For more information, please contact:
Leslie Jackson (301) 652-2862
Paul Marchand (202) 783-2229
Katy Beh Neas (202) 347-3066
Jane West (301) 718-0979
www.c-c-d.org
CCD STATEMENT ON RELEASE OF REPORT FROM
THE PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION ON EXCELLENCE IN SPECIAL EDUCATION
July 9, 2002
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Education Task Force has conducted a preliminary examination of the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education’s report, A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and their Families. In general, CCD concurs with the Commission’s three major policy goals: focus on results, not process; embrace a model of prevention not a model of failure; and consider children with disabilities as general education children first. CCD is analyzing all of the report’s policy recommendations and will comment on them in the near future.
CCD is very troubled that several of the Commission’s recommendations are inconsistent with the Commission’s major policy goals, and might result in reducing and not improving educational results for children with disabilities. For example, the Commission recommends permitting ten states to waive federal "paperwork" requirements. The report does not detail what requirements are considered paperwork, raising fears in some of our members that states could waive federal requirements that are essential to efforts to improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities. CCD Education Task Force co-chair Katy Beh Neas asks "Is it a paperwork burden or a focus on results to consider the assistive technology needs of a child when developing the child’s Individualized Education Program?"
CCD urges Congress to reaffirm its commitment to enhance educational outcomes for children with disabilities by fostering the effective implementation and enforcement of IDEA. As we have stated previously, IDEA is a good law, based on sound principles. The bi-partisan reforms made in the 1997 amendments have never been fully implemented. It is not a defective law in need of major reform. More details regarding CCD’s views may be found in our guiding principles on the IDEA reauthorization that appear on the CCD website at
www.c-c-d.org.CCD is a coalition of national consumer, advocacy, provider and professional organizations headquartered in Washington, D.C. Since 1973, CCD has advocated on behalf of people of all ages with physical and mental disabilities and their families. CCD has worked to achieve federal legislation and regulations that assure that the 54 million children and adults with disabilities are fully integrated into the mainstream of society. More than 40 organizations participate in the CCD Education Task Force.