What Would You Change About IDEA

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:56:00 +0000

As many of you know, I am collecting your ideas for changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act when it comes up for reauthorization by the Congress. To further celebrate this quest we have launched a new poll as to this question. As always, our polls are not meant to be scientific in nature. But they are fun, and they give us an idea of what our readers are thinking, so please exercise your opportunity to vote! The poll appears on the lefthand side of the blog.

Now you may notice that the topic of this post definitely relates to my upcoming interview of Dr. Alexa Posny, the new Assistant secretary of Education. Unfortunately though the poll will not finish before the interview so I won’t be able to utilize the results at the big interview.

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I have whittled down your suggestions concerning changes to IDEA to the most popular ten. Here are the choices:
- Raise the Bar for FAPE
– Give Expert Witness Fees to Prevailing Parents
– Expand Role/Mission of OSEP
– Restrict Comp Ed/Reimbursement as Remedies
– Place Burden of Persuasion on School Districts
– Increase Transition Rights
– Allow Arbitration and More Mediation
– Assess Children with Disabilities at Instructional Levels for AYP
– Expand and Encourage Response to Intervention
– Regulate Seclusion/Restraints

There have been other suggestions and possibilities, these were just the top ten. Other frequent suggestions have included: Make the resolution session meetings confidential; clarify the educational rights of non-custodial parents; prohibit parents from representing themselves in federal court; allow systemic or class action style due process complaints; adopt the principals recommendation for a standard of care for each disability category; require IEP implementation to be material before constituting a violation of the law; and throw out the whole system and start again.

Please tell me what other changes you would like to see. IDEA will eventually be reauthorized – lets get our list together. Given our high level of credibility, I feel that we are being listened to by those who will be making the changes.

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What Would You Change About IDEA