Emails needed to Congress re special ed - write early, write often, & pls share!

[Guest guest]

Congress is currently considering amendments to the Elementary and

Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the law most recently known as No Child Left

Behind. Please send comments to the House of Representatives Committee on

Education and Labor asking them to keep the law strong for students with

disabilities. School districts are pressing hard to weaken NCLB for children

with

disabilities. The only way to push back is to let Congress know early and

often! Email _eseacomments@..._

(mailto:eseacomments@...) by March 26, 2010 (for more info, see

_http://edlabor.house.gov/newsroom/2010/02/lawmakers-announce-plan-for-a.shtml_

(http://edlabor.house.gov/newsroom/2010/02/lawmakers-announce-plan-for-a.shtml)

). At the same

time, send an email to your own Representative,

_https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml_

(https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml) ,

and Senators,

_http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm_

(http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm)

and share your views with them. The school districts are doing it, you

should be too.

* Children with disabilities have long been covered by the same

assessment requirements as everyone else. This is designed to ensure that

schools teach them the same material as other children, and even provide the

needed supports, through their IEPs, to ensure that they learn it. (Only the

1% of all children with severe cognitive disabilities have been given

alternative assessments not tied to grade-level standards.) But there has been

pressure on Congress to change this and allow the IEP to be used as the

assessment measure for students with disabilities. This leaves the fox

guarding the henhouse. Schools will weaken IEPs to ensure that every child

" achieves. " Without an objective accountability system that ESEA provides,

schools seeking to generate progress with minimal expense will have every

incentive to give children with disabilities weak education programs and weak

goals and objectives. This in turn will support weakening the IEP services

the child receives. PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO CONGRESS AND TELL THEM TO

REJECT THE USE OF IEPS, AND TESTS BASED ON IEPS, AS THE MEASURE OF

ACCOUNTABILITY UNDER ESEA/NCLB FOR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES. If you do

nothing

else, please email Congress and make this point. We must keep NCLB strong if we

are to keep IDEA strong when it is reauthorized in a few years.

* Tell Congress that America must close the achievement gap for

children with disabilities, and ensure that every child with a disability

receives an education that leads to good employment, post-secondary education,

and maximum independence. Today, 30% of students with disabilities drop out

of school; nearly 50% are not on grade level for their age; 74% are in the

bottom quartile in reading in high school and 63%,in elementary and middle

school; and after finishing high school, students with disabilities earn on

average $7.30 an hour (which works out to an annual full-time income of

about $15,000). [source of data: Special Education Elementary Longitudinal

Study (SEELS) and National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2)]. All

students should leave high school ready for college or a career. All students

– including those with disabilities – must graduate from high school

prepared to succeed in postsecondary education and/or in the workplace. All

students deserve an educational experience that fosters academic and social

growth by providing a challenging, meaningful, and enriched learning

environment that builds upon their strengths and addresses their individual

needs.

* Assessments must be designed and implemented to ensure that all

students can accurately demonstrate their academic knowledge and skills.

State, district and classroom based assessments must utilize the principles of

Universal Design for Learning to ensure that all students – including

those with disabilities – can meaningfully demonstrate their knowledge and

skills, thereby providing a more accurate understanding of student academic

performance for evaluation by educators, families and policymakers. Too often,

assessments test the disability, rather than testing what a child does

know. An assessment can only be considered an accurate picture of a student’s

knowledge and skills if it is designed to allow a student to most

effectively demonstrate what they know. For the same reason, Universal Design

must

be incorporated into how children are taught in the classroom, to remove

barriers for all children, regardless of physical or cognitive or other

disability.

* All students are general education students first. Whether they

receive special education or related services under the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or accommodations under Section 504 of the

Rehabilitation Act of 1973, all students are entitled to receive an

appropriate education from the public school system. ESEA must continue to

work in

conjunction with IDEA to promote a learning environment in which all

children are given the opportunity to become proficient on grade-level content

standards. The integration of IDEA, Section 504 and ESEA must be enhanced to

ensure all students regardless of disability status receive an appropriate

education.

Please feel free to tell Congress anything else you wish about these ESEA

or the education of children with disabilities. As we learned with IDEA

2004, the school districts contact Congress early and often. They have paid

lobbyists and all kinds of systems that enable them to reach out and

advocate for their views. Parents, attorneys, and advocates learn about the

process too late, and there are often efforts to stop turnout (such as telling

people that only parents should write to Congress --a falsehood that

misunderstands the Congressional process). It is critically important that

parents, advocates, attorneys, and everyone who supports the rights of children

with disabilities to learn and receive a GOOD EDUCATION, to contact Congress

and share your views.

Thank you,

_jessicabutler@..._ (mailto:jessicabutler@...) (that's y, not

g)

Sandy, Illinois (alpy2@...)

Volunteer Co-Webmaster, Our Children Left Behind

(http://www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com) (IDEA & NCLB reauthorization)