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ORAL TESTIMONY OF LILLIAM RANGEL-DIAZ Good morning, Chairman Kennedy and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing. I am a proud member of the National Council on Disability and am humbled to be here today on their behalf. I am also most proud to be "mom" to six wonderful boys, two of them with disabilities, and to serve the families of children with disabilities in my community as a professional parent advocate. As an independent Federal agency, the NCD charge is to make recommendations to the President, Congress and Federal agencies on equal opportunity for all individuals with disabilities. We welcome the opportunity to share our recommendations with you this morning about IDEA. Unfortunately, students with disabilities and their advocates continue to fight some of the same battles that were fought in Brown v. the Board of Education to put an end to the myth of "separate is not equal." Congress crafted the precursor to IDEA in 1975 to halt these practices. If IDEA was faithfully implemented and enforced across the country, it would work well. However, twenty-seven years later we are still seeking solutions. NCD has identified four critical issues in the implementation of this civil rights law: monitoring and enforcement; full funding; discipline; and, over-representation of students from culturally diverse backgrounds. Most of my comments this morning will be on the first, monitoring and enforcement, for we believe it to be the key to all others. In January 2000, NCD released Back to School on Civil Rights reporting a study that established how the federal system of monitoring and enforcement has been working in enforcing basic requirements of IDEA: (FAPE), (LRE), (IEP), transition, general supervision, procedural safeguards, and protections in evaluation of students with disabilities. The study found every state and the District of Columbia out of compliance with the law to different degrees: 80% of the states failed to ensure compliance with FAPE; 78% failed to ensure compliance with procedural safeguards; and 72% failed to ensure compliance with LRE, thereby unnecessarily relegating students to segregated settings. We found students from diverse populations disproportionately represented in separate classrooms. Basically, we found that too many students: did not receive FAPE; were not educated in the LRE - meaning inappropriate placement in separate, segregated settings or the lack of services for students served in regular classrooms; did not receive related services reflected in their IEPs; could not access transition services; and, did not receive procedural safeguards and protections. In other words, the real enforcers of the law have been parents, and, as I will discuss later, they are not provided the tools they need to do this important work. We have other studies as well. In a SSA commissioned study on the implementation of transition mandates and post-secondary education and employment outcomes, we found poor graduation rates ; low employment rates; low post-secondary education participation; and an increasing number of youth stuck on the Social Security benefit rolls. At the same time, we identified a host of effective practices and research that should be more widely utilized, as well as promising federal initiatives that deserve more support. Our follow-up activities have included collaboration with OSEP, supporting a group of stakeholders who are reviewing OSEP's Continuous Monitoring Improvement System and recommending performance benchmarks and enforcement triggers. An NCD Youth Advisory Committee inform us on the needs of youth with disabilities, particularly related to IDEA. Parents of children with disabilities are enthusiastic supporters of the law. They think it's a good law, but they also outline problems that emphasize the importance of strong Federal enforcement. When students do not receive IEP services and/or supports, they cannot achieve outcomes. Students categorically and unnecessarily placed in restrictive educational settings are stigmatized and have difficulty learning. Under such circumstances school systems do not maximize the use of the scarce federal education dollars. We understand the need to explore the question "doesn't such a high level of non-compliance point to the fact that it is clearly a bad law that states cannot comply with and whose time for change has come?" However, from our work we can only conclude that this is not the case. We believe that altering the basic educational rights in IDEA would devastate the promise of FAPE for students with disabilities. From Back to School, we know that 20% of the states are in compliance with the FAPE requirements. What is their story? The same applies to LRE; we need to look to the 28% of the states that were found to be in compliance for guidance. There are beacons out there that we need to follow. The issue is not the law. Our data clearly identifies the major issues: that implementation of IDEA has been inconsistent and lacking any real teeth. Currently OSEP relies on compliance plans and technical assistance for states found out of compliance with IDEA. There is no clear objective criteria for additional enforcement options for states that persist in substantial non-compliance. Without standards defining limits and providing appropriate sanctions, the incentives for corrections are not compelling enough to stop the cycle of noncompliance. The result is devastating for students and their families who continue to be denied the protections of this civil rights law. To address the problems, NCD has several recommendations.
Three additional recommendations are outlined in our written testimony related to full funding, discipline and professional development. I am happy to answer questions to clarify our position on these or any other of our recommendations. HOME | FAQs | NEWSROOM | SITE MAP | FEDERAL AGENCIES | RESOURCES |
