Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act of 2004-Conference Report

IMPROVING EDUCATION RESULTS FOR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 2004-CONFERENCE REPORT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I will applaud passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA is based on the American principle of equal opportunity. IDEA recognizes that students have a civil right to a free, appropriate public education, even if they have special needs that require additional resources.

We still have a long way to go to meet the Federal Government's promise to fund 40 percent of special education, and we are working on that challenge. However, this bill that meets my highest priority-protecting the right of children with disabilities to a free, appropriate public education. In addition, this bill takes critical steps towards improving monitoring, enforcement, and public reporting. Our laws are only meaningful if we are willing to enforce them, and the provisions in this bill will help us do just that. I am pleased that this bill contains provisions that I fought for to provide the additional funding that school districts-especially small, rural districts or districts with major medical facilities-really need to provide FAPE for children whose disabilities result in extremely high costs. The bill also contains important improvements to early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities.

I am particularly pleased that we were able to improve services for homeless and foster children with disabilities and children with disabilities in military families in this bill. I would like to thank my colleague, Senator DeWine, and his staff, Mary Beth Luna, for working with me on these important provisions. These provisions are a major victory for America's most vulnerable disabled students. The bill ensures that a high quality education will follow them whenever they have to move to another school. The bill improves special education services and coordination of services for children with disabilities who transfer school districts; clarifies which appropriate adults can advocate for children with regard to their special education services, including when the parents cannot be located or are uninvolved with the child; improves coordination between McKinney-Vento and IDEA and overall representation of homeless and foster children in IDEA, and strengthens and expands early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities who are homeless, in foster care, or in military families.

While I do believe that this bill takes critical steps to improve special education in this country, I am disappointed that the Federal Government continues to fail to meet the funding promises under IDEA. Nearly 30 years ago, the Federal Government made a commitment of equal opportunity to the Nation's children with disabilities. With that commitment, we promised that the Federal Government would uphold its end of the bargain and pay 40 percent of the average per student cost for every special education student. Today, however, the Federal Government is paying about half of that cost.

Over the past few years, IDEA has received significant increases. However, according to the Congressional Research Service, at increases of $1 billion each year, the Federal Government will never fulfill the promise of funding at 40 percent. Further, even if annual increases were $1 billion plus inflation, we will not reach the promised level of 40 percent until 2035-more than 30 years from now.

Local schools are already struggling with the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, the lack of promised federal funding, and the dismal fiscal picture facing our state and local governments. I know we can do better for America's disabled students. Let's not make them wait another 30 years to fully-fund this law. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that the Federal Government fulfills the promises of IDEA next year.

I want to thank Senator Kennedy, Chairman Gregg, Chairman Boehner, and Congressman Miller for their leadership on this bill. I also want to thank their staffs, Connie Garner, Denzel McGuire, Bill Lucia, Sally Lovejoy, David Cleary, Melanie Looney, Alex Nock, and Alice Cain for all of their hard work on this bill. The time and effort that they and their staff have put into this bill really show in the quality of the final product, which I am pleased to support.