Congress originally intended to contribute 40 percent of the average cost of educating children with disabilities beginning in 1982...Last year the Federal government provided only 7 percent of the cost. (Congressman Cass Ballenger, Charlotte, NC)

The problem is every day that a child goes without services, that school district saves money. (Edris Klucher, Albuquerque, NM)

Statement of Law

Funding is an essential part of IDEA. In 1975, when Congress found that it was necessary to assure the constitutional rights of students with disabilities and, to that end, to help the States educate all students with disabilities, it authorized several appropriations for special education. It is important to note that one reason Congress passed the original Education for All Handicapped Act was to assist States in meeting their obligations to provide equal protection under the law to students with disabilities. This obligation had been affirmed in several court decisions prior to the passage of the Act, and the Federal response represented an effort to provide financial and other assistance to State and local governments which would otherwise be totally liable for expenses associated with providing a free and appropriate public education to students with disabilities. As such, Federal funds were intended to supplement, not supplant, State and local funds to achieve this end.

Under IDEA, the appropriation that aids students' education most directly is in Subchapter I, the basic grant to States to fund State and local education agencies in providing special education and related services. In 1975, Congress authorized appropriations at the maximum level of 40% of the excess costs of special education by 1982. However, Congress has never appropriated that amount. As of fiscal year 1995, Congress has only appropriated a maximum of approximately 8 percent of the excess costs related to special education.

The appropriations allocated to States are based on the number of students identified as requiring special education in each State. A State receives Federal funds if the U.S. Department of Education approves the State's application for funding. The Department must approve the application if the State assures the Department that it will comply with Part B of IDEA. A State may retain a maximum of 25 percent of the Federal allocation and must pass the remainder of the Federal allocation to its local education agencies, based on the number of students receiving special education in those LEAs (20 U.S.C. Secs. 1411, 1412, 1413, and 1414).

Other appropriations that assist the States are contained in other Subchapters of IDEA:

• Subchapter III authorizes regional resource centers, aid for deaf-blind students, early education, programs for students with severe disabilities, postsecondary education and transition services, and programs for students with severe emotional disturbance.
  
  
• Subchapter IV funds personnel preparation.
  
  
• Subchapter V funds special education research.
  
  
• Subchapter VI funds instructional media.
  
  
• Subchapter VII funds technology and educational media and materials.
  
  
• Subchapter VIII creates and funds early intervention for infants and toddlers.

The Need for Adequate Funding

An ever-present concern of consumers throughout the hearings was the need for more adequate funding for IDEA:

I can't believe after...20 years that they would ever consider not reauthorizing [IDEA]. It would also be nice were it to be completely funded. I am speaking not as a funding expert, not as a lawyer, not as a teacher, but as a parent. Because even after four years of sitting on a citizen advisory committee, I still find the language, the funding formulas for special education described in this Act to be completely off-putting. (Lindsay Merryman, Berkeley, CA)

Witnesses expressed overwhelming sentiments of disapproval with the lack of guidelines in providing and allocating funds:

In many States, because special education dollars are tied to programs, not to students, there are no financial incentives to develop uniquely tailored programs that support students with special needs in the classrooms. These factors mitigate against the likelihood that the student will be educated in the least restrictive environment. (Amy Goldman, Philadelphia, PA)

They were also discouraged by the seeming lack of adherence to Federal mandates and the lack of effective remedies available to them:

We're fined for late payments, speeding, disturbing the peace and dogs running loose. Surely a child's education is important enough to warrant at least equal attention. (Judy Bonnell, Albuquerque, NM)

A receivership option, rather than the withdrawal of funds, should be considered for districts that refuse to comply with the LRE mandate. Fiscal incentives for segregated catastrophic placements and fiscal disincentives to placing students with challenging needs in regular school settings must be removed and replaced with a child-centered funding mechanism that enables maximum flexibility for supporting each child in natural classroom environments. (Linda Rambler, Boston, MA)

IDEA is often regarded as the maximum requirement by many school districts, when it was intended to be the minimum. (Bonnie Dunham & Lori Salvi, Boston, MA)

The general consensus was that students with disabilities--those for whom the program was created--are the ones who are suffering the most from the lack of adequate funding and enforcement. The government must make progress toward guaranteeing full funding of IDEA, issuing specific guidelines for the use of funds to support basic requirements of IDEA, such as placement in the least restrictive environment.

Funding has not gone up significantly since Public Law 94-142 was first passed. Now we have teachers' salaries that have increased, we have assistive technology to purchase, we have adaptive physical education equipment to purchase, and we have more need for PT, OT, and Speech. (Isabelle Mims, Charlotte, NC)

I often hear about money and the shortage of money, but I don't think money is the only answer. I really don't. I have seen people do wonders. When we went to school, for some reason, we didn't have all these wonderful resources available. I'm not saying we should go back to that, but neither should I suggest that we always hear that money is the only answer for serving children with disabilities, or money is the only obstacle that we have to overcome, because I think there are other issues involved. (Rafaelita Bachicha, Albuquerque, NM)

General Funding Advice from Witnesses

If the categorization and IQ testing could be ended and funding sent through the IEP so that various points on the IEP could be charge items, then the emphasis and our funding shifts from funding the disability to funding the education, which really makes more sense. (Corinne Quadland, Milwaukee, WI)

I would encourage this Council to examine ways to spread the money out from district to district more based on the specific needs of that district and the specific needs of the students. (Dave Calvert, Charlotte, NC)

Most witnesses agreed with the general sentiment that Federal funds should be increased to the 40 percent of excess cost as specified in the law. Other witnesses called for changes in the manner in which funds are allocated. Examples of suggested changes in this area would include allocating funds based on a presumed incidence model rather than on the current child count. Witnesses expressed concern that the current system encourages school districts to label children in order to receive increased funding. Under a presumed incidence model, funds would be allocated on the basis of the expected percentage of students with disabilities in the States. Adoption of a presumed incidence model might cut back on the significant degree of effort and paperwork that currently occurs under the child count requirement. More importantly, it would remove the current incentive to label children for the purposes of increasing funding. Such a model might be weighted to allow for various demographic variables (such as high rates of poverty) that are associated with higher levels of disability, as are other government funding programs.

Witnesses also suggested that other funding sources might be explored. For example, some related services provided under special education are reimbursable under Medicaid. Interagency funding agreements between State agencies can be developed to indicate clearly which agency is responsible for funding certain services. However, another concern of consumers was that funding be provided with a minimum of bureaucracy. While it is necessary for administrators to work out the intricacies of funding arrangements, consumers need to experience continuity and predictability. From the consumer perspective, funding should follow a student throughout his or her education. As customers, people do not expect to hear about the cost of every part in an automobile they are purchasing. As customers, parents of children receiving special education should not have to listen to an annual debate on how--or whether--their children's education will be funded.

Reducing Financial Barriers to Placements in Less Restrictive Settings ⁽¹⁴⁾

Many witnesses were concerned with the failure of school districts to implement the principle of the least restrictive environment effectively. These witnesses pointed out how reducing current financial barriers to less restrictive placements could result in better implementation of this requirement.

There must be financial incentives for schools that follow IDEA in first placing children into typical classrooms with appropriate aids and supports...Funding should be allocated to enable successful inclusion teams to teach others how to achieve inclusion. (Kathie Snow, Denver, CO)

There also appears to be inadequate funding for inclusion, or at least that is what the districts keep saying. We keep hearing statements, such as, "Yes, the Federal government mandates placement in the least restrictive environment, but no monies have been forthcoming from either the Federal or State governments to implement inclusive education." There are simply not enough inclusion programs available. There is tremendous inflexibility in the system. (Karen Robard, New York, NY)

The number of related services that these kids require should help to determine their funding level as opposed to this self-contained versus resource versus regular classroom placement. The way that it's set up--in this State anyway--it's sort of a deterrent to an inclusion model. Districts get more money to self-containing these kids and there's something not right about that system. (Margaret Mochak, Anchorage, AK)

Beyond the mere reduction of barriers, witnesses suggested that there should be financial incentives for schools that implement IDEA properly in placing children in typical classrooms. Beyond providing flexible, child-centered funding to support inclusionary placements, funds could also be allocated to train parents and professionals in the practical aspects of supporting students with disabilities in less restrictive placements. Such training could utilize the expertise of parents and professionals who had worked together to bring about successful inclusionary programs for students with disabilities. In this way, local knowledge concerning what works best for students in inclusive placements could be used to expand opportunities for increased inclusionary placements.

While many parents complained that they had been told that there was "no money" for inclusionary programs for their children, our research indicates that the real problem is not that there is "no money"; it is that available funds are tied to segregating programs and practices. In truth, the financial cost of segregation is enormous. While it is not the case that special education costs would go away if students were served in typical schools, the billions of dollars that are spent every year to maintain segregated schools and to provide segregated transportation services for students with disabilities could be used to significantly improve educational achievements in integrated schools. At a minimum, the Federal government should remove current regulatory provisions and practices under IDEA which essentially encourage and reward the segregation of students with disabilities. Proactively, the Federal government can take steps to reward compliance with the law and creative approaches to ensuring that students with disabilities have every opportunity to participate in the lives of their local schools and communities.

Recommendations: Funding

In order to address the many concerns and suggestions made by consumers during the hearings, the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. Allocate Federal funds that support the education of children with special needs to the States based on a weighted presumed incidence model, with allowance for factors such as high numbers of families living in poverty, difficulty of personnel recruitment in rural areas, etc.
   
   
2. Increase overall Federal funding for IDEA. Base increases in grants to individual States on the weighted presumed incidence model described above and on progress in achieving results such as the following:
   
   a. Higher graduation rates for students receiving special education;
   
   b. Steady increases in the numbers of students receiving special education in regular classrooms within typical neighborhood school buildings;
   
   c. Higher rates of inclusion of students receiving special education in typical student assessment protocols designed to measure overall school district or State performance;
   
   d. Higher rates of employment as adults for former students who received special education.
   
   All States might be granted a proportional share of the increase during the first three years of funding, with a "special education superfund" beginning in the fourth year to reward those States which have invested the initial funding increase in order to produce better results as described above.
   
   
3. Unlike the present situation in which many States essentially reward local education agencies for placing students with special needs in more restrictive settings, require States and local education agencies to adopt and implement "placement neutral" funding practices, wherein at least the same amount of funding is available to support a student receiving special education in a typical school environment as has historically been allocated to place that student in a segregated environment.
   
   
4. The Department of Education should consider combining many of its discrete funding authorities into a smaller number of functionally-based programs in order to streamline operations and make funding authorities less confusing to consumers.

Statement of Law

In 1994, Congress enacted P.L. 103-227, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. In that law, Congress recognized that the Governors, State and local education agencies, and concerned parents and other citizens, particularly leaders of the business community, have been engaged in a sustained effort to reform America's schools. This contemporary school reform movement was launched in 1983 by the publication of A Nation At Risk, a report on the state of education authorized by then-Secretary of Education Terrell Bell. The school reform movement also received powerful support from the National Governor's Association with its publication in 1986 of A Time for Results. The Goals 2000: Educate America Act represents the Federal government's response to the call for basic school reform.

Among other provisions, the Act helps States to develop standards for assessing all students (including students with disabilities), setting goals for local education agencies, and evaluating how well these agencies and students meet those goals (P.L. 103-227, Secs. 220(a)(2) and (c)(1)(c) and 241(d)). The Act and its accompanying Congressional Committee Report also make it clear that parents and family members of students with disabilities should be involved in setting the assessment standards and school goals. Moreover, the Act requires the National Academy of Sciences to study the ways in which special education consumers--such as parents, family members, and students--are involved in school reform activities (P.L. 103-227, Sec. 1015). Likewise, the Act and Committee Report acknowledge that school reform creates extraordinary opportunities for State and local education agencies to implement the principle of least restrictive environment and to include students with disabilities in regular education programs to a far greater degree than they have in the past. Finally, the Act recommends that Congress should fully fund IDEA (up to the authorized maximum of 40 percent of the excess cost of special education) by reallocating funds from the non-educational areas of the federal budget (P.L. 103-227, Sec. 1012). Clearly, then, Goals 2000 presents an unusual opportunity for special education consumers to influence the whole field of education.

Testimony Concerning Goals 2000

Although there were not many witnesses who testified about Goals 2000, those who did made several points. The first of these points is that Goals 2000 challenges various practices that have evolved during the implementation of IDEA, representing a new opportunity for students with disabilities to be provided with greater access to schooling as well as increased access to more settings within a school.

I'm concerned that at some point, innovative States might start bumping their heads against a ceiling of IDEA compliance and check-offs...and not be able to enact the kinds of reform that will move students with disabilities forward. There are still States and local districts that need the Federal mandate to ensure access right now. But we also need to be forward-looking, at where States are headed five and ten years from now. And as trust grows between parents and schools, as proven practices in serving students are established, and as classrooms become more adaptive and open to serving a diverse set of students, we need to open new ways of doing business with States and local districts. (Congressman Cass Ballenger, Charlotte, NC)

The second point made by witnesses was that school reform and IDEA are concerned with the same issue, namely, the effective education of all students, including students with disabilities:

The National Council on Independent Living believes that special educators must be included in the plans to teach the basic skills detailed in the...Goals 2000 Act. (Paul Spooner, Boston, MA)

Goals 2000 has significant language about how children with disabilities are going to be included in the education reform. Goals 2000 has got to be related in some way to IDEA. And we have to develop a system [where] we don't look at compliance as only dotting the "i's" and crossing the "t's," but we look at compliance as having hard and fast beneficial educational outcomes for every student, whether that student is a college prep student or whether that student is a student with severe and profound mental retardation [learning] self-help skills. (Connie Hawkins, Charlotte, NC)

However, one witness did caution that fundamental features of IDEA, such as the requirement for IEPs, should be continued as school reform takes effect:

The individual education program designed specifically for each child with a disability by a team of parents and professionals must take precedence over any local or State educational guidelines which are developed to reform regular education. (Mary Ellis, Charlotte, NC, p. 134)

The third major point made by witnesses concerning the impact of Goals 2000 on IDEA was that school reform does indeed create possibilities for implementing the least restrictive environment requirement to a greater degree, potentially allowing special education students to enter regular education to a much greater extent than in the past. Lee Schulz, Executive Director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Center for Independent Living in Milwaukee, made the point that special education has created a cadre of professionals whose purpose is to serve children with disabilities; but the downside of the creation of this cadre is that teacher preparation programs have separated regular and special education programs. This separation has effectively limited the nation's teachers in their abilities to educate students with disabilities.

Joyce Marshall of Knoxville, Tennessee, addressed the opportunities to increase the inclusion of students with special needs in regular education under Goals 2000 in these words:

There have been basic concerns about whether Goals 2000 would include children with disabilities and how this would work. The United States Department of Education's sponsored research should show how this should work...For over a decade the Department of Education and various State and local education authorities have provided millions of dollars and countless human hours in supporting model demonstration projects in the area of inclusive education all across the country. (Joyce Marshall, Charlotte, NC)

If special education is to be properly integrated into school reform efforts, it must be redefined as a support to all students, families, and school district staff. At present, special education is viewed in many parts of this country as a place where students who are considered "different" can be "placed." It is thought that this place needs to be staffed only by "experts" who need to be grouped together in much the same manner as the staff of a hospital emergency room. This model of special education has contributed to the continued segregation of students with disabilities, countless violations of both the letter and intent of the least restrictive environment provisions of IDEA, and the withholding of the many potential contributions special educators could make on a daily basis in schools across America if they were seen as experts in individualizing instruction for all students requiring assistance, not only those who are labeled.

As an alternative, special education could be redefined as a support system located in every school in America for all students. Under this model, all educators might be able to work together to, in fact, support all children and youth. This model would not be directed at "special education" per se, but would rather be directed at the needs of all students, whatever their support needs. This model would address the needs of bilingual or bicultural students, gifted students, and others, as well as the needs of educators and families. It could well result in America having the best community school-based student support systems in the world, by ensuring that maximum achievement is attained by all students regardless of gender, race, disability status, cultural or linguistic background, or other individual characteristics.

Recommendations: Special Education and the Goals 2000: Educate America Act

In order to ensure that students receiving special education are fully and effectively included in Goals 2000 and other education reform efforts, the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. Reinforce and expand the participation of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in policy decisions regarding the implementation of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act.
   
   
2. Allow a limited number of States to experiment with the creative use of Federal funds from several different sources to support the active incorporation of special education into Goals 2000 implementation activities, particularly as they relate to including special education as a resource for all students, families, and school district personnel. The results of these State-level experiments should be studied, promising practices should be identified, and other States should then be given the opportunity to replicate successful practices.
   
   
3. Under the implementation of Goals 2000, special education should evolve from its current role as a place where a limited number of labeled students are sent to a support service for all learners in schools all across America.

Over the past twenty years, our nation's special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), has allowed literally millions of students with disabilities and their families access to a free and appropriate public education. As a result of IDEA, the lives of many students with disabilities and their families have been markedly changed and improved. It is remarkable that this statute, with language crafted more than twenty years ago, has withstood the test of time and societal change in such a powerful fashion. The overall recommendation of the National Council on Disability (NCD) is that no major changes need to be made to the statute itself at this time.

However, it is quite clear that many changes need to take place at the implementation level. NCD recommends that the Federal government develop a much more efficient and effective approach to monitoring the implementation of IDEA, identifying exemplary practices where they exist, citing noncompliance where it exists, delivering technical assistance aimed at improving compliance, and providing effective sanctions for noncompliance. The Federal government can also encourage State and local education agencies to adopt less bureaucratic and mechanistic methods of complying with IDEA's requirements through vehicles such as adopting a noncategorical approach to eligibility; allocating funds based on a weighted presumed incidence model; replacing the requirement that State and local school districts provide a continuum of placements with the requirement that they provide an array of services tailored to the individual needs of students in the least restrictive environment; removing current fiscal barriers to integrating students with disabilities into typical schools; creating a climate for strengthened partnerships among the Parent Training and Information programs, State education agencies, and local education agencies; urging the adoption of voluntary and impartial mediation processes in areas of conflict between parents and schools; and assuming an overall approach to special education finance that rewards compliance and the achievement of positive incremental change. These are but a few examples of the many recommendations to improve the implementation of IDEA NCD records in this report.

The following is a summary of all of the recommendations NCD has made in this report. These recommendations were developed after consideration of the testimony of nearly 400 witnesses, a review of the results of commissioned reports from 27 nationally preeminent special education researchers and teacher trainers, and examining the results of several studies conducted by the NCD ⁽¹⁵⁾ and others ⁽¹⁶⁾ regarding the quality of special education on a national basis. They are categorized by major themes contained in IDEA and Goals 2000.

Zero Reject

The provision of IDEA commonly known as "zero reject" requires that all students, regardless of the nature or severity of their disabilities, receive a free and appropriate public education. Recommendations directed to the Federal government regarding this provision are as follows:

1. Require State and local government entities such as public schools to be accessible to people with disabilities.
   
   
2. Improve and expand the process of providing information to all parents regarding their rights to access needed special education and related services regardless of the nature or severity of their children's special needs.
   
   
3. Clarify and strengthen the requirement that, except in rare instances of imminent danger to self or others, students with disabilities cannot be excluded or removed from school unless an individualized determination is made that their behavior is not related to their disability.

Assessment for Eligibility and Nondiscriminatory Evaluation

IDEA requires that State and local education agencies fairly assess students for strengths and needs in a nondiscriminatory fashion, consistent with their native language and mode of communication, and then determine whether a student has a disability, the nature and extent of the disability, and the student's need for special education. Recommendations to the Federal government designed to improve performance and results in this area are as follows:

1. Change the orientation of special education assessment in general from its current quasi-medical model built upon categorical labeling to more individually responsive and relevant assessment measures. Special education can prevent the overidentification of students by discontinuing the use of evaluation practices that rely upon time-limited data gathered in unnatural settings, which often do not take into account a student's cultural or linguistic background. The identification of students for special education should at least be expanded to utilize functional assessments, diagnostic teaching strategies, evaluations which take place over time in natural environments, and observational and clinical impressions of students' strengths and needs.
   
   
2. Encourage State and local education agencies the flexibility to adopt a noncategorical approach to serving students with special needs. This would change the focus of evaluation and assessment efforts from discovering and fitting a student's learning needs into a predetermined list of categories to a focus on determining what types of assistance the student needs and how this assistance might best be delivered.
   
   
3. If a noncategorical approach to eligibility is not adopted, students with neurobiological disorders should be eligible to receive special education and related services under the "other health impaired" category, if the assessment team determines that the student has special learning needs.
   
   
4. Enforce the requirements that evaluations be done in a student's primary language and be consistent with the student's primary mode of communication (e.g., sign language), that testing take into account the nature of the student's disability (e.g., blindness), that interpreters and translation services are available, and that the student's cultural background is taken into account.
   
   
5. IDEA should require coordination between bilingual general education programs and special education programs so that students may avail themselves of the full array of services offered under both of these programs.
   
   
6. IDEA should strengthen its parental notification requirements to ensure that parents are given advance notice of their right to participate in their child's education process. This should be accompanied by establishing or strengthening outreach programs directed at minority communities.
   
   
7. IDEA should require nondiscrimination training for school assessment personnel to ensure that children from varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds are not subject to discrimination.
   
   
8. Fairness in evaluation and placement will be improved by continued support of diversity among special education professionals made possible through funding targeted at minority institutions for the purpose of recruiting and preparing minority college students to enter the special education field.
   
   
9. Parents should be given the authority to extend the current 45-day time limit for the completion of an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) under Part H in order to accommodate families living in rural areas and to ensure that families from diverse cultures fully understand the process and its intended results.
   
   
10. The criteria for allowing students with attention deficit disorders, learning disabilities, and neurobiological disorders to receive special education and related services should be based on the student's overall academic, behavioral, and social profile, rather than solely on documented academic failure.
    
    
11. Unless there are specific parental or student waiver statements on a student's IEP, it should be presumed that all students with disabilities should be included in the overall school assessment and testing program.

Appropriate Education

IDEA requires education agencies to follow certain processes in educating students in special education (including the development of an individualized education program) and to ensure that they benefit from their education. Recommendations for the Federal government to improve implementation of the many provisions of IDEA contained in this area are as follows:

1. Require State and local education agencies to offer information and training to parents regarding their participation in the special education process, particularly as this relates to active involvement in decisions regarding their child's education.
   
   
2. Over the past 20 years, the Individualized Education Program (IEP) has served many purposes. There is currently great variability in the processes used and results derived from the development of IEPs. The Department of Education should succinctly catalogue the overall purposes of IEPs and reaffirm the most basic purpose of the IEP, which is to ensure that students receiving special education are provided with a carefully tailored package of supports and services designed to maximize their educational achievements within the least restrictive environment.
   
   
3. Within the context of renewed emphasis on the basic purposes of IEPs, the Department of Education should monitor progress in improving the quality of IEPs. Such monitoring should go beyond the current infrequent and highly formal monitoring program and include new approaches such as stratified sampling of parent and student satisfaction and the solicitation of input from teachers and other professionals on how IEPs might be improved.
   
   
4. With the adoption of the recommendations above, the Department of Education should allow greater flexibility--based on informed decisions made by parents and students--on the degree of specificity required in those parts of the IEP that deal with day-to-day instruction and the delivery of related services. For example, some parents feel that there is no need for short-term objectives in their children's IEPs. Other parents would like to see a "shortened" IEP for students with relatively minor disabilities. Greater flexibility in this area would likely lead to greater levels of customer satisfaction and reduced paperwork.
   
   
5. The Department of Education should provide incentives and support for State education agencies to improve their monitoring of the performance of local education agencies, particularly in situations where State education agencies are attempting to provide sanctions for substantive noncompliance with the provisions of IDEA on the part of a local education agency.
   
   
6. The Department of Education should require State grantees under the Technology Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act to engage in more extensive outreach to school districts regarding the availability of assistive technology devices and services.
   
   
7. More funding should be available to provide necessary assistive technologies and support services that enable students with disabilities to attend school and to increase their independence.

Least Restrictive Environment

IDEA requires education agencies to educate all students with disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate with students who do not have disabilities. Removal from the regular classroom is only supposed to take place after it has been demonstrated that a student is not benefitting from this placement, even after supplementary aids and services have been provided. In order to improve performance and results in this area--one which has been consistently ignored at all levels of government--the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. The goals, purposes, rights, and protections afforded under the Americans with Disabilities Act should be incorporated throughout IDEA through preambular language stating this fact.
   
   
2. The requirement that State and local education agencies must provide a continuum of services should be replaced a requirement that State and local education agencies must provide an "array of support services designed to maximize the student's participation in regular education environments and activities." While it may be necessary to maintain many of the current features of the "continuum" as a transition to a "supports and services" orientation takes place, and it may be the case that a relatively small number of students might continue in substantially separate placements (e.g., deaf students), the requirement that a wide array of supports and services be available in regular school buildings will better address the intent of IDEA and other legislation in eventually reducing the number of more restrictive placements.
   
   
3. State and local education agencies should be required to develop funding policies and procedures that are at least "placement neutral". That is, funds should be allocated to meet the needs of individual students, not the needs of individual programs. At least the same amount of funding should be available to support a student in an integrated regular education environment as in a segregated program.
   
   
4. Removal of a student with a disability from the regular education environment should be documented with a written report attached to the student's IEP. The written report should include: a statement of the supplementary aids and services considered, but rejected, by the IEP team; a statement of the reasons why these supplementary aids and services are not capable of assisting the child within the regular education setting; and a statement as to when appropriate supplementary aids and services will be made available to transition the student back to the regular education environment.
   
   
5. The IEP for any child with a disability who is to remain in the regular education setting should list necessary aids and services with the same specificity as the listing of necessary related services, including the time and frequency of delivery of such aids and services.
   
   
6. The Department of Education should significantly expand its monitoring and enforcement activities related to implementing the least restrictive environment requirements of IDEA. Given the extreme variability of student placement patterns from district to district and State to State, specific plans and goals for reducing the number of students placed outside of regular education settings should be developed, with receipt of future Federal funding contingent upon meeting these goals.

Parent Participation and Shared Decision Making

IDEA contains many provisions that enable education agencies, parents, and students to share decision-making responsibilities and to collaborate in special education. To improve performance and results in this area, the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. Expand funding for the Parent Training and Information (PTI) program. PTIs can (and often do) serve as the primary information source for parents regarding special education and offer a cost-effective method of providing this information to parents and family members.
   
   
2. Require State and local education agencies to provide parents of students receiving (or being considered for) special education with the name, address, and telephone number of the PTI serving their area. This could be far more cost effective for school districts and would result in improved comparability of information across the State.
   
   
3. Parent input can greatly improve educational programs for students with disabilities. However, the current system has the potential to allow parents to request and receive program methods that are unproven, experimental in nature, or dangerous or harmful to the physical or psychological health of their child. Accordingly, there should be an additional State Plan requirement which would require States to certify that no Federal funds will be used to support any individual, program, or practice that employs procedures such as systematic hitting or physical punishment, the application of noxious substances, extended restraint or seclusion, humiliation, and other techniques which--by design--result in pain, physical injuries, psychological damage, hunger, social deprivation, or other harm, that would otherwise be considered as constituting child (or dependent) abuse or neglect if the student were not disabled.
   
   
4. The Department of Education should review data regarding the use of surrogate parents under IDEA in order to determine the frequency of use, the roles that surrogate parents actually assume in special education, levels of satisfaction of surrogate parents regarding their experiences with the special education system, and ways to support surrogate parents more effectively in their efforts to provide effective representation for students receiving special education.

Procedural Due Process

IDEA requires education agencies to establish procedures to safeguard the rights of parents and students to procedural due process should they disagree with decisions made by professionals and administrators regarding all aspects of special education programs and services. To improve performance and results in this area (and, hopefully, to make the process fairer and less adversarial) the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. Improve and strengthen Federal monitoring and enforcement activities. Under plans for the "reinvention" of Federal processes and procedures, the Department of Education should adopt proven methods of field audit for compliance developed under quality control monitoring mechanisms in the private sector. A major measurement variable in these audits should be customer satisfaction with services. Sampling of customer satisfaction should go beyond State capitals and include visits to less populated and rural areas.
   
   
2. Encourage all States to adopt similar audit procedures in their monitoring of local education agency compliance with the provisions of IDEA.
   
   
3. When State education agencies are found to be in noncompliance with the provisions of IDEA according to these revised audit procedures, plans for achieving compliance should be developed in an expeditious manner. These plans should include specific remedial actions to be taken, timelines for implementation, and a statement of the potential financial impact for continued noncompliance. Audit findings and plans for compliance should be forwarded to the chief State school officer and the Governor.
   
   
4. Encourage States to allow parents and students the voluntary opportunity to seek mediation prior to engaging in full-fledged due process procedures. Mediators should be independent, with no real or apparent of conflict of interest with either the local school district or the State education agency.
   
   
5. Explore the possible use of binding arbitration as another method of nonlitigative dispute resolution.
   
   
6. Prohibit retaliation by State or local education agencies (or their assigns) against parties seeking to exercise their rights under the due process provisions of IDEA.⁽¹⁷⁾
   
   
7. Establish effective procedures for final appeal to the Secretary of Education in matters which have not otherwise proved resolvable and publicize the results of these appeals.

Transition

IDEA contains provisions that require education agencies to follow certain procedures to ensure that students will have the skills and opportunities to achieve major life goals (e.g., achieving postsecondary education, employment, and independent living) and that they will transition successfully from special education into adult life. In addition, the implementation of successful programming under IDEA is greatly assisted when students transition successfully from one stage of their education to another. In order to improve performance and results in this area, the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. Lower the mandatory age for the initiation of transitional planning from 16 years old to 14 years old.
   
   
2. Encourage State and local education agencies to strengthen community-based training and work experiences, inclusive social skills experiences, independent living experiences, and self-advocacy training for students with disabilities in secondary school programs.
   
   
3. Require that a member of the transition planning team or that a person appointed by the transition planning team serve as a coordinator for services to be provided under the ITP, integrating these services with those in the IEP.
   
   
4. Encourage State and local education agencies to be flexible in the design and implementation of services to students with disabilities between the ages of 14 to 21, particularly with regard to the provision of IEP-related services and supports outside of the secondary school campus.
   
   
5. The Department of Education should explore the feasibility of continuing the family-based focus of services delivered under Part H to students and families receiving services under Part B of IDEA. Service coordination (case management) should be available as a related service to students and families throughout the transition from Part H to Part B services.

Discretionary Programs

IDEA contains provisions for those training, demonstration, research, and technical assistance programs that Congress has authorized to help Federal, State, and local agencies carry out their duties and to help parents and families be effective partners. In order to improve the performance and results of these programs designed to support special education, the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. State clearly that the purpose of teacher training programs funded under personnel preparation grants is to produce teachers who are highly skilled in providing intensive developmental and remedial instruction to students with disabilities in order to support their participation in the least restrictive environment.
   
   
2. Allocate resources to continuing education programs for currently employed special education teachers in order to allow them access to new information and instructional strategies that will enhance their ability to provide high-quality services to students with disabilities.
   
   
3. Require that all students preparing to be special education teachers have ongoing practicum experiences in typical neighborhood schools that educate children with and without disabilities in the same age range as children they are preparing to teach.
   
   
4. Expand diversity among special education professionals through continuing to target funds to minority institutions for the purpose of recruiting and preparing minority college students to enter the special education field. Moreover, institutions of higher learning in which 25% of the student body is a part of a minority population should be considered minority institutions which qualify for these funds.
   
   
5. Continue support for the preparation of teachers with the technical skills required to teach children with sensory impairments and low incidence disabilities and for the training of doctoral students with successful experience in teaching who are committed to training special education teachers upon graduation.
   
   
6. Create financial incentives to attract teachers of students with sensory disabilities and low incidence disabilities as well as teacher trainers, through student loan cancellation programs tied to actual work in these areas over a number of years.
   
   
7. Create preference in the award of personnel preparation grants to colleges and universities that provide students training in the field of special education with experience in typical education courses and environments that integrate students with disabilities and typical students.
   
   
8. Increase funding for the Parent Training and Information centers in order to ensure that all parents--particularly those in minority and rural communities--receive information and support as they become active collaborators in the education of their children.
   
   
9. Applicants for funds under the personnel preparation program should be required to describe in their grant applications how they will involve local Parent Training and Information programs in their personnel preparation efforts.

Funding

IDEA defines the Federal share of special education costs and how Federal funds will be allocated. The original target for the Federal funding of the excess costs associated with providing special education was 40 percent by 1982. In reality, the Federal government has never provided more than 8 percent of the cost in any given year. While it is obvious that Federal funding has been much lower than anticipated, 20 years of experience have provided insight into how Federal funds might be best invested in special education. Therefore, in addition to providing sufficient resources for special education, the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. Allocate Federal funds that support the education of children with special needs to the States based on a weighted presumed incidence model, with allowance for factors such as high numbers of families living in poverty, difficulty of personnel recruitment in rural areas, etc.
   
   
2. Increase overall Federal funding for IDEA. Base increases in grants to individual States on the weighted presumed incidence model described above and on progress in achieving results such as the following:
   
   a. Higher graduation rates for students receiving special education;
   
   b. Steady increases in the numbers of students receiving special education in regular classrooms within typical neighborhood school buildings;
   
   c. Higher rates of inclusion of students receiving special education in typical student assessment protocols designed to measure overall school district or State performance;
   
   d. Higher rates of employment as adults for former students who received special education.
   
   All States might be granted a proportional share of the increase during the first three years of funding, with a "special education superfund" beginning in the fourth year to reward those States which have invested the initial funding increase in order to produce better results as described above.
   
   
3. Unlike the present situation in which many States essentially reward local education agencies for placing students with special needs in more restrictive settings, require States and local education agencies to adopt and implement "placement neutral" funding practices, wherein at least the same amount of funding is available to support a student receiving special education in a typical school environment as has historically been allocated to place that student in a segregated environment.
   
   
4. The Department of Education should consider combining many of its discrete funding authorities into a smaller number of functionally-based programs in order to streamline operations and make funding authorities less confusing to consumers.

Special Education and the Goals 2000: Educate America Act

Goals 2000, the nation's education reform law, includes particular attention to how families, students, and professionals in special education are involved in implementing educational reform. To date, there has been a limited degree of attention focused on how special education fits into the school reform movement. In order to ensure the increased consideration of the strengths and needs of students with disabilities and their families as the process of reforming the nation's schools goes forward, the Federal government should implement the following recommendations:

1. Reinforce and expand the participation of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in policy decisions regarding the implementation of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act.
   
   
2. Allow a limited number of States to experiment with the creative use of Federal funds from several different sources to support the active incorporation of special education into Goals 2000 implementation activities, particularly as they relate to including special education as a resource for all students, families, and school district personnel. The results of these State-level experiments should be studied, promising practices should be identified, and other States should then be given the opportunity to replicate successful practices.
   
   
3. Under the implementation of Goals 2000, special education should evolve from its current role as a place where a limited number of labeled students are sent to a support service for all learners in schools all across America.

It is our belief that the adoption of these consumer-based recommendations will serve to significantly improve special education programs across the nation. Within the context of an improved special education program, one that operates as a valued and necessary service within schools across America (not as a system apart) ⁽¹⁸⁾, the nation's students with disabilities will make much more rapid progress toward attaining the goals of our national disability policy: equality of opportunity, full participation in all aspects of society, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. In addition, we believe that with the adoption of the recommendations contained herein, the resulting model of special education will serve to support all students in achieving the ambitious--yet attainable--achievements envisioned in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Thus, significant improvements in the implementation of IDEA can lead to better futures for all of America's children.

Hearing Dates and Locations

The National Council on Disability conducted hearings on the following dates in these locations:

• October 20, 1994, Anchorage, Alaska
  
  
• November 4, 1994, Albuquerque, New Mexico
  
  
• November 5, 1994, Des Moines, Iowa
  
  
• November 5, 1994, New York, New York
  
  
• November 9, 1994, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  
  
• November 10, 1994, Charlotte, North Carolina
  
  
• November 14, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  
  
• November 15, 1994, Denver, Colorado
  
  
• November 18, 1994, Boston, Massachusetts
  
  
• November 21, 1994, Berkeley, California

List of Participants and Witnesses

ALASKA

Audrey P. Aanes
Anchorage, AK

Cindy Berger
Anchorage, AK

David P. Berube
Eagle River, AK

Pamela Bickford
Anchorage, AK

John Bolt
Anchorage, AK

Larry Bucholz
Wasilla, AK

Rebecca Campbell
Anchorage, AK

P.J. Carpenter
Fairbanks, AK

Alan Cartwright
Anchorage, AK

Daisy Cartwright
Anchorage, AK

Sandy Clem
Hoonah, AK

Christine Culliton
Juneau, AK

Colleen Deal
Eagle River, AK

Helen Eckman
Anchorage, AK

Carl Evertsbusch
Anchorage, AK

Kathleen Fitzgerald
Anchorage, AK

Jim Henkelman
Anchorage, AK

Teresa Holt
Anchorage, AK

Jenny Hicks
Anchorage, AK

Elaine Hurley
Anchorage, AK

Ann Hutchings
Anchorage, AK

Yvonne Jacobson
Anchorage, AK

Susan A. Jones
Anchorage, AK

Lynne Koral
Anchorage, AK

David Levy
Anchorage, AK

Fran Maiuri
Anchorage, AK

David Maltman
Anchorage, AK

Margaret Mochak
Sitka, AK

Patrick Owen
Anchorage, AK

Darryl Nelson
Chugiak, AK

Sam Reder
Wasilla, AK

Robyn Rehmann
Anchorage, AK

Christopher L. Robinson
Anchorage, AK

Allan Scott
Pamela Carter Simpson
Anchorage, AK

Rick Tessandore
Anchorage, AK

Jane Thiboutot
Anchorage, AK

Linda K. Thompson
Palmer, AK

Tim Wallstrom
Anchorage, AK

Jackie Williams
North Pole, AK

Janel Wright
Anchorage, AK

Michael Young
Anchorage, AK

NEW MEXICO

Dorothy (Joy) Angelino
Albuquerque, NM

Linda Askew
Albuquerque, NM

Rafaelita Bachicha
Santa Fe, NM

Grace Benally
Fort Wingate, NM

Casey and Judy Bonnell
High Rolls, NM

Rebecca Burns
Pueblo Laguna, NM

Patrick M. Caballero
Velarde, NM

Bill Cantrell
Yuma, AZ

Agnes Chavez
Raton, NM

Betty Cope
Albuquerque, NM

Diana Daggett
Albuquerque, NM

Kelly Davis
Santa Fe, NM

John Foley
Albuquerque, NM

Larry Fuller
Dorino, NM

Diego Gallegos
Albuquerque, NM

Ginny Gilmer
Albuquerque, NM

Anna Chavez Gonzales
Carlsbad, NM

Sara Gonzalez
Corpus Christi, TX

Claire Grandora
Patty Jennings
Roswell, NM

Martha Johnson
Bernalillo, NM

Edris A. Klucher
Portales, NM

Michael Klucher
Portales, NM

Carolyn Lavadi
Taos, NM

Leslie Martin Lederer
Albuquerque, NM

Jeannie Manuelito
Bernaillo, NM

Nancy C. McMillan
Santa Fe, NM

Gordon Edward Noz
Tohatchi, NM

Diane Taylor Owen
Fort Wingate, NM

Leah A. Phillips
Albuquerque, NM

Lisa Reader
Los Alamos, NM

Julie Redenbaugh
Albuquerque, NM

Cecilia Riley
Old Laguna, NM

Delfy Roach
Albuquerque, NM

Alberto Rodriguez
Las Cruces, NM

Pauline Romero
Santa Fe, NM

Nannie Marie Sanchez
Albuquerque, NM

Rose Marie Sanchez
Albuquerque, NM

Norberta R. Sarracino
Laguna, NM

Congressman Steve Schiff
Albuquerque, NM

Deborah Doherty Smith
Albuquerque, NM

Grace Spinelli
Fort Wingate, NM

Rebecca Viers
Albuquerque, NM

Pat Wilde
Los Alamos, NM

Mary Zeremba
Albuquerque, NM

IOWA

Evelyn Anderson
Des Moines, IA

Shannon Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA

Nina E. Baker
Council Bluffs, IA

Diane Beecham
Des Moines, IA

Betty Binkard
Des Moines, IA

Marcie Burow
Des Moines, IA

Kris Christensen
Humboldt, IA

J.D. Danielson
Des Moines, IA

Kathy Davis
Des Moines, IA

Sandra L. Gray Dooley
Centerville, IA

Julie Doy
West Des Moines, IA

Peg Eherenman
Waterloo, IA

Marsha Galina
Des Moines, IA

Patty Gilg
Norfolk, NE

Dawn Gloss
Dubuque, IA

Monica Howard
Glenwood, IA

Lynette Jensen
Ames, IA

Cheryl Johnson
Fort Dodge, IA

E.J. and Ian Jorgensen
Des Moines, IA

Theresa Jozwiak
Bellevue, NE

Tom Laurenzo
Des Moines, IA

Mark, Margaret and Sara March
Colo, IA

Molly Matthies
Iowa City, IA

Gwen McCollum
Norfolk, NE

Cindy Miller
Griswold, IA

Loveda Mitchell
Lincoln, NE

Betty Nuhuz
Lamoni, IA

Cheryl Ogle
Ankeny, IA

La Rue Olsen
Des Moines, IA

Alex and Greg Omori
Dubuque, IA

Jo Osing
Cedar Rapids, IA

Deb Paton
Reinbeck, IA

Kate Payne
Urbandale, IA

Mark Peterson
Prole, IA

Michael Remus
Columbus, NE

Mary McDonald Richard
Iowa City, IA

Virginia Richardson
Minneapolis, MN

Lyle Richmond
Urbandale, IA

Jill Robinson
Des Moines, IA

Mervin Roth
Des Moines, IA

Bill Rush
Lincoln, NE

Deb Samson
Nevada, IA

Rick Samson
Des Moines, IA

Paula Sandlin
Lamoni, IA

Cathy Smelser
Ames, IA

Nancy Sorenson
Ames, IA

Susie Strait
Villisca, IA

Denita Swenson
Des Moines, IA

Dennis Thurman
Vinton, IA

Josie Torrez
Topeka, KS

Jean Zigler
Omaha, NE

NEW YORK

Geraldine Alexis
Brooklyn, NY

Dee Estelle Alpert, Esq.
New York, NY

Ada Blakely
Brooklyn, NY

Janet C. Cole
Long Island, NY

Diana Cuthbertson
Westfield, NJ

Gissell Duran
Brooklyn, NY

Karen Fernandez
Brooklyn, NY

Reina Fernandez
Brooklyn, NY

Marjorie Goulbourne
Queens, NY

Sonia Ortiz-Gulardo
New York, NY

Carmen Guitierrez
Bronx, NY

Maribel L. Irizarry
Brooklyn, NY

Pauline McRae
Rego Park, NY

Linda Melendez
Ridgewood, NY

Denise and Josephina Mendoza
Queens, NY

Denise Mercado
Bronx, NY

Dr. Frances Meyer
Teaneck, NJ

Lulu Mwaluko
Jamaica, NY

Lourdes Putz
Brooklyn, NY

Lauretta Randolph
Bronx, NY

Karen Robard
New York, NY

Maria Rodriguez
Brooklyn, NY

Juliana Rosario
Brooklyn, NY

Lorraine Slaff
Bronx, NY

Diana Suarez
Brooklyn, NY

Walter Theis
New York, NY

Thelma Tolbert
Long Island, NY

Eleanor Voutsinas
Jamaica, NY

Marie Washington
Bronx, NY

Corine Watson
Jamaica, NY

Edward Weinstein
Brooklyn, NY

Marilyn Weinstein
Brooklyn, NY

Dorothea Young
Brooklyn, NY

PENNSYLVANIA

Suzanne B. Bacal
Philadelphia, PA

Lydia Berger
Philadelphia, PA

Jane Burke
Pottstown, PA

Penny Chambers
Morrisville, PA

Maureen Devaney
Philadelphia, PA

Gregory L. Dougan
Washington, DC

Mark Drenning
King of Prussia, PA

Beth A. Gage
Elizabethtown, PA

Amy Goldman
Philadelphia, PA

Judy Gran
Philadelphia, PA

Bernadette Griffin
Philadelphia, PA

Maureen Hollowell
Norfolk, VA

Lisa Janoff
Philadelphia, PA

Dawn Kelso
Exton, PA

Barbara Klein
Philadelphia, PA

Michael Lohr
Philadelphia, PA

Wendy Luckenbill
Reading, PA

Donna McNulty
Philadelphia, PA

Shyla Patera
Philadelphia, PA

Judy Plzak
Bryn Mawr, PA

Nolan Rappaport
Potomac, MD

Diane Ryan
Philadelphia, PA

Elsie Mahler Scharff
Narberth, PA

Ronald I. Sibert
Wilmington, DE

Jane Swan
Pottstown, PA

Susan Tachau
Bala Cynwyd, PA

NORTH CAROLINA

Congressman Cass Ballenger
Hickory, NC

Tom Blanton
Fayetteville, NC

Linda Bond
Jackson, MS

Sheila S. Brietweiser
Raleigh, NC

Judy Burke
Raleigh, NC

Dave Calvert
Concord, NC

Regina Carey
Chapel Hill, NC

Pam Clingenpeel
Charlotte, NC

Laurie M. Collins
Winston-Salem, NC

Nancy Diehl
Greeneville, TN

Vickie Dieter
Hickory, NC

Lucy Drake
Matthews, NC

Mary J. Ellis
Charlotte, NC

Rachel Friedman
Charlotte, NC

Betty B. Griffith
Mocksville, NC

Jane G. Hasty
Roanoke Rapids, NC

Connie Hawkins
Davidson, NC

Donna Hessee
Hillsborough, NC

Judy Higginbotham
Charlotte, NC

Tracy Hunter
Huntersville, NC

Janet Jendron
West Columbia, SC

Michael Kidd
Morristown, TN

Angela Kirk
Shelby, NC

Gale Kirk
Shelby, NC

Mary LaCorte
Davidson, NC

Jeff Larson
Durham, NC

Judy Lewis
Charlotte, NC

Joyce Marshall
Knoxville, TN

Denise Mercado
Fort Bragg, NC

Isabelle Mims
Monroe, NC

Johnny Pigott
Monroe, NC

Nicole M. Pope
Hickory, NC

Miriam Ricci
Matthews, NC

Jill Rigsbee
Cedar Grove, NC

Beverly Roberts
Charlotte, NC

Toni Robinson
Charlotte, NC

Linda A. Speich
Crossville, TN

Debbie Stephens
Morristown, TN

Judy Timms
Charlotte, NC

Debra Titus
Richfield, NC

Pascal L. Trohanis
Chapel Hill, NC

Gayle Underdown
Hickory, NC

Candace Wilson
Charlotte, NC

Pam Zacha
Knoxville, TN

WISCONSIN

Barbara Anderson
Mundelein, IL

Marie Bauer
Madison, WI

Rhonda Best
Rockford, IL

Linda M. Breuer
Burlington, WI

Stephanie Buell
Madison, WI

Tony Cerniglia
Brown Deer, WI

Charlotte Des Jardins
Chicago, IL

Dave Edyburn
Milwaukee, WI

Mary Ann Egger
Channahon, IL

Sue Endress
Milwaukee, WI

Patricia Erving
Milwaukee, WI

Susan J. Firnhaber
Joliet, IL

Diane Galkowski
Suzette Garay
Milwaukee, WI

Fred Greasby
Dousman, WI

Ann Higgins Hains
Milwaukee, WI

Pam Heavens
Joliet, IL

Marlene Holme
Timothy A. Jaech
Delavan, WI

Miguel Jimenéz
Chicago, IL

Grace King
Madison, WI

Stacy King
Madison, WI

Christine Kostrubala
Madison, WI

Christine Multra Kraft
Jefferson, WI

Pat Lee
Aurora, IL

Rene David Luna
Chicago, IL

Jeff Lybeck
Brown Deer, WI

Jim McGovern
Villa Park, IL

Elaine Meier
Columbus, WI

Brenda M. Miller
Deforest, WI

Cathy Muehl
Elgin, IL

Christi Murn
Milwaukee, WI

Mary Musk
Greenfield, WI

Sheila O'Neil
Mundelein, IL

Corinne C. Quadland
Greenville, WI

Susan Robbins
Madison, WI

Jan Serak
Greendale, WI

Tony Snager
Drew Sommers
Chicago, IL

Diana Sullivan
Milwaukee, WI

Edward C. Taylor, Sr.
Milwaukee, WI

Darrell Walling
Bonnie S. Weninger
Lomira, WI

COLORADO

Debby Allen
Denver, CO

Michael Allen
Elizabeth, CO

Nancy Baesman
Littleton, CO

Molly Blank
Denver, CO

Barbara Buswell
Colorado Springs, CO

Robin Coursen
Evergreen, CO

Rainee Courtnage
Littleton, CO

Diane P. Cox
Westminster, CO

Joseph Wild Crea
Denver, CO

Joshua Decker
Pueblo, CO

David Eaton
Lakewood, CO

Julie C. Farrar
Denver, CO

Penny Ford
Denver, CO

Danny and Linda Frederick
Denver, CO

DuWyne Geist
Rexford, MT

Patricia Gregory
Aurora, CO

Linda Miller-Hart
Boulder, CO

Laura Hershey
Denver, CO

Liz Hesse
Denver, CO

Ellie Valdez, Michael, Brenda,
Jaime Grace, and Sylvia Marie Honeyman
Arvada, CO

Michael Hoover
Boulder, CO

Steven F. Konecny
Parker, CO

Ellen Laurence
Greeley, CO

Barbara Lohman
Colorado Springs, CO

Sandra J. Martinez
Colorado Springs, CO

Judy C. Martz
Colorado Springs, CO

Jerri Miller
Colorado Springs, CO

Cliff Moers
Boulder, CO

JoLynn Osborne
Lakewood, CO

Jean Parker
Denver

Tom Patrick
Denver, CO

Thomas C. Patton
Denver, CO

Carolyn Reed
Denver, CO

Leslie Reed
Denver, CO

Duane Riggenbach
Evergreen, CO

Stella Sanfratello
Lakewood, CO

Beth Schaffner
Colorado Springs, CO

Mary Schoonmaker
Boulder, CO

Debbie Sherer
Golden, CO

Kathie Snow
Woodland Park, CO

Agnes Sonnenfeld
Denver, CO

Tammy L. Stuck
Falcon, CO

Gerard Sunderland
Colorado Springs, CO

Shirley Swope
Chipita Park, CO

Charmaine Thaner
Woodland Park, CO

Kathy Thomas
Aurora, CO

Marna Ares Thompson
Louisville, CO

Kathryn Vincent
Denver, CO

William F. West
Arvada, CO

Charlene Willey
Broomfield, CO

Ann Williams
Avondale, CO

MASSACHUSETTS

Carolyn B. Barney
Ipswich, MA

Mason Barney
Ipswich, MA

Martha Beebe
Bolton, MA

Susan Brooks
Chelmsford, MA

Brian Charleson
Watertown, MA

David Clark
Peabody, MA

Melissa Constantine
Wellesley, MA

Richard K. Curtis
Hamilton, MA

Chris de Hahn
Millbury, MA

Gerald DiFranza
Winthrop, MA

Bonnie Dunham
Merrimack, NH

Kathleen Fitzgerald
Scituate, MA

George Gage
Marshfield, MA

Michael Garvey
Framingham, MA

Thelma and John Gilbert
Lynn, MA

Laura Glomb
Ellington, CT

David Gordon
Beverly, MA

Eve Granick
Westboro, MA

John M. Hilliard
Arlington, MA

Catherine Jortner
West Hartford, CT

Steve Kastl
Chestnut Hill, MA

Stanley D. Klein
Brookline, MA

Denise Kring
Sturbridge, MA

Julia McCarthy
Quincy, MA

Karen McGinley
Narragansett, RI

Kevin Nolan
Northampton, MA

Tracey O'Brien
West Hartford, CT

Charles Packard
Westhampton, MA

Rob Park
Peabody, MA

Sue Philip
Roslindale, MA

Dr. Glenn Pransky
Worcester, MA

Julie Lufkin-Purtz
Salem, MA

Linda Rambler
Boston, MA

Judith Raskin
Concord, NH

Catherine C. Reed
Waterbury, CT

Lori Salvi
Merrimack, NH

Linda Scott
Watertown, MA

Cindy Sirois
Gardiner, ME

Robert Sneirson
Brookline, MA

Terry Snyder
Sudbury, MA

Paul Spooner
Framingham, MA

Veronica Sykes
Reading, MA

Janis Symanski
Middletown, CT

Robin Ann and Melissa Tracy
Springfield, MA

Fernando C. Viesca
Chelsea, MA

Janet Vohs
Brookline, MA

Rosalba M. Votto
Gardiner, ME

Lorraine Wales
Framingham, MA

Mary E. Wambach
Boston, MA

Jan Weisman
Watertown, MA

David Wilcox
Needham, MA

Barbara J. Wood
Boston, MA

Martha Ziegler
Lexington, MA

CALIFORNIA

Lynn and Tom Blackstock
Pleasant Hill, CA

Ramona Chacón
Oakland, CA

Joanna Cooper
Berkeley, CA

Clara Del Pomar
Concord, CA

Frances Dede Dewey
Berkeley, CA

Donna H. Dutton
Larkspur, CA

Barbara A. Duvall
Benecia, CA

Elissa Gershon
Oakland, CA

James W. Givens III
Berkeley, CA

Carol Gonsalves
Benecia, CA

Meredith Post Gramlich
Albany, CA

Katy Grether
Kensington, CA

Ann T. Halvorsen
Hayward, CA

Judi Hirsch
Oakland, CA

Jane Jackson
Alameda, CA

Elizabeth Ann Katz
Pinole, CA

Carmen Carolina Labarca
Albany, CA

David LaDue
Concord, CA

Beverlyn D. Lee
Hayward, CA

Diane Lipton
Berkeley, CA

Lindsay Merryman
Kentfield, CA

Jan Miller
Cupertino, CA

John Ng
Concord, CA

Pam Ormsby
Berkeley, CA

Rose Polioudakis
San Francisco, CA

Mark Polit
Oakland, CA

Cecily Purcell
Walnut Creek, CA

Rebecca C. Quiroz
Pinole, CA

Mina Richardson
San Francisco, CA

Stephen Rosenbaum
Berkeley, CA

Patricia M. Rounds, Ph.D.
Palm Desert, CA

George A. Ruet
Travis, CA

Tony Sauer
Grass Valley, CA

Janet Schmitz
Walnut Creek, CA

Birgit Schweingruber
Santa Clara, CA

Pam Steneberg
Berkeley, CA

Marlene York
San Pablo, CA

Table of Acronyms

Acronym - Meaning

ADA - Americans with Disabilities Act

ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder

AEA - Area Education Agency

ICC - Interagency Coordinating Council

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

IEA - Intermediate Education Agency

IEP - Individualized Education Program

IFSP - Individualized Family Service Plan

ITP - Individualized Transition Plan

LEA - Local Education Agency

LRE - Least Restrictive Environment

NBD - Neurobiological Disorder

OSEP - Office of Special Education Programs

OSERS - Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

OT - Occupational Therapy

PET - Pupil Evaluation Team

PT - Physical Therapy

PTI - Parent Training and Information

RSA - Rehabilitation Services Administration

SEA - State Education Agency

SED - Severely Emotionally Disabled (or Disturbed)

SH - Severely Handicapped

UAP - University Affiliated Program

Synthesis of Reports from Nationally Preeminent Special Education Researchers and Teacher Trainers ⁽¹⁹⁾

Celebrating IDEA's 20th Anniversary

In 1995, Congress and the nation celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of the most significant disability rights laws ever enacted: the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It is in every respect proper for Congress and the entire nation to celebrate that anniversary. Certainly no other disability-rights law has had such a powerful and positive impact on children and youth with disabilities, on their families, on educators, and on the nation itself.

At the same time, it is also entirely proper for Congress and the nation to recognize that the promises that Congress made in IDEA and the potential that IDEA can evoke in our country's students, families, educators, and communities are still not yet fulfilled. IDEA is like any one who comes out of adolescence and enters young adulthood: some promises have been kept and others await fulfillment. The potential for their fulfillment is visible, but is in some ways still unimaginable. So much is in place, and so much more can be added. So it is with IDEA: The Act has encouraged and helped students, their families, and the nation's schools to make phenomenal gains, but the results are by no means all that could and should have been obtained.

On the occasion of IDEA's 20th anniversary, it is important to build on the framework and the successes that IDEA has engendered, and to do so on the basis of the best available data about IDEA's accomplishments and shortcomings. In building upon this framework, guided by reliable data, IDEA itself will be improved, and State and local educational agencies will be equipped to implement IDEA even more effectively. It is especially appropriate for Congress to build on the framework and successes in light of the strong grassroots efforts to reform the nation's schools--a movement that Congress itself acknowledged and assisted by P.L. 103-227, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act.

Six Basic Principles Supporting the Implementation of IDEA

• IDEA is based on six basic principles which provide a framework within which States may develop effective special education programs. The current status of the implementation of these principles is described below.
  
  
• IDEA's zero-reject principle has opened schoolhouse doors to all students with disabilities; yet schools still try to expel or suspend students who present behavioral or other special challenges.
  
  
• IDEA's nondiscriminatory evaluation principle has ensured that in most cases students' disabilities are identified and fairly and accurately assessed; yet schools still too frequently misclassify students, especially minority students.
  
  
• IDEA's appropriate education principle has helped most students benefit from special education; yet it is abundantly clear that the outcomes of special education are less than acceptable for far too many students.
  
  
• IDEA's least restrictive environment principle has allowed some students to be educated with their nondisabled peers. There has been some progress in physical, academic, and social integration; yet far too often the schools still fall far short in providing the supplementary aids and services that would enable many more students to benefit from education with their nondisabled peers.
  
  
• IDEA's due process principle has held schools and families accountable to each other; yet schools and families still find fault with Federal and State monitoring and still face the financially and emotionally draining prospects of administrative and judicial hearings.
  
  
• IDEA's principle of shared decision making by parents, students, and schools has created effective education and a wholesome system of checks and balances for many of these stakeholders; yet professional dominance still is too often the norm.

In short, however effectively this law and its six principles have been implemented in some areas, there still remain far too many instances where schools have failed to implement IDEA properly.

Islands of Effectiveness, But Not a Mainland

The issue in 1995 is not whether to retain IDEA in its present form. IDEA has been effective. An entire national school-system response has been built on its principles, and countless students, families, educators, and other providers have come to rely on and apply its principles. Instead, as Congress reauthorizes IDEA, it should focus on the last of IDEA's stated purposes: "to assess and assure the effectiveness of efforts to educate children with disabilities" (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400(c)). The disturbing findings Congress discovered in 1975 are still reality in far too many school districts in 1995. While it is true that the extent and types of education discrimination have been remarkably curtailed, education discrimination still exists and the equal protection guarantee has not been fully realized. The islands of excellence in special education do not yet constitute a mainland, and general compliance is short of the goal of universal compliance. The issue for 1995, then, is the same issue that Congress identified in 1975: to assure the effectiveness of efforts to educate all children with disabilities.

In 1995, on IDEA's 20th anniversary and as school reform efforts gather speed and power, Congress should assure the effectiveness of efforts to educate students with disabilities in two basic and necessary ways:

• First, Congress should reaffirm IDEA's basic premises and principles, declaring in no uncertain terms that IDEA is a necessary and useful civil rights law that, through the framework of its six basic principles, implements the Federal equal protection guarantee and the States' own constitutional assurances of universal education for all of their children.
  
  
• Second, Congress should fine tune IDEA itself in a limited number of ways and significantly strengthen Federal, State, and local special education capacities, thereby assuring more effective special education.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Special Education

Congress' reaffirmation of IDEA's basic principles and framework and Congress' capacity-building enhancements to IDEA and its administration should build on the most recent and most reliable data. The National Council on Disability (NCD) has reviewed those data in light of seven questions:

• What are the goals of special education?
  
  
• How well have these goals been achieved?
  
  
• What are the most promising practices for achieving these goals?
  
  
• What are the most significant barriers to achieving these goals?
  
  
• What should Congress do to further ensure the effectiveness of efforts to educate all children with disabilities?
  
  
• What should Federal agencies, especially the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), do to ensure that Federal, State, and local education agencies are most effective in educating all children with disabilities?
  
  
• What should State governments and State and local education agencies do?

The National Council on Disability and the Beach Center on Families and Disability posed these questions to 27 nationally preeminent scholars in special education and personnel preparation, advising them to rely on the most recent reliable data in providing responses, to back up their reports with annotated abstracts of key data-based literature, and to profile programs that exemplify IDEA's proper implementation across all areas of disability. The following represents, in general, what we have concluded after reviewing the data:

• No matter how effective IDEA has been, there are still significant shortcomings in its implementation. Congress, OSERS, and State and local education agencies should do still more to ensure that every student with a disability has an individualized program of free, appropriate education in the least restrictive environment.

As Congress takes up IDEA on the Act's 20th anniversary, it should again rise to the challenge that it met so well in 1975 and many times thereafter:

• Reaffirm the basic civil rights of all students with disabilities to effective, equal educational opportunities; reauthorize the Federal framework that has benefitted these students so greatly; and encourage further activities to assure their effective education.

Restating the Purposes and Goals of Special Education

Over the course of the last 20 years and as recently as 1990 and 1994, Congress has stated and restated the nation's policies regarding citizens with disabilities. Restating these policies now, as Congress considers the reauthorization of IDEA, would seem appropriate. The overall purposes of IDEA are:

• To ensure equal protection under the law, particularly equal educational opportunity. Such protection is afforded not only in IDEA, but in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1975;
  
  
• To assist individuals with disabilities to enjoy lives characterized by equal opportunities, full participation and integration into local communities and society as a whole, independence, self-determination, economic self-sufficiency, and contribution to America. These are also the purposes of ADA and the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act.

To these ends, IDEA has helped State and local education agencies to educate all students with disabilities, no matter what the nature or severity of their disabilities. It has done so by establishing procedural and substantive rights, providing financial assistance, and providing support for research, training, and technical assistance. What more needs to be done? The answer is straightforward and achievable: Congress should not rely solely on process and substance, but should assure quality in special education. To do that, Congress should review special education's particular goals, as they relate to the nation's overarching disability policy. The goals of special education and IDEA are to:

• Enhance students' overall capacities: By receiving a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, every student should acquire academic, vocational, and social skills so all can learn, work, live, have social networks, and participate in their communities with their peers who do not have disabilities.
  
  
• Secure students' participation in school and community with peers who do not have disabilities: Students should receive the services necessary for them to achieve success within less restrictive placements and to learn in general education programs, work and reside in typical settings, and have social networks with people who do not have disabilities.
  
  
• Augment families' capacities to respond to their children's special needs: By participating in early intervention and later programs for their children, benefiting from related services, sharing decision making with teachers and other professionals, and participating in the activities of such discretionary programs as Parent Training and Information Centers and model demonstration programs, families should acquire the skills necessary to respond to their children's special needs and to be equal decision-making partners with educators and other professionals.
  
  
• Establish collaboration among families, students, and professionals: Family members, students, and professionals should have the skills to collaborate with each other, and the schools should provide a context for this kind of collaboration.
  
  
• Create a seamless network of effective services through collaboration among service providers and the systems and agencies within which they work: Providers, their agencies, and their service delivery systems should create a seamless network of effective services for students and families, and this network should enable students to learn, work, live, have social networks, and participate in their communities.
  
  
• Prepare all professionals to deliver free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment: All professionals, particularly general and special educators, should have the attitudes and skills that enable them to be as effective as possible in providing a free appropriate public education to all students in the least restrictive environment.
  
  
• Carry out model demonstration programs and conduct research to implement IDEA: Special and general educators, researchers, teacher trainers, other professionals, and families--acting together--should carry out model demonstration programs, provide technical assistance, and conduct research to improve the implementation of IDEA's six principles.
  
  
• Ensure school restructuring and effective governance: Students, families, educators and other professionals, as well as community members should reform schools and school governance to advance all of special education's goals. School reform should be sensitive to and accommodate cultural and ethnic diversity in students, their families, and communities.
  
  
• Assure safe schools: All schools should be safe for all who use them, and to this end educators and administrators should focus on reducing violence in schools and communities.
  
  
• Increase and target Federal, State, and local resources: Federal, State, and local governing bodies should increase their appropriations for special education and permit some funding streams to be used more creatively and flexibly while simultaneously targeting other funding streams to solve particular problems.

Progress to Date in Achieving the Purposes and Goals of Special Education

How successful has special education been in achieving these goals? The answer both heartening and challenging. It is heartening that there are many promising approaches to achieving these goals. Indeed, identifying and applying state-of-the-art practices, supported in large part through Federal resources, has almost always resulted in the achievement of these goals. It is challenging that state-of-the-art exist only in some school districts. There are islands of effectiveness. However, far too many school districts do not or cannot apply state-of-the-art or best practices. These districts constitute the current mainland of special education.

Promising Practices for Effective Special Education

What are the promising practices, the standards by which effective special education should be judged and the means by which all school districts can deliver effective special education? Promising practices can be found systemwide within a State, districtwide within a local education agency, and personally, for an individual student.

Systemwide Promising Practices

At the State agency level it is especially important to have the following:

• Professional in-service training through a comprehensive system of personnel development;
  
  
• Model demonstration programs and technical assistance;
  
  
• Strong parent participation in designing, planning, implementing, and evaluating State and local agency plans, relying on a strengthened system of Parent Training and Information Centers;
  
  
• The participation of special education in all school restructuring activities; and
  
  
• Effective monitoring of and technical assistance to local educational agencies.

Districtwide Promising Practices

At the local school district level, it is important to have the following:

• A zero-reject capacity, including--
  
  
• early screening, identification, and intervention at all ages,
• locally adapted services and plans, and
• interagency collaboration and coordination of services, systems, and procedures;
  
  
• A nondiscriminatory evaluation capacity, including alternative, nonbiased educational evaluations, especially for minority students;
  
  
• An appropriate education capacity, including--
  
  
• student-focused--not system-focused--individualized education and services that lead to students' mastery of learning skills and strategies,
• coherent, easy to use, intensive, and comprehensive services based on validated procedures and methodologies,
• a system of comprehensive personnel development that assures that all school personnel will develop the skills necessary to deliver a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, and
• adoption and implementation of "safe schools" plans; and
  
  
• A least restrictive environment capacity, including--
  
  
• adaptations of general and special education curricula, especially to accommodate students in the least restrictive environment and to accept, in that environment and throughout the district, students who have challenging behaviors,
• a full array of least restrictive placement options, with continuous dialogue among special and general educators, school administrators, and families and students about how to secure the least restrictive education for all students,
• accessibility and other modifications in the schools' physical environments, and
• flexibility in programs and staffing arrangements, with planned times and places for collaboration among educators and families.

Promising Practices with Students and Families

In order to serve students and families in an appropriate manner, it is necessary for school districts to provide the following:

• A zero-reject capacity, including--
  
  
• early intervention to address present special education needs and to prevent additional needs from developing, and
• adoption and implementation of a "safe schools" plan;
  
  
• A nondiscriminatory evaluation capacity, including nonbiased evaluations of students' strengths and needs, especially if the students are from minority populations or present challenging behaviors;
  
  
• An appropriate education capacity, including--
  
  
• developmentally appropriate and professionally validated practices,
• appropriate, functional curricula, including instruction for all postschool activities described in IDEA's transition provisions,
• instruction in self-determination and self advocacy,
• culturally responsive instructional methodologies and curricula,
• appropriate extra-curricular activities,
• community-based work instruction and work opportunities, including supported employment,
• education that teaches not only postschool vocational skills but also other independent living skills,
• flexibility in students' schedules so they can take advantage of integrated learning and work opportunities,
• use of positive and natural consequences as feedback for appropriate behavior;
  
  
• A least restrictive environment capacity, including--
  
  
• education of the student in the most typical settings--neighborhood schools--so that all school environments are integrated by the presence of students with and without disabilities,
• age-appropriate and culturally appropriate teaching practices, and
  
  
• A parent-student participation and collaboration capacity, including--
  
  
• family-centered services and family involvement, and
• professional-family collaboration and shared decision making.

The Application of Promising Practices Across the Six Principles of IDEA

However much progress has been made in implementing IDEA and its six principles, it is clear that improved implementation is necessary and possible. Through applying the promising practices listed above, the implementation of the six principles underlying IDEA would improve in the following manner:

• Zero Reject: Instead of excluding students from school, a variety of successful intervention techniques would be available to support the inclusion of all students in schools, the result being a zero tolerance for excluding any students, whatever the reason.
  
  
• Nondiscriminatory Evaluation: Instead of classifying students on the basis of their ethnicity, race, color, national origins or the schools' existing administrative structures, students would be classified according to an accurate assessment of their strengths and needs across the curricular and functional requirements involved in their education.
  
  
• Appropriate Education: Applying the promising practices listed above would result in a system of comprehensive and effective services and interventions, effective multidisciplinary and interagency collaboration, and a seamless network of beneficial services.
  
  
• Least Restrictive Environment: Instead of current practice, which in many places encourages the segregation of students with disabilities, application of already-proven, promising practices would allow each student to receive his/her education in the least restrictive setting, supported by an individualized and appropriate array of supplementary aids and services that ensure that the student is physically, academically, and socially integrated into general education.
  
  
• Parent and Student Participation and Shared Decision Making: With the application of current promising practices, parents, students, and educators would be able to engage in effective collaboration in designing and delivering a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
  
  
• Procedural Due Process and Federal and State Monitoring: The application of the promising practices listed above would greatly reduce the number and frequency of due process complaints and shift the emphasis of Federal and State monitoring and enforcement efforts from tracking "paper compliance" to quality enhancement.

Continuing Barriers to the Implementation of Promising Practices

Implementing the promising practices developed over the last 20 years of experience with IDEA would greatly enhance the quality of education for students with and without disabilities. Still, many barriers continue to impede the implementation of these practices in State and local education agencies. These barriers are as follows:

Zero Reject Barriers

• Schools are reactive instead of proactive in responding to students' special needs. In particular, they too often exclude students instead of working with them overcome their challenging behaviors.
  
  
• Some schools still do not make the environmental modifications that would increase access, reduce the challenging behaviors of some students, and result in more effective special education.
  
  
• Too often the absence of services and support systems for adults with disabilities restricts the development of effective transition programs for secondary-aged students.

Nondiscriminatory Evaluation Barriers

• All too often schools rely on testing that targets the students' needs instead of their strengths or testing that simply is inadequate to identify strengths and needs in minority students, thereby causing misclassification, erroneous educational placement, and inappropriate interventions.
  
  
• Similarly, schools pay insufficient attention to the cultural dimensions of their students' lives, and teachers are often not prepared to respond to the cultural diversity of their students.
  
  
• For several groups of students, nondiscriminatory evaluation procedures are themselves inadequate.
  
  
• Placement is still based on the categorical label assigned to students, not on their particular strengths or needs.

Appropriate Education Barriers

• Schools still use inappropriate curricula.
  
  
• The talents of many teachers and related service providers are misused.
  
  
• Service and support systems are unavailable or ineffective.
  
  
• Services, even within schools, are poorly coordinated.
  
  
• Schools are generally not creative in identifying appropriate interventions or supportive services that might be employed when students are having difficulty in less restrictive placements.
  
  
• Professionals do not know enough about other services available in their communities, particularly those services that could make students' education and transition more appropriate and beneficial.
  
  
• Schools turn too often to "educational faddism" and are driven too frequently by political, rather than sound pedagogical, motives.
  
  
• School systems often lack instructional leadership by highly competent, well- trained administrators, master teachers, and support personnel.
  
  
• Students continue to be disempowered by teacher-directed, deficit-based teaching methodologies.
  
  
• Teachers need a great deal more preservice and in-service training.
  
  
• Curricula often rely too much on specific--and outmoded--models for educating certain categories of students.
  
  
• Teachers may not know how to work with parents or with each other in order to combine their strengths and resources.
  
  
• Competent teachers are in short supply, especially for students with specific types of disabilities.
  
  
• General educators often do not feel responsible for educating students with disabilities.

Least Restrictive Environment Barriers

• Schools still operate improperly segregated programs and inappropriately place too many students in these programs.
  
  
• Schools still isolate special education students from contact with people and events in their communities.
  
  
• State and local funding patterns create disincentives to placing students in less restrictive programs.
  
  
• State and local agencies still have organizational and administrative structures that perpetuate separate systems of special and general education.
  
  
• Schools still use less intensive special education services for students who need more specialized and intensive teaching.
  
  
• Political and attitudinal factors may lead to a lack of community support for schools' efforts to integrate students with disabilities.
  
  
• Schools may place students into less restrictive placements without the physical, academic, or social supports necessary to ensure that they will experience success in these placements.
  
  
• School districts may have limited less restrictive placement options due to their historic use of more restrictive options.

Parent Participation and Procedural Due Process Barriers

• Schools often lack sufficient accountability to their students and parents.
  
  
• Schools still suffer from limited parental involvement.
  
  
• Parent Training and Information Centers still do not reach as many parents as they might, especially parents of traditionally underserved or minority students.
  
  
• Some parents are highly resistant to adaptive changes in programs such as less restrictive placement, the use of positive behavioral supports as the intervention of choice for challenging behaviors, or transition initiatives.

Funding Barriers

• Special education is often underfunded at the Federal, State, and local level.
  
  
• Some funding streams are too restrictive because they either prevent students from receiving special education who could benefit from it or they prevent districts from using the funds more effectively.

Administrative Barriers

• School districts may have a long history of reliance on categorical programs requiring students to fit the service system rather than the service system to fit the student.
  
  
• Placements may be determined on students' categorical labels rather than on their strengths and needs.
  
  
• Separate systems of special and regular education administration often discourage interdisciplinary and interagency collaboration.

Ideological and Attitudinal Barriers

• Prejudicial attitudes regarding students with disabilities may exist among general and special educators, among parents, and among members of the general community.
  
  
• Ardor for specific programs or teaching methods can vitiate individualized and effective instruction.

Federal, State, and Local Policy Barriers

• Outmoded policies still inhibit accomplishment of the goals of IDEA and its full implementation. These policies too often restrict implementation of the principles of appropriate education, least restrictive education, and collaborative decision- making.
  
  
• These policies also stand in the way of effective school restructuring, school-linked services, and safe schools.

• Special and general education practices reflect teacher preparation, just as teacher preparation drives school practices. This symbiotic relationship between practice and preparation means that the implementation of promising practices is quite uneven on a national basis.
  
  
• While many students preparing to be teachers benefit from experience with state-of-the-art practices in their education, far too many still do not have access to the quality of practices and preparatory experiences that should have been created by now. Therefore, outmoded and ineffective practices are reinforced and perpetuated.

Recommendations Derived from a Review of Scholarly Research on IDEA

While the implementation of IDEA has certainly not been flawless, it has provided educational opportunity to millions of students who were previously excluded from school altogether. Can IDEA be improved? Can its implementation be improved? The unequivocal answer to both these questions is affirmative. The data reviewed during this research process lead to sound recommendations for improving IDEA and its implementation.

All efforts to improve IDEA, its funding levels and funding policies, and its implementation at the Federal, State and local levels must be premised on capacity building and directed toward improving the abilities of those involved:

• Improve the ability of schools to deliver services as IDEA envisions them being delivered.
  
  
• Improve the ability of families to collaborate with educators and other professionals in sharing decision-making power related to their children and to service systems as a whole.
  
  
• Improve the ability of students with disabilities to benefit from effective special education and to enjoy lives characterized by integration, productivity, and independence.

Every recommendation made by the 27 nationally preeminent scholars in special education and personnel preparation points to the need to build the capacities of schools, parents, and students in order to improve the implementation of IDEA. A summary of their specific recommendations is provided below.

Recommendations for Improving IDEA

One overall recommendation emerged from a study of the scholarly literature regarding the implementation of IDEA to date:

Congress should reaffirm the basic framework and underlying six principles of IDEA, acknowledge that it is essential legislation for assuring the equal protection and basic civil rights of people with disabilities, and focus on improving the quality of special and general education. Accordingly, Congress should fine tune IDEA and give direction to Federal, State, and local agencies so that they can ensure improved quality of special and general education.

Specific recommendations regarding the six basic principles supporting IDEA and related issues are presented below.

Zero Reject

To improve implementation of the zero reject principle:

• Incorporate the statement of national goals and policies for persons with disabilities as set out in the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
  
  
• Change the timelines affecting eligibility for early intervention services and provide more funding for early intervention programs.
  
  
• Require States to put into place systems that ensure collaboration and coordination of transition services.

Nondiscriminatory Evaluation

To improve implementation of the nondiscriminatory evaluation principle:

• Provide financial incentives in model demonstration, systems change, research, and personnel preparation projects, to ensure the use of nondiscriminatory evaluation instruments and processes with students from minority populations.
  
  
• Fine tune the definitions of "traumatic brain injury" and "severely emotionally disabled."

Appropriate Education

To improve implementation of the appropriate education principle:

• Provide financial incentives in model demonstration, systems change, research, and personnel preparation projects to ensure the use of best practices such as the following:
  
  
• special education delivered to minority students in culturally competent ways;
• collaboration among general and special educators and related service providers;
• interagency collaboration, especially between educational, medical, social service, and other human service agencies;
• interdisciplinary and interagency service delivery;
• improved transition plan processes;
• self-determination curricula as well as teaching and student participation in educational planning and decision-making;
• education in the least restrictive environment;
• community-based work experiences before a student leaves school;
• use of Participatory Action Research techniques in all research, training, and model demonstration programs; and
• parent and student participation through shared decision making.
  
  
• Improve technical assistance efforts.
  
  
• Lower the age for mandatory transition planning from 16 to 14.
  
  
• Ensure that students have a greater decision making role in designing and carrying out their programs.
  
  
• Allow students to be eligible for school-based transition services after they graduate.
  
  
• Provide special education students with more useful and credible diploma options.
  
  
• Strengthen transition planning so it focuses not only on work, but also on other post-secondary outcomes.
  
  
• Appropriate more funds for post-secondary programs.
  
  
• Exercise greater oversight with respect to IEP development, implementation, and appropriateness.
  
  
• Allow the low incidence population of students with physical disabilities to be included as one of the focus categories under Subchapter III.

Least Restrictive Environment

To improve implementation of the least restrictive environment principle:

• Support personnel preparation, not only in special education teacher training but also general education teacher training, particularly in implementing the principles of least restrictive education, collaborative education with other professionals (related service providers and administrators), and relating to families in a culturally competent manner.

Parent-Student Participation and Collaboration

To improve implementation of the parent-student participation and collaboration principle:

• Extend to older students and their families the family service provisions of the Individualized Family Service Plan now available to infants and toddlers under Part H.
  
  
• Preserve and extend the Parent Training and Information Center programs to better serve minority populations.
  
  
• Enact a presumption that research, training, and demonstration programs will utilize techniques of Participatory Action Research, directing OSERS to award extra credit in peer reviews to research, training, and demonstration projects that use this type of process.

Oversight and Monitoring

To improve oversight and monitoring of the implementation of IDEA:

• Congress should exercise vigorous oversight and OSERS should conduct more stringent monitoring of IDEA's implementation.

Funding

To improve the implementation of IDEA:

• Congress should work toward full funding to the authorized maximum (40 percent of excess cost) or create or allow new and different funding streams.
  
  
• Eliminate categorical funding provisions that provide disincentives to delivering special education in the least restrictive environment, and create incentives for more education in the least restrictive environment.
  
  
• Allow more flexibility in using funds for direct services, program administration, and eligibility.
  
  
• Increase model demonstration program funding.
  
  
• Increase technical assistance funding, especially for regional service centers that assist students with visual impairments.
  
  
• Increase research funding.
  
  
• Establish a formula grant category for services and supports that result in the successful employment for secondary level students.
  
  
• Expand Medicaid coverage to allow greater coverage of related services.

Recommendations for the Improvement of Personnel Preparation and Comprehensive Systems of Personnel Development

The special education researchers and teacher trainers were overwhelmingly disappointed by the quality of personnel preparation offered by institutions of higher education and in the comprehensive systems of personnel development operated by State and local education agencies. They unequivocally agreed that a great deal of work needs to be accomplished in the areas of teacher preparation and teacher in-service education.

At present, many recent graduates of the nation's special and general education teacher training programs are not well prepared to apply best practices and state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, State and local agencies' comprehensive systems of personnel development do not effectively remediate the problem created by inadequate preservice training. Similarly, state certification and evaluation standards and procedures for new or continuing teachers do not assure that teachers will be as effective as they should be in the classroom, in collaborating with each other and with professionals in other agencies, and in sharing decision-making responsibilities with parents and students.

These conclusions apply to preservice and in-service programs that focus on categories of disabilities such as learning disabilities, severe emotional disturbance, mental retardation, autism, traumatic brain injury, vision or hearing impairments, physical disabilities, and other health impairments. Likewise, they also apply to programs that focus on skills for early intervention, early childhood education, least restrictive environment and integration strategies, transition, supported employment, school-linked service delivery, interagency collaboration, responding to challenging behaviors through positive behavioral support, and violence prevention.

For example, many early interventionists and early childhood educators still are not utilizing proven successful practices. Special and regular educators are often not trained to carry out the principles of appropriate education and least restrictive environment. That is true, too, with respect to the overarching goal of independence for individuals with disabilities: Professionals are still not properly trained to enhance students' self-determination and choice-making related to transition and employment. Special efforts are needed to recruit minority professionals as researchers, trainers, and district-based educators, especially for low-incidence populations such as students with hearing impairments. Finally, professionals still lack the necessary skills to collaborate with each other and with parents in making decisions about students' education and about research and demonstration programs.

The good news is that there is a set of promising preservice and in-service practices and programs. The not-so-good news is that these practices and programs have not yet spread across the nation. The result is that, although some professionals receive superb preservice and in-service training, too many do not. Accordingly, students--who have a right to an education that benefits them and does so in the least restrictive environment--are being shortchanged. Education is by definition labor-intensive and labor-dependent. When the labor force--the professional cadre--suffers from inadequate preparation and in-service training, students also suffer.

Since the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (P.L. 89-750) in 1966, P.L. 91-230 in 1970, and of P.L. 93-380 in 1974 (the predecessors to P.L. 94-142), the Federal and State governments have shared the responsibility for personnel preparation in general and special education. There is a unique role for the Federal government in developing a national leadership cadre of researchers and other leaders and in augmenting State efforts to train teachers. The leadership cadre, after all, performs nationally significant roles, whereas the teacher corps performs locally significant roles. By the same token, there is a unique role for State governments, acting through their institutions of higher education. This role is to prepare, certify, and evaluate teachers. This Federal-State partnership is responsible for the present state of affairs in preservice and in-service education, and accordingly the Federal government, State education agencies, and institutions of higher education have joint responsibility for improving preservice and in-service education.

Recommendations Regarding Research

Research should focus on interventions related to student needs. For example, research is still needed to achieve the following:

• Improve student capacities through early intervention and early childhood special education.
  
  
• Increase students' self-determination and reduce their challenging behaviors.
  
  
• Prepare students for transition into and out of special education and into supported employment.
  
  
• Carry out IDEA's principle of education in the least restrictive environment.
  
  
• Enhance students' social relationships and their abilities to participate with nondisabled peers and adults in the lives of their communities.
  
  
• Ensure that students with challenging behaviors receive positive behavioral support from qualified educators.

Similarly, research is still needed to improve teacher-to-teacher collaboration and teacher-and-parent shared decision-making, and to enhance consumer participation in setting research priorities, conducting research, and disseminating and using research data. On a different level, research is still needed on the incidence and prevalence of some disabilities, especially mild mental retardation and traumatic brain injury. Indeed, improved data collection and follow-up studies are particularly relevant to some student populations, especially those with mild mental retardation. Finally, research on larger systemic issues such as nationally important initiatives in school reform, comprehensive services through school-linked service provision, and violence prevention has just gotten underway and should be continued.

In many respects, the research community is just on the edge of significant breakthroughs in preventing and ameliorating the effects of disabilities, improving teaching methodologies, ensuring students' participation in general education and in their own communities, and strengthening and even improving the capacities of schools, teachers, and parents to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Just as teacher preparation is a shared Federal-State responsibility, so too is research. Although the greater portion of special education research funds are provided by the Federal government, there are State-funded and State-supported research activities. Some States have their own research funds, but all States support faculty in their institutions of higher education to conduct research. Thus, both the Federal and State governments can and should respond to these recommendations for research.

Recommendations Regarding Demonstration Programs

By the same token, Congress, OSERS, and State agencies should continue, expand, and redirect model demonstration programs. These programs should include rehabilitation research and training centers, systems-change efforts, technical assistance projects, policy analyses, and short-term (three-year) models to develop and disseminate state-of-the-art and promising practices. Just as preservice and in-service training and research funding are shared between the Federal and State governments, so too with demonstration projects: both levels of government are responsible for improving demonstration activities.

The overall effect of model demonstration projects is to develop new and improved techniques for teaching students, advancing IDEA's six principles (especially the least restrictive environment principle), and preparing special and general educators, families, and students themselves for collaborative decision making. Historically, these demonstration programs have been at the forefront of advancing IDEA's purposes and goals. At present, they need to be significantly more targeted on current implementation and improvement issues.

Recommendations for Policy Revision

As noted above, many Federal, State, and local policies are problematic. Too often policies impede schools from implementing the principle of the least restrictive environment, and too rarely do they create incentives for schools to implement that principle. In some States, teacher union contracts limit regular or special educators in implementing the principle of the least restrictive environment. Moreover, some State laws, such as the Nurse Practice Acts, impede educators and other professionals from delivering school-based services to students with health-related needs.

Better Federal and State-level interagency collaboration is required, especially to improve services to students with severe emotional disabilities and traumatic brain injuries and to help students with visual impairments have easier access to printed materials. In addition, the purposes, goals, and rights guaranteed under the Americans with Disabilities Act need to serve as the basis for future policy discussions and decisions regarding special education and the delivery of services to children and youth with disabilities.

Recommendations for Improvements in Special Education Practice

Congress, OSERS, and State and local agencies must take action to improve special and general education practices. Practices that reflect state-of-the-art service delivery are well known. They are in place and have been in effect for quite some time. The problem is that these practices are the exception, not the rule. Once again, islands of excellence do not constitute the mainland.

State and local education agencies are responsible for delivering special education. They are responsible for assuring that education benefits students and is delivered in the least restrictive environment. Unfortunately, far too many State and local agencies fall short in using promising practices and state-of-the-art services that would help them effectively discharge their responsibilities in the areas of appropriate education and least restrictive environment for students with disabilities. In particular, appropriate services are still unavailable consistently and uniformly throughout the country to students who have been classified as having, among other disabilities: learning disabilities, severe emotional disturbance, mental retardation, severe and multiple disabilities, other health impairments, autism, traumatic brain injuries, visual impairments, and hearing impairments. For many of these students, curricula are ineffective and dated. Their transitions from school to adulthood are haphazard. It is not the least surprising, then, that the results of their education are so disappointing.

Indeed, there also is evidence of a paucity of services--not merely an absence of best practices--for students with traumatic brain injuries, visual impairments, and hearing impairments. There is also evidence that minority students, as well as children in early intervention and early childhood education programs, are especially shortchanged by the lack of any services or the lack of appropriate services. It is one thing to lack services altogether or to not have appropriate education even if some services are provided. These problems are compounded when services are finally provided that do not reflect state-of-the-art or promising practices for serving students in the least restrictive environment.

In early intervention, early childhood education, and throughout the elementary-to-upper school years, practices in special and general education simply do not sufficiently comply with the principle of least restrictive environment. Much more could be done to decentralize large centers where too many students receive their education and to disperse specialized services throughout their home communities. The restructuring and dispersal of presently centralized services are long overdue. While it is true that some students still need highly specialized services, they need to have access to an array of services which will meet these needs in their home communities. Most students currently placed in these centers can be educated to a much greater degree in general education. Their current levels of physical, academic, and social integration leave a great deal to be desired.

Another problem with current practice is found in the relatively low quantity and quality of parent-student participation and collaboration. While many parents do share decision-making responsibilities with special and regular educators, there is compelling evidence that many do not and that the reasons for this noninvolvement have less to do with their willingness and capabilities to be part of their children's education teams than with educators' attitudes and practices. Time and again, schools and educators are reluctant to share responsibilities and decision-making powers with parents and students, to schedule meetings at times and places convenient to parents and students, and to develop the skills to collaborate with parents and to teach self-determination to students. In short, there are administrative, attitudinal, and skill barriers to implementing this important principle.

To improve performance in the areas of appropriate education, least restrictive environment, and shared decision making, State education agencies need to put into place more regular and stringent systems for monitoring local agencies. Monitoring involves more than paper-compliance reviews: It has to involve scrutinizing the actual quality of special education services. Moreover, monitoring and quality assurance have to be proactive. That is, they must involve technical assistance and improvements in comprehensive systems of personnel development, targeting resources toward improving the skills of special and regular educators to deliver an appropriate education in the least restrictive environment to students with disabilities in collaboration with one another and with parents and students.

The need for interprofessional and interagency collaboration and coordination is one that State and local education agencies must address during the next five years. To deliver services in the least restrictive environment, to assure transition from school to postschool opportunities that IDEA and ADA envision, and to make certain that school restructuring benefits students in special education, State and local education agencies--and especially State agencies as they monitor local agencies--have to reconceptualize themselves. They have to be willing and able to move from separate systems of special and regular education to a unified system where all schools "own" all students, where all indeed means all, and where, if necessary or desirable, school-linked services emanate from comprehensive schools.

This shift will require State legislatures to design funding streams that unify school district administrative structures and services. It also will require State legislatures to ensure that State funding is based on the number of students needing special education (not just the number receiving IEPs), and on the needs of the students themselves (not on the categories into which they have been classified). State and Federal funding has been too closely tied to the number of students having IEPs, thus penalizing States that provide special education to those who need it but who may not have an IEP. Furthermore, State and Federal funding has been tied too much to categories of disability, so that students with a certain classification receive certain types and levels of service, rather than receiving what they actually need, without regard to their classifications.

In summary, State and local education agencies and even State legislatures themselves should move aggressively to adopt the promising practices that research, demonstration, and personnel preparation programs have developed and validated over the past 20 years of experience in special education, including reconfiguring service delivery, monitoring methods, and funding policies. It is clear that the knowledge base exists to improve special and general education practice. It is also clear that State and local education agencies and State legislatures have not, to date, put that knowledge to best use.

Recommendations for School Restructuring

The opportunities--and the risks--are high as State and local agencies begin to restructure themselves pursuant to the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Opportunities exist to create new norms and forms for all students, to reshape schools so that excellence and equity coexist, especially for students with disabilities. Indeed, to the extent that comprehensive schools, serving as the hub of school-linked human services, can be created as restructuring moves forward, the chances increase for wider implementation of the principle of least restrictive environment. However, intensive oversight by Congress, OSERS, and State agencies is especially warranted due to the risk that school restructuring will proceed without special education constituents being substantially involved and will result in school norms and forms that reduce opportunities for students with disabilities to receive education in the least restrictive environment in neighborhood schools.

Summary

As Congress considers the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act on the 20th anniversary of P.L. 94-142, the indisputable conclusions to be drawn from a review of scholarly literature and the work of nationally preeminent scholars in the fields of special education research and teacher training are as follows:

• IDEA advances the equal protection doctrine of the Constitution. It is not one of the so-called "unfunded mandates." It is, instead, Federal assistance to the States so that the States and their local education agencies can carry out their own Federal and State constitutional duties to educate all children with disabilities.
  
  
• IDEA has been the single most significant vehicle for creating and implementing effective special education. Its 20-year history of positive impact on students, their families, educators, other professionals, and communities is both obvious and impressive.
  
  
• Congress, OSERS, and State and local educational agencies must, however, improve IDEA and its implementation. The improvements will link the current islands of excellence in special education to the educational mainland. In time, they will create the mainland itself. When that happens, all students--those with and without disabilities--will benefit, all families and educators will benefit, and indeed the whole nation will benefit from the investment we have made through IDEA in advancing equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for students with disabilities.

Acknowledgements

The National Council on Disability extends its appreciation to the following individuals associated with the Beach Center on Families and Disability at the University of Kansas who worked on this report:

Project directors: H. Rutherford Turnbull, III, and Ann P. Turnbull, Co-Directors, Beach Center on Families and Disability, the University of Kansas.

Research associates: Amy Buchele-Ash, Linda Mitchell, and Thomas P. Tronsdal, Beach Center on Families and Disability, the University of Kansas; Gwen P. Beegle, Dana Lee Lattin, Maura Wechsler Linas, Nancy Petty, Julia S. Shaftel, Susan E. Tabor, and Robert L. Tabor, Department of Special Education, The University of Kansas; S. Lance Freije, Mary E. Giovanni-Schulte, Jennifer L. Johnson, Claudia L. Langston, Laura Lawson, Alisa Nickel, Victoria Peacock, Krisann A. Pearce, Brenda L. Penzel, Marian Raab, Kate Rainbolt, James Rountree, and Rebecca A. Ryan, School of Law, the University of Kansas.

Administrative Staff at Beach Center on Families and Disability, the University of Kansas: Gayle Martin, Lois Weldon, Ben Furnish, Cindy Higgins, and Marilyn Fender.

Summmary and analysis of testimony at the 10 regional hearings was prepared by H. Rutherford Turnbull, III, with the assistance of research associates.

Summary and analysis of the reports of special education researchers and teacher trainers was prepared by H. Rutherford Turnbull, III, and Ann P. Turnbull.

The National Council on Disability also wishes to extend its appreciation to the following individuals who prepared categorical reports as part of this research effort:

1. Learning Disabilities, by Donald D. Deshler, Jean Schumaker, and Joseph Fisher.
   
   
2. Mental Retardation, by Edward A. Polloway, Jim Patton, Tom E. C. Smith, and Eugene Edgar.
   
   
3. Serious Emotional Disabilities, by Lucille Eber and C. Michael Nelson.
   
   
4. Severe Multiple Disabilities, by Michael F. Giangreco and Martha E. Snell.
   
   
5. Autism, by Glen Dunlap and Meme Eno-Hieneman.
   
   
6. Physical Disabilities, by Sherwood J. Best and Gary A. Best.
   
   
7. Other Health Impairments, by Marilyn Mulligan Ault.
   
   
8. Visual Impairments, by Sandra Lewis.
   
   
9. Hearing Impairments, by John Luckner and Kathee M. Christensen.
   
   
10. Traumatic Brain Injury, by Ron Savage.

Finally, the National Council on Disability wishes to extend its appreciation to the following individuals who prepared topical reports as part of this research effort:

1. Early Intervention, by Don Bailey and Pamela Winton with Pat Trohanis, Tal Black, Jim Gallagher, Gloria Harbin, Robin McWilliam, P.J. McWilliam, Virginia Buysse, Farley Bernholz, and Pat Wesley.
   
   
2. Early Childhood, by Michael J. Guralnick.
   
   
3. LRE/Overview and Upper School, by Susan Brody Hasazi and Katharine Furney.
   
   
4. LRE/Early Childhood, by Samuel L. Odom.
   
   
5. LRE/Elementary and Middle School, by Kathleen Gee.
   
   
6. Social Relationships, by Luanna H. Meyer.
   
   
7. Self-Determination, by Michael Wehmeyer.
   
   
8. Transition, by Frank R. Rusch.
   
   
9. Supported Employment, by Paul Wehman and W. Grant Revell, Jr.
   
   
10. Minority Issues, by Vivian Correa, Maria E. Blanes-Reyes, and Mary Jane K. Rapport.
    
    
11. Collaboration, by Jacqueline Thousand, Richard A. Villa, and Ann Nevin.
    
    
12. Home-School Collaboration/Parent Participation, by Thomas H. Powell and Patricia L. Graham.
    
    
13. School Restructuring, by Margaret McLaughlin.
    
    
14. School-Linked Services, by Wayne Sailor.
    
    
15. Participatory Research, by Ann P. Turnbull and H. Rutherford Turnbull, III.
    
    
16. Positive Behavioral Support, by Robert H. Horner, Jeffrey R. Sprague, and George Sugai.
    
    
17. Violence Prevention, by Hill W. Walker.

A Brief Description of the National Council on Disability

Overview and Purpose

The National Council on Disability is an independent Federal agency led by 15 members appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The National Council was initially established in 1978 as an advisory board within the Department of Education (Public Law 95-602). The Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1984 (Public Law 98-221) transformed the National Council into an independent agency. The overall purpose of the National Council is to promote policies, programs, practices, and procedures that guarantee equal opportunity for all individuals with disabilities, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability; and to empower individuals with disabilities to achieve economic self sufficiency, independent living, and inclusion and integration into all aspects of society.

Specific Duties

The current statutory mandate of the National Council includes the following:

• Reviewing and evaluating, on a continuing basis, policies, programs, practices, and procedures concerning individuals with disabilities conducted or assisted by Federal departments and agencies, including programs established or assisted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, or under the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act; and all statutes and regulations pertaining to Federal programs which assist such individuals with disabilities in order to assess the effectiveness of such policies, programs, practices, procedures, statutes, and regulations in meeting the needs of individuals with disabilities;
  
  
• Reviewing and evaluating, on a continuing basis, new and emerging disability policy issues affecting individuals with disabilities at the Federal, State, and local levels, and in the private sector, including the need for and coordination of adult services, access to personal assistance services, school reform efforts and the impact of such efforts on individuals with disabilities, access for health care, and policies that operate as disincentives for the individuals to seek and retain employment.
  
  
• Making recommendations to the President, the Congress, the Secretary of Education, the Director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, and other officials of Federal agencies, respecting ways to better promote equal opportunity, economic self-sufficiency, independent living, and inclusion and integration into all aspects of society for Americans with disabilities.
  
  
• Providing the Congress, on a continuing basis, advice, recommendations, legislative proposals, and any additional information which the Council or the Congress deems appropriate;
  
  
• Gathering information about the implementation, effectiveness, and impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.);
  
  
• Advising the President, the Congress, the Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, the Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services within the Department of Education, and the Director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research on the development of the programs to be carried out under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended;
  
  
• Providing advice to the Commissioner with respect to the policies of and conduct of the Rehabilitation Services Administration;
  
  
• Making recommendations to the Director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research on ways to improve research, service, administration, and the collection, dissemination, and implementation of research findings affecting persons with disabilities;
  
  
• Providing advice regarding priorities for the activities of the Interagency Disability Coordinating Council and reviewing the recommendations of such Council for legislative and administrative changes to ensure that such recommendations are consistent with the purposes of the Council to promote the full integration, independence, and productivity of individuals with disabilities;
  
  
• Preparing and submitting to the President and the Congress a report entitled National Disability Policy: A Progress Report on an annual basis; and
  
  
• Preparing and submitting to the Congress and the President a report containing a summary of the activities and accomplishments of the Council on an annual basis.

Population Served and Current Activities

While many government agencies deal with issues and programs affecting people with disabilities, the National Council is the only federal agency charged with addressing, analyzing, and making recommendations on issues of public policy which affect people with disabilities regardless of age, disability type, perceived employment potential, economic need, specific functional ability, status as a veteran, or other individual circumstance. The National Council recognizes its unique opportunity to facilitate independent living, community integration, and employment opportunities for people with disabilities by assuring an informed and coordinated approach to addressing the concerns of persons with disabilities and eliminating barriers to their active participation in community and family life.

The National Council plays a major role in developing disability policy in America. In fact, it was the Council that originally proposed what eventually became the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Our present list of key issues includes monitoring the implementation of Federal civil rights laws affecting people with disabilities, analyzing the performance and results of special education programs, development of a national approach to personal assistance services, health care reform, the inclusion of students with disabilities in high quality programs in typical neighborhood schools, equal employment opportunity, community housing, improving assistive technology and access to the information superhighway, and ensuring that persons with disabilities who are members of minority groups fully participate in society.

¹⁴ See National Council on Disability (1994). Inclusionary education for students with disabilities: Keeping the promise. Washington, DC: Author.

¹⁵ See, for example: Serving the Nation's Students with Disabilities: Progress and Prospects. A Report to the President and Congress (1993); The Education of Students with Disabilities: Where Do We Stand? A Report to the President and the Congress of the United States (1989); Toward Independence: An Assessment of Federal Laws and Programs Affecting Persons with Disabilities (1986).

¹⁶ See, for example: SRI International (1993). The transition experiences of young people with disabilities: Implications for policy and programs. (Contract No. 300-87-0054). Washington, DC: Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education.

¹⁷ Retaliatory actions are prohibited under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 503. Similar provisions could be incorporated into IDEA.

¹⁸ Education Development Center (1994). A system apart: A study of the implementation of the least restrictive environment provisions of IDEA in Massachusetts and Illinois. Newton, MA: Author.

¹⁹ This synthesis is based on 27 scholarly research papers commissioned by the National Council on Disability, in collaboration with the Beach Center on Families and Disability at the University of Kansas, as part of its work to provide state-of-the-art information from national experts in the area of special education research and personnel preparation regarding the reauthorization of IDEA. The report was prepared by H. Rutherford Turnbull, III, and Ann P. Turnbull based on their own work and the work of the 27 scholars. (Please refer to Appendix E for a listing of these individuals.) It is anticipated that the research papers will be published in the near future.