November 18, 2004
Conferees Pass Compromise for 6.5 Million Special Education Pupils
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMONY TIMES, November 17, 2004

LINK

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - A House-Senate conference committee gave near unanimous approval to major changes in the law that governs special education for 6.5 million disabled students, charting new ways for schools to identify children for extra help more swiftly, reduce legal challenges by dissatisfied parents and make it easier for schools to remove disruptive students whose misbehavior is not caused by their disability.

The bill, widely expected to have votes by the full House and Senate on Friday, stopped short of more sweeping changes proposed last year in a House bill.

That version, which school administrators and state officials supported, drew bitter opposition from the parents of disabled children and their advocates.

It would have let governors limit states' reimbursements to lawyers who won suits on behalf of disabled children and would have let schools remove disabled children who violated codes of conduct, whether or not their misbehavior was related to medical conditions.

Instead, after weeks of House-Senate talks, a more moderate approach that passed the Senate with a bipartisan majority in May prevailed in most areas.

"A nation, at its best, is evaluated by how it cares for its children," Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said. "This is really about hope for children that, too often, don't have it."

Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who is the departing chairman of the committee, said the bill met "four basic goals: make sure students are learning, free teachers from burdensome bureaucratic requirements, help parents and schools work together better and create the safest classroom environment possible for all students."

The bill would broaden the ways for schools to identify special education pupils, allowing schools to reach children in earlier grades and, the lawmakers said, reduce the relatively high share of minority children who are tracked toward special education.

It would also give districts the flexibility to spend up to 15 percent of federal special education money on services to children who are not in special education, but who may need extra help to succeed in regular classrooms.

Regarding the contentious issue of classroom discipline, the compromise bill maintains federal protections that require schools to show that a disabled child's misbehavior is not a result of a disability or of the school's failure to provide services that could have prevented the outburst. But if a review determines that the misconduct is unrelated to the disability, the school could expel the pupil.

Diane Smith, senior disability legal specialist at the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems, said her organization was more relieved than pleased by the compromise bill.

"Obviously, it's a vast improvement over the House version," Ms. Smith said. "It's not an improvement over current law. But it's the best we're going to get."

Advocates and parents of disabled children, who packed the hearing room on Wednesday, complained that they were unsure of exactly what was agreed to, because summaries of the major points were distributed only to the news media and not the public. The precise language of the compromise accord was not released at the hearing.

"You can't get a copy," said Marilyn Arons, founder of the Parent Information Center of New Jersey, who had traveled here for the committee vote.

Ms. Arons said her group had hoped to see the law explicitly permit parents to represent their children at legal proceedings, a point that, as far as she could tell, the bill did not ultimately address.

She said, "We are sitting here absolutely appalled and devastated."