Special Education System Needs Reform – Not Just More Funding, Witnesses Tell House Committee

Republicans, Democrats Urge Comprehensive Approach to IDEA Reauthorization

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Too many children are being wrongly placed in special education classes under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and Congress and the White House should address the issue as part of a comprehensive approach to IDEA reauthorization, Republican and Democrat witnesses told members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce today.

            The testimony bolsters the case against an amendment attached to the Senate version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization bill that would require mandatory full funding of IDEA without addressing the need for reform.  The amendment faces strong bipartisan opposition in the House.

“[W]e must develop a better understanding of the reasons minority students are mislabeled at such disproportionate rates,” said Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), who requested the hearing in a letter to committee chairman John Boehner (R-OH) in March.  Citing a study by Harvard University’s Civil Rights Project that found African American children are almost three times as likely as white children to be wrongly placed in special education classes, Fattah noted that “solving the problems of over-representation of minority students will require a comprehensive systemic approach.”

            Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who has led the Bush Administration’s calls for meaningful reform of IDEA on behalf of disabled students, reiterated the Administration’s concerns about problems with the current IDEA system and announced that President Bush is creating a new commission to assist in developing research-based solutions.  Former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad will chair the commission.

          “President Bush is committed to the bold proposition that every child can learn,” Secretary Paige said.  “This doesn't mean that after you siphon off the children who have disabilities; or the children who were never properly taught how to read; or the children who never learned English, or the children who disrupted their classrooms, that most of the rest can learn.  It means that all of our kids, even the ones our system calls ‘hard to teach,’ can learn.  He understands that children with disabilities are the most likely to be left behind and have historically been left out and left behind.”

            Committee chairman John Boehner (R-OH) noted that the federal government is not paying its share of the financial burden associated with the 1975 IDEA mandate guaranteeing children with special education needs access to the same public education other students have.

            “While federal funding for the IDEA has increased by 173 percent since 1994, it still falls far short,” Boehner said, while noting that “reform and reauthorization must remain linked.”

            The Reading First and Early Reading First initiatives in H.R. 1, President Bush’s No Child Left Behind education reform bill, will ease some of the burdens on the IDEA system, Boehner said, “but the fight against the soft bigotry of low expectations will take years to wage.”

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