Thomas Mott Osborne: “it is a privilege to have a chance to speak in support of H.R. 1350. I am pleased that this bill has evolved into what…”

“it is a privilege to have a chance to speak in support of H.R. 1350. I am pleased that this bill has evolved into what appears to be a very bipartisan bill. I would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) and the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), chairman of the Subcommittee on Education Reform, and Members on the other side for all of their work. There are three or four points that I would like to make that I think are particularly noteworthy regarding this bill. First of all, it provides clear academic achievement goals for children with disabilities. In the past, once a child was identified as having a learning disability, oftentimes they were assigned to mediocrity, and there was no attempt to improve that child's learning situation. Secondly, and maybe most importantly, it provides early intervention strategies to prevent children from being identified or misidentified as children with disabilities. If we get to children early enough with remedial help, many times children who would be labeled as disabled are simply not labeled as such and are able to be mainstreamed. Fifteen percent of the funds for IDEA are being used for this early intervention strategy, and I think that is critical. Also, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) pointed out earlier, and I think this also is a very important point, the current legislation reduces paperwork related to IDEA which is particularly burdensome to teachers.”