From Transition Letter Attachment Sent by AAPD and a Coalition of Consumer Controlled Organizations (12/22/08):
Education
Background:
·
Students with disabilities commonly face physical abuse in public and
private schools due to policies that allow for restraint, seclusion, and
aversives, even though federal laws protect people with disabilities from abuse
in institutions and treatment settings through monitoring by the Protection and
Advocacy (P&A) system.
·
In the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Congress
promised to cover the cost of 40% of the “excess cost” of state special
education expenditures, but covers less than half of that.
·
The US Supreme Court limited IDEA rights of children with disabilities
by placing the burden of proof on parents, and eliminating expert fee
reimbursement to prevailing parents.
·
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) leaves behind children with disabilities,
due to its incentive structure.
·
Students with disabilities face significant barriers to transition out
of K-12, are less likely to complete or attend higher education, and experience
difficulty navigating fragmented adult services.
·
Classroom teachers are often unprepared to integrate students with
disabilities into mainstream classrooms.
·
Children with disabilities are often bullied in school.
Long Term Goals:
·
Protect students with disabilities from school abuse. Federal laws that protect
people with disabilities from abuse in institutional and treatment settings
must apply to all schools.
·
Fully Fund IDEA to effectively fulfill students’ right to “a free and appropriate
public education” in the “least restrictive environment,” increase
accountability to ensure effective special education programs based on the
latest research, and insure implementation and enforcement of the law.
·
Integrate the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) and IDEA so they are accountability-focused,
research-driven and advances opportunities for students with disabilities.
· Improve Student Transition: Eliminate barriers that keep students with disabilities from seeking and completing higher education, including barriers to loans and grants, barriers that cause a higher college drop-out rate for students with disabilities, and barriers that prevent students from making a direct transition to work; and widely implement best practices from schools with successful outcomes.
Short Term Goals:
·
Issue an Executive Order empowering HHS to implement the DD Bill of
Rights Act in all schools; ban the
use of aversive interventions, non-emergency restraint, and seclusion for
punishment; allow HHS to monitor and enforce its provisions through the
P&A, and other systems; and assure all federal laws that protect
individuals with disabilities in institutions and residential facilities, apply
to and are enforced in all schools.
·
Work with Congress to:
o
Pass the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of
2008, to safeguard students in residential school programs and end the abuse they
now suffer.
o
Pass an IDEA Full Funding Bill, to bring federal funding of special
education costs to the promised 40% and require a fiscal and programmatic audit
of the use of IDEA funds.
o
Restore IDEA’s due process rights, allow reimbursement to prevailing
families for expert fees, and place the burden of proof in IDEA challenges on
school districts.
·
Charge the Secretary of Education to conduct a comprehensive study of
students with disabilities and their transition into higher education, the
workplace, and adult services infrastructure.
Include a focus on underserved populations within the disability
community.
·
Charge the Secretary of Education to develop model standards for
bullying prevention for schools and districts to adopt as part of a DOE-led
nation-wide effort to provide technical assistance, fund studies to reduce the
prevalence of bullying, harassment, and violence against students with
disabilities and other students, and explore the outcomes of zero tolerance
programs on students with disabilities
·
Work with Congress to
o
Recognize October as National Disability History and Awareness Month,
to promote the inclusion of the history of the disability rights movement and
the disability experience in education.
o
Ensure the next reauthorization of IDEA highlights transition by
requiring experiential learning for students with disabilities to maximize
outcomes, and recognizing the significant role state developmental disability
service agencies, vocational rehabilitation agencies, and Independent Living
Centers and others must play in this process in the transition process.
o
Require NCLB data collection to incorporate transition outcomes for
students with disabilities to allow tracking of post-school outcomes for
students with disabilities on both a school district and state-by-state basis.
o Require training and support of all teachers in Universal Design for Learning and other best practices to improve inclusion of students with disabilities into classrooms.
o
Develop and fund leadership programs for youth with disabilities.
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