The U.S. Senate has passed its version of the IDEA reauthorization bill and sent it on to a conference committee that will work out the differences between it and the version passed by the House of Representatives.
S. 1248, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2003, passed on a vote of 95-3 with three of the four NEA-supported amendments - reducing paperwork, providing better tracking of transient students and improving data collection - surviving the process. Also surviving the process were two amendments opposed by NEA - the Gregg funding amendment, which authorizes the government to spend even less on special education than it does now, and language capping attorneys' fees.
As predicted, the conference committee will be the place "where the rubber meets the road" on getting clarification of what it takes to become a highly qualified special education teacher. Neither the Senate version nor the House version of the bill addresses the issue in a way that's satisfactory to teachers. The House version merely says teachers have to comply with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as No Child Left Behind), which requires teachers to be certified as "highly qualified" in every core subject they teach. The way it stands, special education teachers at the middle school and high school levels will have to be dually credentialed, once in special education and again in core subject matters. "That's objectionable to us," says NEA Director Diana Garchow, who serves as chair of CTA's IDEA Task Force.
The Hagel-Harkin amendment, which would have fully funded IDEA over six years, failed on a vote of 56-41 despite intensive lobbying from state affiliates and the NEA lobby team, a grassroots phone effort, calls from state affiliate presidents, and thousands of e-mails to congressional offices.
Due to procedural budget rules, 60 votes were needed to pass this amendment. Voting yes were 45 of 48 Democrats, one Independent, and 10 Republicans.
The Gregg Amendment, which inserts authorization levels into the bill calling for a seven-year path to full funding, passed by a vote of 96-1. NEA did not support the amendment because it does not actually appropriate any money and would effectively cap the amount that appropriators could dole out each year. Under current law, appropriators could - if they had the will or the funds - fully fund IDEA.
The IDEA full funding coalition will be working to get the Gregg amendment stripped out in the conference committee.
On a bipartisan voice vote, the Senators agreed to allow up to 15 states to participate in a demonstration project to reduce paperwork. At teachers' suggestion, the language makes it clear that paperwork specifically designed to protect or preserve the civil rights of the child and the family cannot be waived. During the conference committee deliberations, NEA will continue to push for the right of every state to participate since paperwork is a problem in all states, not just 15.
NEA's stand is that excessive paperwork not only takes valuable instructional time away from students, but is a critical component of the retention crisis schools face in the field of special education.
The Senate passed the NEA-supported Murray/DeWine Amendment to ensure that students who move between school districts, are homeless, wards of the state, or are children of military personnel have their existing IEPs implemented (or reviewed, revised and implemented) at the new school in a timely manner.
The Senate also passed the NEA-supported Clinton amendment to include the U.S. Department of Education in the ongoing National Children's Study, which was mandated in the Children's Health Act of 2000 to study the impact of environmental factors on children's health and development.
"All the e-mails and faxes from members asking senators to pass this bill were successful," says Garchow. "They made a difference. Political experts said the IDEA reauthorization wouldn't be done until 2005-06."
