NLDline
Subj: THE SPECIAL ED ADVOCATE,
FEBRUARY 2, 2000 (V. 3, NO. 4)
Date: 2/2/00 8:59:56 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: webmaster@wrightslaw.com (Wrightslaw / Special Ed Advocate)
Sender: owner-special-ed-advocate@wrightslaw.com
To: special-ed-advocate@wrightslaw.com
The Special Ed Advocate Newsletter is sent by permission only. If you wish to unsubscribe
at any time, please follow the directions at the end of this e-mail. Thanks!
===============
The Special Ed Advocate
The Online Newsletter About
Special Education and the Law
February 2, 2000 Vol. III, No. 4
Visit us today at http://www.wrightslaw.com
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Please invite your friends and colleagues to subscribe to The Special Ed Advocate. Our
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For an easy to read, printer friendly copy of this newsletter, go to
http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/nwltr/2000/nl_00_0201.htm
Read and search back issues of The Special Ed Advocate at
http://www.wrightslaw.com/main_newsletter_archives.htm
Directions about how to unsubscribe are at the end of this newsletter.
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1. NEW! DOWNLOAD THE IDEA COMPLIANCE REPORT AT WRIGHTSLAW
2. SPOTLIGHT ON NCD
3. MESSAGE TO ADVOCATES
4. UPDATE ON THE WRIGHTSLAW "FREE BOOKS OFFER"
5. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
6. CONTACT INFORMATION
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1. NEW! DOWNLOAD THE IDEA COMPLIANCE REPORT AT WRIGHTSLAW
As many of you know, parents of children with disabilities have been hampered by two
factors: isolation and lack of information.
At Wrightslaw, we are working to remedy these problems. We believe that if parents have
accurate information about their rights and responsibilities and know that they are not
alone,
they will join together and force the system to change.
On January 26, we advised newsletter subscribers that the National Council on Disability
(NCD) would soon release the IDEA COMPLIANCE REPORT.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/nwltr/2000/nl_00_0126.htm
The report is called "BACK TO SCHOOL ON CIVIL RIGHTS: ADVANCING THE FEDERAL
COMMITMENT TO LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND." This is a very detailed report about compliance
with IDEA in the 25 years since the law was enacted.
We spent most of this weekend reading the IDEA Compliance Report. Before we finished, we
knew we had to make this report available to parents, advocates and attorneys.
Although many of the findings in this Report are distressing, they won't come as a shock
to parents who have been dealing with recalcitrant school districts.
The NCD Report includes an excellent discussion of IDEA, including detailed information
about rights under the law (FAPE, LRE, IEP, procedural safeguards, etc).
The Report points out that IDEA is unusual because it attempts to address two different
problems: IDEA is a civil rights law AND a funding statute.
Enforcement of the law is supposed to take place at the state, not federal, level.
Significant problems arise because state Departments of Education DO NOT enforce the law.
As you will see in this Report, states that enforce the law fare no better than states
that refuse to enforce the law. There are no consequences for refusing to enforce or
comply with the law.
Even when states refuse to comply with the law and provide the U. S. Department of
Education with false "assurances," funding continues -- and increases!
You will learn that the U. S. Dept of Education relies on PARENTS to enforce the law by
lawsuits. (The Compliance Report discusses the impact this "policy" has on
families that are severely stressed by the demands of raising a child with a disability.)
Because this Report is large, we have broken it into 13 files. We will upload these files
onto the Wrightslaw site over the next few days.
* * PLAN OF ACTION * *
Download each file, including the Table of Contents (TOC), then print.
To facilitate the learning process, we suggest that you skim the Report for an overview,
then read the Report with highlighter in hand. After you read the Report, go back and read
it again.
If you want to enhance your retention of the material, print out a clean copy and read the
Report a third time, highlighter in hand, as though you were reading it for the first
time.
By using these techniques, you'll find that new information jumps out at you --
information that you didn't notice the first time.
* * LINKS * *
* TABLE OF CONTENTS
The TOC gives you an overview of the full IDEA COMPLIANCE REPORT that is being posted on
the Wrightslaw site. The TOC give you a sense of what's coming, the historical basis of
the law, and will help you analyze change over time.
After you download the full Report, you can use the TOC links to navigate around the
Report.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/reports/IDEA_Compliance_Index.htm
BOOKMARK the TOC page!
Come back to this page often and see the "links" on this page fill in as we add
new files! When we finish, you'll have several pages of links that will help you navigate
around the IDEA
Compliance Report.
* INTRODUCTION
The Introduction is your "Overview" of the Report. This section includes
information about the background and purpose of the Report. You'll learn how the Report is
structured and get a brief
overview of each of the 8 main sections.
You'll also learn about enforcement research perspectives and how information is collected
and analyzed by researchers.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/reports/IDEA_Compliance_0.html
* PART I: THE LAW, THE COMPLIANCE / ENFORCEMENT SCHEME, AND THE CONTEXT
"Part I, 'The Law, the Compliance / Enforcement Scheme, and the Context' describes
the development of the original special education law, the Education for All Handicapped
Children Act, and its evolution over the past 25 years.
You'll learn about the past and current need for the special education law and its
regulations, the requirements of the law, and issues raised by the 1997 reauthorization.
You'll read a summary of the statutory framework for IDEA enforcement, a description of
the compliance/enforcement scheme for IDEA, and how the federal enforcement mechanism is
organized, including the Department of Education's relationship with the Department of
Justice.
You'll learn about the role of parent advocacy in driving enforcement over the last two
decades. You'll get a brief overview of the U. S. Department of Education's enforcement
activities -- or lack of enforcement -- along with findings and recommendations."
http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/reports/IDEA_Compliance_1.htm
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2. SPOTLIGHT ON NCD
You know that the IDEA Compliance Report was prepared
by NCD. But who -- or what -- is NCD?
The National Council on Disability (NCD) is an independent federal agency led by 15
members appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Overall, the purpose of NCD is to promote policies, programs, practices, and procedures
that guarantee equal opportunity for all individuals with disabilities, regardless of the
nature or
severity of the disability; and to empower individuals with disabilities to achieve
economic self-sufficiency, independent living, and inclusion and integration into all
aspects of
society.
In 1995, NCD published another report about IDEA called "Improving the Implementation
of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Making Schools Work for All of
America's Children." You can download a copy of the 1995 Report at
http://www.ncd.gov/publications/95school.html
One of their mandates is "Making recommendations to the President, Congress, the
Secretary of Education, the Director of the National Institute on Disability and
Rehabilitation Research,
and other officials of federal agencies, respecting ways to better promote equal
opportunity, economic self-sufficiency, independent living, and inclusion and integration
into all aspects of society for Americans with disabilities. (Source:
http://www.ncd.gov/mandate.html)
The NCD "Publications" Page is an excellent source of information
http://www.ncd.gov/publications/publications.html
You can learn more about the National Council on Disabilities by visiting their web site
at
http://www.ncd.gov/
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3. MESSAGE TO ADVOCATES
Effective advocates understand "the system." You have to understand a system
before you can change it. As you read the IDEA Compliance Report, you'll see that the
special education
system needs to change!
If you teach a course about special education law or advocacy, consider using the IDEA
Compliance Report in your course. Get your students to download the Compliance Report from
Wrightslaw -- it's FREE!
And don't forget to use the ADVOCACY CHALLENGE DISCOUNT PROGRAM.
The Advocacy Challenge Discount Program is designed to provide reasonably-priced
information to people who teach advocacy classes OR who provide other forms of advocacy
and/or training.
Advocacy trainers may order Wrightslaw: Special Education Law at half price, in units of
20 books. For more information about the Advocacy Challenge Program, go to
http://www.wrightslaw.com/bkstore/ourbooks/AdvChallenge.htm
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4. UPDATE ON THE WRIGHTSLAW "FREE BOOKS OFFER"
Several people have written that their bookstores say they can't get the book unless they
order directly from the publisher (which they say will take several weeks). Not true.
Tell your bookstore to BACK ORDER the book.
THE INSIDE STORY: Retail bookstores get most their books from two wholesalers: Ingram and
Baker & Taylor.
WRIGHTSLAW: SPECIAL EDUCATION LAW is available at the Ingram warehouses in La Verge
Tennessee and Roseburg Oregon. The book is also available from 4 Baker & Taylor
warehouses (in Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, Nevada).
BUT -- if your bookstore doesn't BACK ORDER the book, you'll go to the back of the line.
Why?
Ingram and Baker & Taylor didn't order enough books to satisfy the demand created by
the FREE BOOK OFFER. So bookstores that BACK ORDER the book from the wholesalers will get
the book first! DON'T WAIT! Call your retail bookstore today! If they say they can't get
the book, tell them to BACK ORDER the book from Ingram (La Verge TN or Roseburg OR) or
Baker & Taylor (in Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, Nevada)!
Follow this link for a printer-friendly copy of the FREE BOOKS OFFER.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/news/2000/freebooks.htm
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5. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
The Special Ed Advocate is a free online newsletter about special education legal
issues, cases, tactics and strategy, effective educational methods, and Internet links.
As a subscriber to The Special Ed Advocate, you will receive announcements and
"alerts" about new cases and other events. Back issues of The Special Ed
Advocate are in the Newsletter Archives at our web site -
http://www.wrightslaw.com/main_newsletter_archives.htm
To subscribe to The Special Ed Advocate, go to
http://www.wrightslaw.com/approve.htm
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===========
6. CONTACT INFORMATION
Pete and Pam Wright
c/o The Special Ed Advocate
P. O. Box 1008
Deltaville, VA 23043
Phone: 804-257-0857
Website: http://www.wrightslaw.com
Email: webmaster@wrightslaw.com
The resources at this website are copyrighted by the authors. They may be used for
non-commercial purposes only. They may not be redistributed for commercial purposes
without the express written consent of Peter W. D. Wright.
It is not necessary to obtain our consent to link to our website or copy, print and
distribute our articles and newsletters for nonprofit purposes so long as the material is
reproduced in its
entirety and credit is given to Pete and Pam Wright and "wrightslaw" including
the URL -
http://www.wrightslaw.com
Copyright 2000, Peter W. D. Wright and Pamela Darr Wright. All rights reserved.
END