NAD Grades the IDEA Bill

Submitted by admin [1] on Tue, 04/01/2003 - 04:00

The Committee on Education and the Workforce, U. S. House of Representatives, is scheduled to mark up (review and likely approve) a bill to amend and extend the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act on Wednesday, April 9. The NAD has reviewed the bill as approved by a subcommittee on April 2. Because the IDEA is so important, the NAD is concerned that adhering to such a very fast timeline will greatly limit the ability of deaf and hard of hearing individuals, professionals, and parents to participate in this important legislative process.

HR 1350 was first introduced on March 19. On that date, Rep. Mike Castle (DE) and 11 co-sponsors introduced the "Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act". This bill, HR 1350, is one of several "companion bills" introduced recently and being considered by the House Education and the Workforce Committee. To see the Committee's explanation of the bill, and the bill's contents, readers may go to: http://edworkforce.house.gov [2].

The NAD was disappointed with HR 1350. This bill contains virtually none of the many substantive recommendations advanced by the NAD in 2002 and 2003.

The NAD had strongly urged the addition of language assuring the right of deaf and hard of hearing children to enjoy direct communication with teachers and classmates. We had encouraged the strengthening of the "special factors" language instructing IEP teams to meet the special needs of deaf and hard of hearing students, notably their communication and language needs. The NAD had strongly recommended that a similarly beefed-up special factors provision be placed into IDEA Part C. There is none at present telling writers of Individualized Family Services Plans (IFSP)- to meet or even to consider such needs. Further, the NAD had called attention to the pressing need for IDEA Part D funding for teacher training, research on interpreting, and other things. HR 1350 incorporates none of these recommendations.

HR 1350 also severely weakens several long-standing provisions of the IDEA including the provision for funding captioned videos and broadcast programming.

The NAD notes that HR 1350 had 12 Republican sponsors at introduction: the sponsor, a subcommittee chairman, and 11 other Republicans. Today, April 6, it still has 12. This is fewer than half of the Republicans on the Education and the Workforce Committee. There are no Democratic co-sponsors. For these reasons, the NAD believes that HR 1350 may not be, as claimed, a comprehensive reauthorization bill. Nonetheless, NAD staff continue to monitor developments closely. This includes being in close and constant communication with Hill staffers. The NAD will keep members apprised of any new developments.

Individuals can review the NAD position paper and recommendations online.

If you have questions, review the NAD position paper on IDEA, before contacting the NAD Law and Advocacy Center (LAC) at comments@nad.org [3].

Established in 1880, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is the nation's oldest and largest nonprofit organization safeguarding the accessibility and civil rights of 28 million deaf and hard of hearing Americans across a broad range of areas including education, employment, health care, and telecommunications.