baird.
Ms. Baird. Yes, thank you. I would like to reiterate a
theme we've heard all day long, and that's increasing funding
for special education programs and services.
Mr. Burton. We're going to work on that.
Ms. Baird. The other comments that I would make come to you
from the many, many comments I hear from schoolteachers and
administrators as I go out and talk with them. I know that
there is pending legislation to retool or refine the discipline
requirements in the IDEA. I can tell you from the local school
base there's a lot of interest in doing that. I would hope that
part of the increased funding could go for behavior management
techniques and training for schoolteachers who are dealing with
students with emotional problems and behavior problems and for
alternative school programs.
Reduction in paperwork is a major priority that the people
that I talked to are interested in. The paperwork burden has
increased, not decreased, after the reauthorization. And one of
the final----
Mr. Burton. Let me just interrupt on that point. We need
some guidance on how you reduce the paperwork. Just to make a
general statement, reduce the paperwork, I mean, there must be
forms and documents that have to be prepared about a special
needs child. What I'd like to have more specific is how do we
reduce the paperwork, how do we consolidate the amount of
questions that are asked so that we can get through that
quicker.
Ms. Baird. Well, it goes back to the requirements of the
law, and I was about to say that in 1997 there were sweeping
changes made in this law in order for school districts to
document and prove that they are in compliance. And I agree
with the comments Mr. Amundson made. Pardon me for
mispronouncing your name. We have gone far beyond the original
intent of what an IEP is supposed to be, and in order for a
school to have a defensible appropriate program, it's an
incredible amount of paperwork in terms of IEPs, goals,
objectives, short-term objectives, manifestation
determinations, and I'd be happy to provide a list of some of
those things later.
There's also another area, the last one I'll mention. I get
a lot of input and interest from clients and school personnel
on the category of emotional disturbance. There's a tremendous
increase in the number of students with behavior problems in
public schools and a tremendous amount of longing among school
personnel for techniques in how to deal with those students.
The law has always and still does exclude students with social
maladjustment, but we have never had a definition of what that
means, and those would be the comments I would make.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Mayerson.
Mr. Mayerson. I know you're looking into the causes of
autism, and we really have no control over that.
Mr. Burton. No. We have people who testified today that the
children were autistic from birth. We have others who had
autism, they believe, coming right after certain kinds of
vaccinations.
Mr. Mayerson. I think in that case I would defer to
science, and I know that right now if you look at science,
there is no testing for autism which is scientifically reliable
before the age of about 15 months, so that I think--and I also
agree with you, Mr. Chairman, when you say that you have to
look to parents, because if they're doing it 24/7 with the
child, they know things that other people just don't know.
So anyhow, I would be saying that I would like to, with
permission of the committee, I would propose to draft some
proposed sections to modify the current statute in such a way
that would, I believe, simplify; to provide a disincentive to
school districts as well as to parents to engage in inequitable
or bad faith conduct which nobody wants from either side; as
well as the whole issue of oversight on the funding, where the
money goes and how to make sure that it really gets to the
children as opposed to just building up layers of
administration and bureaucracy that nobody wants.
Mr. Burton. We'll welcome your suggestions, and if you want
to put those in writing, that would be very well received.
Mr. Mayerson. I will do so.
Mr. Burton. Mr. East.
Mr. East. Mr. Chairman, we will put our thoughts in writing
as well.
I will just mention a couple of things. Once you get beyond
the full funding issue, there are two things that really come
to my mind that I hear from our members, and that is, there's
just a critical shortage of properly trained personnel across
this country that work with people with disabilities. That is
not only special education teachers, but the general education
teachers who are now dealing with special education students in
their classrooms. They don't know what to do.
Mr. Burton. Let me interrupt. We--I said in my opening
statement, I don't know if you heard it or not, that we might
come up with a program which would--in exchange for teachers
being--getting their educational benefits provided for them,
that would spend 4 or 5 years in special ed training and
teaching of children in urban or rural areas, that they would
get their expenses for education paid in exchange for the
commitment to teach in that environment for at least 5 years.
We do that for medical students. What do you think about that
idea?
Mr. East. I think that's an excellent idea. What I'm
concerned about, though--and that would help us in the future.
What I'm concerned about is all the thousands of teachers that
are already out there, and they have children in their
classrooms right now, and they need training and support of
general and special education teachers, because IDEA 97 did
change the way that we do business because we're exposing
children with disabilities, more and more of them, to the
general curriculum. That's good, but the teachers that are
teaching that general curriculum don't know how to work with
these children.
Another thing is I think we need to continue to work toward
a strong focus on student results and system accountability.
State directors of special education promote this and support
it. We have accountability now, higher standards, greater
expectations for promotion and graduation. We want those for
special education students as well, but we've got to focus on
it. Special education for so long has been focused on do you
have the paperwork in place, is everything in the folder in the
right order. Now we need to focus on is the child learning,
what are their scores on assessment, and what do they do in
adult life after they leave us. And so the focus on results
accountability is what we need to look at.
Mr. Burton. If you could, we've written that down, but if
you could send us any additional information you have, we'd
like to have that.
Mr. East. We'd be glad to.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Amundson.
Mr. Amundson. There'd be three things. No. 1, we do need
strong leadership from the Federal level. Too often the Feds
take too much blame and too much credit for things about
education, but we do need strong leadership as to what States
are expected to do.
I also think that we need a maintenance of effort to assure
that the increased funds that come in do not limit the
obligation of State and local districts to what they're
currently spending and to shift funds from one side to the
other.
I think the issue of training is very significant, both
pre-service and in-service training for our teachers, because
if they don't adequately prepare, they won't be able to do the
job.
I think your grant program is an excellent idea in some
ways and the other way, one of the problems of special ed is,
for many people it was the entryway into the education
profession, and then after 5 years they leave when it becomes
overly burdensome.
The problem is, because of the constraints and some of the
difficulties in special ed, they leave. We can have lawyers and
laws all we want, but once that bell rings and Betty Bob walks
in the door, the door closes, and Mrs. Miller does her job. She
teaches. If the system we have today doesn't change, Mrs.
Miller won't be there, no matter how much money we have or how
many laws we have. We need to make a program that allows
teachers to do the job they need to do, which is to teach and
work with parents.
I think those would be some of the key elements we need to
look at.
Mr. Burton. Do you think that the lack of discipline in
schools is one of the major reasons why we're seeing an exodus
of teachers?
Mr. Amundson. I think the lack of understanding of how to
implement the law in our schools is why we're seeing--in
discipline.
I heard in Tennessee an administrator told a teacher they
could not file a police report on a special ed student even
though the law is very clear they're allowed to do that, and
Tennessee law requires that to be done. So we have
misapplication of the law, and that's one of the problems with
discipline. The law allows us to deal with the discipline of
children if the procedural safeguards are followed. Too often
fear of litigation and publicity does not allow administrators
to properly implement what was put in IDEA 97 which does hold
students accountable for their behavior.
Mr. Burton. Maybe we need to clarify that a little bit more
if we're going to----
Ms. Guard. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. We did recently issue
guidance for administrators to follow, to let them know what
their requirements are and how to implement those requirements.
Mr. Burton. That was widely disseminated?
Ms. Guard. On our Web site.
Mr. Burton. I want to thank you all very much for your
suggestions and your patience and your hard work. And hopefully
you will have some suggestions that can help us make some
changes.
Thank you very much. We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:22 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statements of Hon. Thomas H. Allen and Hon.
Dennis J. Kucinich follow:]
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