Rubén Hinojosa: “I rise to oppose H.R. 1350 in its present form. The Improving Results for Children With Disabilities Act is the bill…”

“I rise to oppose H.R. 1350 in its present form. The Improving Results for Children With Disabilities Act is the bill that we are debating. It includes amendments that I offered in committee to improve our knowledge as to how well special education serves limited English-proficient children, and to support research on best practices for identifying, assessing and providing instructional and other services to these left children. H.R. 1350 also ensures that disabled children in migrant worker families are not placed at risk because their school records are not transferred to their next school. I believe that these additions to the bill will put us on the right path to improving services to migrant children and left children with disabilities. These improvements, however, do not compensate for the draconian discipline provisions that are in H.R. 1350. Under this bill, schools could suspend or expel a child with disabilities for any infraction of the school code of conduct without considering whether the behavior was the result of a disability. This manifestation determination has been one of the key protections for children with disabilities under the current law. Given the disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates for Hispanic and black youth in general, it is hard to imagine that H.R. 1350 will not push more of these young people out of school.”