NCLD - Policy Update

Policy Update

LD News: News You Can Use

Policy Update
Briefs from the world of LD policy

IDEA Funding News
The FY 04 Omnibus Appropriations bill was passed by the Congress and signed by the President in January. The bill contains a $1.2 billion increase for IDEA, a 13 percent increase over the current funding level.

On February 2, President Bush released his budget request for FY05, the first step in the next fiscal year budget process. The request includes a $1 billion increase for IDEA state grants, bringing the total to $12.2 billion.

This increase is a positive step for IDEA, but even counting last year's increase, the federal contribution for IDEA is about half of what was promised when IDEA was originally enacted in 1975. Full funding of the federal commitment in IDEA would require approximately $20 billion.

Find out what your state would gain if IDEA funding was at the Congressionally authorized amount. For more information, go to:
http://www.nea.org/lac/omnibusspeced.html.

IDEA Reauthorization Update
The IDEA reauthorization process remains on hold in the U.S. Senate. All preliminary work necessary to bring the Senate bill (S. 1248) to the floor was completed in November with passage of a unanimous consent agreement.

The unanimous consent agreement allows a limited number of floor amendments to be offered. The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities has sent letters to the Senate on several of the amendment issues.

For more information, see these links:
Full Funding: http://c-c-d.org/ideafullfund.htm
Attorney's Fees: http://c-c-d.org/attorneyfees.htm
Paperwork: http://c-c-d.org/s1428paperwork.htm.

New Federal Initiative to Help Older Struggling Readers
In his State of the Union Address, President Bush unveiled "Jobs for the 21st Century," a comprehensive plan to better prepare workers for jobs in the new millennium by improving secondary education and strengthening postsecondary education. "Jobs" includes a new $100 million Striving Readers Initiative that would make competitive grants to develop, implement, and evaluate effective reading interventions for middle and high school students reading "significantly" below grade level. This initiative would complement Reading First, which provides aid for students in kindergarten through third-grade.

For more information go to:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040121.html.

No Child Left Behind

Provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) offer school choice opportunities under certain conditions. Learn about the choice provisions and how they relate to students with learning disabilities.

For more information go to:

http://schwablearning.org/articles.asp?r=778.

New Web Site Offers School Data

SchoolResults.org is a new site that offers timely, relevant and comparable school, district and state data required to be publicly reported by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Data for six states are currently online, by summer 2004 all of the available and relevant NCLB data for the 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia will be available.

For more information go to:

http://www.schoolresults.org.

Report on state standards

A new OSEP report finds nearly all states have established the same content standards in mathematics and reading for students with and without disabilities.

For more information go to:

http://edweek.com/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=20idea.h23
(Requires free registration).

Become an LD Advocate!

To receive alerts on important legislative activities concerning LD, sign up for our Action E-list at http://ga3.org/lac/join.tcl.

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