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| Home > News > IDEA News > Congress Schedules Meeting to Reauthorize IDEA on November 17, 2004 |
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IDEA
News: On
Friday, November 12, 2004, the Committee on Education and the Workforce
of the House of Representatives issued a Media
Release about a November 17 meeting
to finalize the bill to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act. WASHINGTON, D.C. - Members of the U.S. House and Senate will meet next week in hopes of completing a final, bipartisan special education reauthorization bill that can be signed into law before the end of the 108th Congress. The bipartisan House-Senate conference will reconcile differing versions of legislation passed by the House and Senate to strengthen and renew the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the nation's special education law. The conference meeting will be held Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at 2:30 p.m. in room 2175 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The conference meeting will be open to the public and the press. The House-Senate conference will be chaired by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), chairman of the House Education & the Workforce Committee. Senate conferees are (Republican) Senators Gregg, Frist, Enzi, Alexander, Bond, DeWine, Roberts, Sessions, Ensign, Graham (SC), and Warner; (Democratic) Senators Kennedy, Dodd, Harkin, Mikulski, Jeffords, Bingaman, Murray, Reed, Edwards, and Clinton. House conferees are (Republican) Reps. Castle, Ehlers, Keller, Wilson (SC), Barton, Bilirakis, Sensenbrenner, and Smith (TX); (Democratic) Reps. Miller (George), Woolsey, Owens, Dingell, and Conyers. The House passed IDEA reauthorizing legislation authored by Education Reform Subcommittee Chairman Mike Castle (R-DE) in April 2003. The Senate passed its version of the legislation in May 2004. Legislators
in both parties have called for changes that would refocus the IDEA
to improve education results for students with disabilities, reduce
the paperwork burden on special education teachers, and align the
special education law with bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, which
gives strong new rights and protections to parents and children with
disabilities.
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