Improving Education Results for Children with Disablities Act of 2004

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

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today the Senate will pass H.R. 1350, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, legislation which has my support.

This important legislation, which reauthorizes the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, is a compromise that protects the civil rights of children with disabilities, while ensuring that teachers, principals, and administrators have the essential tools to improve these children's academic or functional skills and knowledge. It is the culmination of months of hard-fought bipartisan and bicameral negotiations in an attempt to strike the balance between these competing interests and overall. This bill improves upon current law.

As an original cosponsor of the Senate version of this bill and the sponsor of an earlier bill on personnel preparation and development, I am pleased that most of the provisions I authored on the recruitment, preparation, support, and professional development of special education teachers, general education teachers, principals, administrators, related services personnel, and others working with children with disabilities have been included in the final version of the bill before us today. First, the bill requires states, through the renamed State Personnel Development Grants, to target 100% of the funding under this competitive grant for professional development activities-an increase of 25% from current law. These grants will help achieve our goal of ensuring that there is a highly qualified teacher in every classroom in America. Furthermore, the bill sends funding to states via a formula once funding reaches $100 million, ensuring that teachers in every state benefit. Additionally, as a condition of receiving a State Personnel Development Grant, a state educational agency must submit a comprehensive plan that identifies and addresses the state's personnel needs. This and other new requirements will ensure that the state educational agency has the necessary expertise and strategies in place to boost the skills of teachers and in turn improve the education of children with disabilities.

Retaining special education teachers new to the profession is a particular area of concern in our States. According to data from the National Clearinghouse for Professions in Special Education, the turnover rate of special education teachers in their first 3 years of teaching is exceptionally high-much higher than the comparative rate for general education teachers. Annual attrition rates for special education teachers are 6 percent for those who leave the field entirely and an additional 7.4 percent who transfer to general education. High turnover is costly both for school districts, which must repeatedly fill the same positions, and for students, who lose the advantage of being taught by experienced special education teachers. As such, I am pleased that the bill establishes a new grant program for institutions of higher education to help beginning special educators. Funding is authorized for incorporating an extended, such as a fifth year, clinical learning opportunity to existing special education preparation programs or for the creation or support of teacher-faculty partnerships, such as professional development schools, that provide high-quality and ongoing mentoring to new special education teachers so that they will remain in the field.

The legislation also enhances existing IDEA personnel preparation programs to ensure that all teachers and other personnel have the skills, knowledge, and leadership training to improve results for students with disabilities, including working collaboratively in regular classroom settings, addressing the needs of limited English proficient students with disabilities, preventing the misidentification of children with disabilities, working with parents to improve the education of their children, and utilizing positive behavioral interventions to address the conduct of children with disabilities that impedes their learning or that of others in the classroom.

There are other highlights as well. This bill aligns the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act with the No Child Left Behind Act by requiring states to ensure that all special education teachers are highly qualified by the 2005-2006 school year, including allowing teachers to meet the standard through the high objective uniform state standard of evaluation or HOUSSE; requires the uniformity of electronic versions of instructional materials and provides for the establishment of a National Instructional Materials Access Center to give schools a one-stop shop for textbooks and other educational materials for students who are blind or possess another disability which necessitates alternate formats; expands the current definition of related services to include school nurse services; strengthens early intervention and preschool programs for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities, including permitting states to create a system that gives parents the choice to have their child continue early intervention services until the age of five; establishes a new program aimed at developing and enhancing behavioral supports in schools while improving the quality of interim educational settings; enhances planning and transition services for children with disabilities; advances the monitoring and enforcement of IDEA; and improves services for homeless and foster care students with disabilities.

Teachers, principals, and administrators are also given flexibility to more effectively provide an education to all students. There are new approaches to resolving complaints to head off litigation and to reducing paperwork, along with a clearer framework for the discipline of children with disabilities.

I thank my colleagues, Senators KENNEDY and GREGG, and their staffs, for their excellent work on this important bipartisan legislation. One staff member, Connie Garner, deserves special recognition for her tireless efforts to make this law work for students, parents, teachers, and schools.

This is significant legislation for the people of Rhode Island and across the nation, and I am pleased to support it. I will also continue to press for full funding of IDEA to provide 40% of the excess cost of providing special education services-a promise Congress made in 1975 when IDEA was first enacted. Funding for IDEA services has only recently reached nearly 19 percent-just under halfway to fulfilling that promise. While we have taken a number of positive steps with this bill to ensure a high quality, free appropriate public education for children with disabilities, we must bridge the funding gap so these children receive the educational assistance and support they need and deserve.

TEACHERS

Mr. President, I am pleased that our bill now requires special education teachers to be fully certified by the state. Prohibiting temporary or emergency certification is an important step forward and one that brings IDEA in line with NCLB. It is important that teachers who are fully certified in special education have the unique knowledge and skills needed to effectively teach students with disabilities. Parents should know that the label of "fully certified special education teacher" means that the teacher has demonstrated both knowledge and skill in special education practices. Senator Kennedy, is it your understanding that full state certification in special education includes a demonstration of such knowledge and skill?

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, Senator Reed, that is my understanding. Well-prepared special education teachers are critical to our goal of providing a quality education for all children with disabilities. Such teachers need to be prepared with the skills and expertise needed to teach children with disabilities. Those skills may include the teaching of a standards-based reform curriculum to students with disabilities, helping students access technology-based learning tools, or adapting materials and learning environments for students with disabilities.

In addition to traditional special education preparation programs at our colleges and universities, some alternative routes to certification offer important and useful options to addressing the special education teacher shortage-especially in rural and urban school systems with hard-to-staff schools. Some of our alternative routes have produced special education teachers with great skill and knowledge.

Mr. REED. I thank Senator Kennedy for that clarification.