Now that IDEA 2004 legislation was signed into law on by President Bush on December 3, 2004, families of children with special needs are awaiting the impact, when it becomes law on July 1, 2005.  IDEA is the key piece of legislation that entitles children with special needs to receive an education in the public schools.  We recommend that parents and guardians of school-age children become familiar with the new guidelines.  For a analysis by the California Board of School administrators, click here.  Other excellent resources are wrightslaw.com, an organization that provides information to help parents advocate for their special needs children, copaa.net, a Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, and pacer.org, the Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights.

March 12, 2004 -  This is a call to action for parents, educators and other professionals who care about special needs children.   Originally enacted in 1975, IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) is the central piece of legislation that entitles special needs children to receive a quality education in the  public schools of the United States.  This legislation impacts fully 25% of families in the U.S. with children in the public schools, the percentage of families with a student receiving services under IDEA, through which IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) that provide services for special needs children are implemented.  

New pending legislation, Senate Bill 1248, to "reauthorize" IDEA actually takes away the civil liberties of children with special needs and their families, allows them to be arbitrarily removed from school prior to the opportunity to appeal if charged with violation of the vaguely defined "school code of conduct", and takes away the accountability of public schools to provide a quality education for special needs children.  This legislation snuck through Congress in the dead of night during the Congressional Spring Break of last year.  In spite of the protests of thousands of parents, educators, and other professionals, this legislation not only passed Congress, but it is virtually unmodified from its original version drafted by Congress while in committee in the Senate.  Now federal representatives are looking to sneak this legislation through the Senate and enact it as law during this year's Spring Break. 

According to the Massachusetts Association of Special Education Parent Advisory Councils (MASSPAC), "More than 6.6 million students with disabilities and their families stand to lose their right to a free, appropriate public education in this country. H.R. 1350, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on April 30, 2003, reauthorizes the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), with regressive provisions that actually hurts children. If a similar bill passes the Senate, millions of our students with disabilities will most certainly be left behind."

This bill "turns back the civil rights clock 30 years and brings us back to square one in terms of disability rights. It took that long for parents to finally have our students attend neighborhood schools with some semblance of education. Now all of that is at risk with the passage of this destructive bill, says Suzanne Peyton of Sharon, MA, whose children have a medical and learning disability."

"Mrs. Peyton is not alone in her concerns. Most of the student and parent advocacy agencies across the country and in Massachusetts agree with her. And the parent listserv that her organization, MASSPAC, provides to parents is "burning the internet" with anger, anxiety, frustration and fear"."

'Wendy Byrnes of DREDF (a national law and policy center dedicated to furthering the civil rights of people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities) has warned that “the 108th Congress could have their place in history secured as the permanent dismantlers of appropriate public education for millions of disabled children in the United States if H.R. 1350 is not amended by the Senate before becoming the reauthorized and very dangerous IDEA it appears to be in its current incarnation.”"

"Many groups representing educators and other school-based professionals opposed H.R. 1350 along with student/parent advocacy groups. The National Education Association, representing 2.7 million members, as well as the National Association of School Psychologists, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and at least 36 other organizations opposed passage of H.R. 1350. However, “the House ignored this widespread opposition to H.R. 1350 in favor of the very well funded and strong lobby of school administrators,” says Peyton."  Amongst its many damaging provisions, this bill provides a loophole allowing any adult to administer services that  currently may only carried out by educated professionals, threatening the livelihood of  speech pathologists, occupational therapists, social workers and psychologists.  

To read the bill click here. We urge you to contact your senators as soon as possible.  To obtain the email address of your senators, their email addresses, and an a example of a letter opposing IDEA that may be submitted, click  here.

A few of the many web sites providing their analysis of how the legislation will impact their members are as follows:

http://www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com/pages/1/index.htm - organization dedicated to preserving the original IDEA legislation 

http://www.padda.org - organization of people with attentional and developmental disabilities.  

www.wrightslaw.com - non-profit organization for advocacy of special needs children

http://www.masspac.org/news/press_release_5-21-03.htm

http://www.keepkidslearning.org

http://www.thearc.org/ga/ideaupdate.doc

http://www.bridges4kids.org/IDEA.html

http://www.dredf.org