CEC legislative update August 5, 2005

Department of Education Issues Notice of Proposed Long-Range Plan for National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)

On July 27, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) issued a notice in the Federal Register of the proposed National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research’s (NIDRR) Long-Range Plan for fiscal years 2005-2009. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires that OSERS provide a long-range plan to outline priorities for rehabilitation research, demonstration projects, training, and related activities, and to explain the basis for these priorities. You can find the proposed NIDRR long-range plan in the Federal Register at
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/pdf/05-14741.pdf

Comments on the proposed long-range plan are due at OSERS by August 26, 2005. You can email your comments to donna.nangle@ed.gov. You must include the term ‘‘Long-Range Plan’’ in the subject line of your email message

ED Study Says Students With Disabilities Are Making “Great Strides”

On July 28, the Department of Education published a report from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NTLS-2). The study, which was begun in 2001, follows a national sample of 12,000 students, ages 13-16 when the study began, over 10 years from secondary education into adult roles. NTLS-2 is the follow-up to the first National Longitudinal Transition study, which was conducted from 1985 through 1993.

Among the findings in the report, NTLS-2 shows that the number of students with disabilities finishing high school rather than dropping out increased by 17 percent between 1987 and 2003. Over that same period, postsecondary education participation of students with disabilities more than doubled to 32 percent. The report also shows that in 2003, 70 percent of students with disabilities who had been out of school for up to two years had paying jobs, compared to only 55 percent in 1987.

The report, and a summary of the report, can be found on the Department of Education Web site at http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/07/07282005.html

Comments on Proposed IDEA Regulations Are Due In One Month!

CEC would like to remind everyone that if you are planning on providing comments on the proposed regulations for IDEA 2004, you must have them into the Department of Education no later than September 6. You can email your comments to ED at ideacomments@ed.gov

CEC has provided initial comments on selected issues in the proposed IDEA regulations. In addition, we will be providing further, more extensive comments to the Department of Education before the September 6 deadline. We will let you know when our final comments are available on our Web site.

You can read CEC’s comments to date at http://www.cec.sped.org/cec_bn/cec_comments_regs.html