Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2003

INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2003

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his help, assistance, and tireless effort in making sure this bill moved forward, and in an extremely constructive way. We have had considerable success in this committee in passing out of the committee a number of major pieces of legislation that have been bipartisan. Even in this time, as we head into a Presidential election, when there is a bit of tension and some slowdown in legislative activity due to the differences of opinion, which are being highlighted both substantively and politically, we have been able to make progress not only on special education but on other bills, such as the pension bill, which we passed and, hopefully fairly soon, on the bioshield bill, which is a critical piece of legislation. And that is in the last couple months.

The special education bill is one this committee has attended to over the years and has tried to improve. It is a very intense piece of legislation in the sense that the parents and children who are affected by it are immediately impacted by everything we do. Clearly, the school systems, which try to respond to the needs of these children, and often have very complicated and difficult issues to resolve, are also immediately impacted.

Therefore, I am glad we have been able to reach what is clearly a bipartisan and very positive and aggressive bill in moving forward on the issue of giving special needs children adequate education and appropriate education, to which they have a right and which, obviously, we all want to accomplish.

The bill has received strong support from across the board. It is supported by the Council of Chief State School Officers, the American Association of School Administrators, Great City Schools, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, the Council for Exceptional Children, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Association for the Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired.

I think it is important to note those different groups that represent different constituencies because sometimes there is tension between those groups as to how special needs children should be addressed and how they should be educated.

As Senator Kennedy has so effectively highlighted, the bill creates a number of initiatives with which we are trying to address improvement of the educational system as it reaches out to these children. The first area that is the most fundamental area of change is what the children are learning. Unfortunately, the present law that has evolved over time has become an inputs exercise. In fact, there are something like 819 items which must be checked off in every school district for every child relative to the special needs of that child and how they are educated. We came to the conclusion that this was not getting to the bottom line.

The bottom line is, are these children learning? Is their life improving? Are they being given the tools they need in order to participate in society? The bill moves significantly from being an inputs-tested bill to being an outputs-tested bill, to looking at improvement in academic results as being the primary mode under which we evaluate whether the bill is working relative to the children it is supposed to impact.

Secondly, it is the teacher who is the key player in this effort. Teachers who undertake teaching special needs children are extraordinary people. They are giving of themselves in an immense way. I had the chance, when I headed up a center that dealt with children who had severe disabilities, to constantly be amazed at the commitment of these individuals who are basically, 24 hours a day-at least in our institution-trying to assist the children as they work through their personal problems but also work toward learning more. What we have tried to do is give teachers some new tools and relieve them of some of the bureaucratic burden. That is especially important.

It is estimated that the average special needs teacher may spend as much as a day and a half each week just doing paperwork. We tried to reduce that and give the teachers the professional support they need and the assistance to make sure they are qualified to deal with these children who have very complex and difficult issues.

Thirdly, we attempt to facilitate a better relationship between parents and the schools. Unfortunately, there is a natural tension. It has developed over time. Sometimes it becomes quite aggravated. It not only goes to the schools, it goes to the parents of other children in the school and the property-tax payers in the community. There is no reason a parent of a special needs child should find themselves in a confrontational situation as they try to get what is the appropriate education for their children. We have developed a whole series of initiatives to try to, for better or worse, create dispute resolution in a more comfortable manner rather than a confrontational and litigious manner. This is important to the parent and to the school system. It will mean resources, instead of being focused on hiring attorneys and confrontation in the courtroom or confrontation in a formal legal setting, can be focused on actually educating the child in the classroom. That is the bottom line.

Fourth, the bill gives schools the tools they need to ensure that all the children are safe. As Senator Kennedy mentioned, discipline has always been a very difficult issue relative to IDEA, relative to special needs children. Disruption in the classroom is one of the primary concerns you hear when talking with teachers and faculty in relation to how special needs children are handled and dealt with in the classroom. In this bill we try to address that. We have made significant progress.

I need to especially point out the work of Senator Sessions who focused on this issue, and in a very constructive way moved the process forward, so we have an excellent piece of legislation in this area.

Lastly, we do have, as part of the amendments which passed yesterday, a glide path to full funding under the discretionary accounts, which is the proper way it should be done. In the history of dramatic increases in funding in this account, as was mentioned by Senator Bond, a 376-percent increase is the fastest growing funding increase of any spending item in the Federal budget on a percentage basis over the last few years. The commitment is there and now the authorization is locked in to get us to full funding in 6 to 7 years.

This is a good piece of legislation. I expect it to receive very strong support. It didn't come about through luck and just out of the blue. It came about because a lot of people spent a lot of time over a significant period in constructing it and listening and bringing the people who were involved to the table to discuss it.

I especially thank some of those folks because most of this work is done by our staff, and they do an extraordinary job. Let me mention a couple. Senator Kennedy has mentioned them also on his side of the aisle.

Specifically with Senator Sessions, there was John Little of his staff who worked so hard on the discipline issue. Senator Alexander and his staff; Kristin Bannerman, worked very hard on providing State and school districts greater flexibility. Of course, from Senator Kennedy and his staff there is Michael Myers, who is staff director, and Connie Garner, who was already mentioned, who has been a major player. And Jeremy Buzzell, we very much appreciate his effort.

On my staff, I have some extraordinary people who have done incredible work and deserve a great amount of accolades for this bill getting to this point: Annie White, who is truly a specialist in this area; Denzel McGuire, an extraordinary leader on all educational issues; and Bill Lucia, who is equally strong on these issues. I have had the very good fortune to have an exceptional staff-and, of course, my staff director Sharon Soderstrom, who does an exceptional job on all issues. We are very lucky to have these folks working for us.

As a result of their efforts, we have been able to produce what I believe is an exceptional and a positive work product which is consistent with the efforts of this committee generally, as I mentioned.

I thought I might read some of the things we have been able to pass out of this committee this year, this Congress, to reflect on how constructive we have been, even in a time of some considerable partisanship. We have done the genetics nondiscrimination bill; the generics drug bill, which reduces the cost of generics; special education; the community services block grant; the Workforce Investment Act, if we can get that to conference; we have the trauma care bill; the medical devices bill; the child abuse prevention and treatment bill; the childcare block grant; the Smallpox Emergency Personnel Protection Act; pediatric drug research authority; Organ Donation and Recovery Act; and the Birth Defects Act. That is just a few of the pieces of legislation we have been able to produce out of this committee in a bipartisan effort.

I certainly appreciate the assistance of Senator Kennedy undertaking and accomplishing this very strong record.
I reserve the remainder of my time.