IDEA Update - Holiday Edition from OCLB

[Guest guest]

DECEMBER 24, 2003 – JANUARY 4, 2003 

www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com 

IDEA UPDATE - HOLIDAY EDITION 

Due to the holidays, we have prepared a special holiday edition of our usual

weekend Web site update.  We will not be publishing new home pages until

Monday, January 5, 2004.  However, we will remain vigilant over the holidays

and

will continue to contact our legislators on behalf of all of our kids.  With

our

legislators home for the holidays, there's no better time to arrange a

personal meeting, or at least continue to write or call with your concerns! 

In " Places In Hell, " our first Home page article of the week, we are reminded

that actions speak louder than words.  While we may all have our own ideas

about the best political strategy with respect to IDEA reauthorization, debating

those ideas rather than taking action amounts to " constructive neutrality "

and puts our children at grave risk.  So do something - anything - to make your

concerns known! 

Our second Home page article of the week is on a lighter note, in keeping

with the spirit of the season.  In " Happy Holidays: Greetings From A

Presidential

Candidate, " we have a Draft Speech From A Presidential Candidate, which we

encourage you to share with your favorite candidate.  This piece reflects what

parents of special education students would love to hear from a candidate - a

veritable " wish list " for next year's election campaigns!  Also, as a special

holiday treat, our Home page now features an index of all of our previous home

page articles.  Scroll down to " OCLB's Year In Review " and take a look at how

far we have all come together! 

On our Breaking News page, we have detailed information on the upcoming 2004

Governmental Affairs Seminar, " Advocate for Action! "   This seminar,

cosponsored by The Arc, AAMR, The Association of University Centers on

Disabilities

(AUCD), United Cerebral Palsy (UCP), and The National Association of Councils on

Developmental Disabilities (NACDD), runs from March 21-23rd in Washington,

D.C.  This seminar will deal with the unprecedented threats to the disability

community, including, but not limited to, IDEA reauthorization. 

On The Grapevine, we have a response by Dee Alpert, publisher of

www.specialeducationmuckraker.com, to " Places In Hell. "   In short, she tells us

to stand

up and fight for our kids before they get sold down the river during this IDEA

reauthorization process. 

The remaining articles on The Grapevine this week demonstrate why fighting is

so important right now.  We have two articles by Bev s, an LD advocate,

on the proposed " aligning " of NCLB and IDEA.  Both articles convincingly

demonstrate why " aligning " these statutes makes little sense and is in fact a

cover

for stripping our children of their hard-won rights under IDEA.  We have the

thoughts of a parent advocate on the proposed " paperwork reduction " amendment

to IDEA, which is yet another example of an attempt to strip our children and

families of critical rights, under the guise of " aligning " IDEA with NCLB. 

Finally, we have an article from the press in New Jersey discussing the new

policy of a particular school district to suspend bus transportation of special

education students during bad weather.  Talk about literally leaving kids

behind! 

On our Message Board, we have news of the Senate's 2004 agenda, as prepared

by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.  This agenda has IDEA slated for March or

April of 2004.  (This information comes to us from NAPAS, " Inside

Washington, " dated 12/19/03 and was posted by an attorney from the Michigan P & A

-

thanks!)  By the way, we have updated our Resources page to indicate that along

with

contacting your individual Senators, you should also send a copy of all

correspondence to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (we provide fax and email

contact information). 

Please use a little bit of your time this holiday season to contact your

Senators - what better gift to give your kids than this gift of time!  And

please

stay in touch with us also - we love to hear from you! 

We at OCLB wish you and yours a happy holiday season and a wonderful New

Year! 

Sandy Alperstein, today’s parentvolunteer@... 

Our Children Left Behind [OCLB] was created and is owned/operated by parent

volunteers (Sandy Alperstein, Tricia & Calvin Luker, Shari Krishnan, and Debi

).  Permission to forward, copy, and/or post this article is granted

provided that it is attributed to the author(s) and

www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com. 

For more about OCLB or to share information, please contact

parentvolunteer@....

Sandy, Illinois (alpy2@...)

Volunteer Co-Webmaster, www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com (IDEA reauthorization)