Opening Remarks, Lilliam Rangel Diaz, Town Meeting on IDEA Enforcement

Opening Remarks
Lilliam Rangel Diaz
NCD Town Meeting on Enforcement of IDEA
September 22, 1999

Thank you Marca for your kind words and for your leadership on behalf of children, youth and families.

I am very excited to be here with all of you today to discuss a topic that is near and dear to my heart. As the parent of six beautiful boys, two of whom have disabilities, I and my family have lived through too many trials and tribulations to get the educational services and supports that I know my children have a right to. I know that the government alone cannot fix all that is wrong with the implementation of IDEA, but I also know that the government can work more effectively to empower families and children so that the civil right to a free appropriate public education is taken seriously by every school administrator, teacher, school board, and education official in the country.

As you might imagine, my NCD colleagues and I have lots of ideas about how to improve enforcement of IDEA, but the NCD contingent is here today to listen and learn from all of you about how enforcement can be improved. We will take the valuable information and ideas you share today and incorporate your input into our report on federal enforcement, into our release strategy for the report, and into the ongoing discussions we are having with Congressional staff and Administration officials about how to improve outcomes for children and youth with disabilities.

No matter how good our report ends up being, it will not make a difference for children, youth and families without the hard work of everyone in this room. We all need to come together around shared goals for IDEA enforcement so that our collective voices will be heard by all those who are in a position to act on the recommendations we put forward.

As a person who is originally from Cuba, I am committed to working with parents and disability leaders from diverse cultural backgrounds to make sure that NCD's IDEA enforcement agenda, or really the disability community's IDEA enforcement agenda, is responsive to and inclusive of the unique needs of children, youth, and families from diverse cultural backgrounds. To this end, NCD will be hosting a think tank with disability leaders from diverse cultural backgrounds in the Spring of 2000. The goal of the meeting will be to review the information and recommendations NCD has gleaned from grassroots hearings, round tables and town meetings like the one we are holding today, and to fashion a comprehensive civil rights agenda that will meet the needs of all people with disabilities in this great country.

Thank you all for your time today and please keep in touch with NCD and with me so that you will hold us accountable to be responsive to the critical issues that will surface during today's discussion.

I am going to now turn the microphone over to NCD's general counsel and director of policy, Andrew Imparato, who will briefly describe the key findings from our comprehensive independent study on federal enforcement of IDEA that will be released next month.