CEC Policy Insider

CEC Introduces Issue Briefs to Support Special Education Advocacy

This summer, over 200 special educators gathered in Washington, D.C. at the Special Education Legislative Summit, organized by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) to advocate for special and gifted education issues with their members of Congress on Capitol Hill. During the 5-day event, attendees were briefed on nine critical issues addressing special and gifted education.

In an effort to promote additional advocacy, CEC has released all nine issue briefs, and encourages advocates to use them when preparing to speak with their members of Congress. The issue briefs consist of the topics below.

1. Education Appropriations
2. School and Community Based Mental Health
3. Early Childhood
4. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
5. School Choice
6. Higher Education Act
7. Carl D. Perkins Act
8. Special Education Research
9. Gifted Education

Access PDF versions of all Issue Briefs here.

Racial Bias in Gifted and Talented Placement: What to do about it

A recent report, Aiming Higher Together: Strategizing Better Educational Outcomes for Boys and Young Men of Color, from Urban Institute, proposes strategies to improve the educational outcomes of boys and men of color including those who may be gifted by altering conditions in homes, schools and communities to create "person-environment fits" that better foster academic achievement.

Join us! CEC’s Policy Team Heads to CEC’s Annual Convention and Expo with a Packed Agenda!

We hope you will be joining us and thousands of special educators in St. Louis, Missouri for CEC’s Annual Convention and Expo! CEC’s Convention will provide us all with an opportunity to reflect on special education and how we can continue to advance the profession and support better outcomes for children and youth with disabilities and gifts and talents.  This year’s convention will offer over 800 professional development sessions featuring the most pressing issues in the field, as well as speakers and celebrations you won’t want to miss!  

CEC’s Policy and Advocacy team will be bringing to you the hot policy topics from budget to ESSA and beyond! Here is the schedule of events:

• All Week – CEC’s Legislative Action Center: Come by CEC’s Legislative Action Center in CEC Central to learn more about the 114^th Congress, CEC’s policy initiatives and the advocacy that you can do on behalf of children and youth with exceptionalities, their families and the professionals who work with them!

• Wednesday, April 13, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM – Room 227 Convention Center: What Every Educator Needs to Know About Coming Changes to Special Education Policy – Deb Ziegler, Director, CEC. 

• Thursday, April 14, 10:30 – 11:30 AM – Room 226 Convention Center: What’s New and Notable in the National Center for Special Education Research – Joan McLaughlin, Commissioner, NCSER.

• Thursday, April 14, 3:30 – 4:30 PM – Room 226 Convention Center: ESSA – Ruth Ryder, Acting Director, OSEP.

• Friday, April 15, 9:15 – 11:30 AM – Room 226 Convention Center: What’s Happening in Washington - Ruth Ryder, Acting Director, OSEP and Deb Ziegler, Director, CEC.

• Saturday, April 16, 9:15 – 10:15 AM – Room 226 Convention Center: IDEA Reauthorization Town Hall -  Deb Ziegler, Director, CEC, Antonis Katsiyannis, President, CEC, Tim Lewis, Chair IDEA Work Group, CEC. 

Click here for more info on CEC’s 2016 Convention! Hope to see you in St. Louis!

If you are not able to join us in St. Louis look for handouts and PowerPoint presentations from the convention that will be posted to CEC’s website after the convention.

Tell Congress TODAY to Increase FY 2016 Funding for Special and Gifted Education!

The U.S. Congress voted to raise the budget caps last week thanks to the many advocates including CEC members who contacted their members of Congress. Thank you for your advocacy. Your voice made a difference! 

The bill eliminates most of the harmful sequester caps for nondefense discretionary (NDD) programs for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 and FY 2017, thereby providing room for critically important investments in education programs including special and gifted education, through appropriations. 

We need your voice AGAIN! Please go to CEC’s Legislative Action Center and send a letter to your members of Congress and tell them to increase the FY 2016 Appropriations for IDEA programs, JAVITS, Gifted and Talented programs and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). 

Our window of opportunity is short. The continuing resolutions ends on December 11, 2015. Congress will be developing an appropriations bill in November. Write your members of Congress Today!  

Prevention is Better than Cure: End Sequestration before Fiscal Disaster

They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but some in Congress haven’t gotten the message. On October 1^st, if Congress doesn’t take action, the disastrous budget cuts to our nation’s most critical programs—including special, gifted, and early education, education research, health, veterans’ care, law enforcement, and more-- will go back into effect, causing pain to millions of Americans across the country. 

How did we get here? In 2011, Congress passed a law that cut federal spending by nearly $1 trillion and said that if lawmakers couldn’t agree on a plan to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion, another $1 trillion in automatic, arbitrary and across the board budget cuts would start to take effect in 2013. Though the “Murray-Ryan” deal temporarily stopped these cuts from taking place, that deal expires in fiscal year 2016. That’s why more than 2,500 national, state and local organizations including CEC are calling on Congress to avoid the impending fiscal disaster and end sequestration. These organizations have come together to say, Raise the Spending Caps. Enough is enough. 

The impending cuts will be bad, really bad. If Congress does not work together to stop sequestration, the resulting budget could: 

• Shortchange special education and early intervention services to over 6 million children ages birth through young adulthood and their families.
• Eliminate funding for gifted education programs across the nation to over 3 million students who are academically gifted.
• Shortchange education research for children and youth with disabilities and gifts and talents.

Experts across the political spectrum agree these programs aren’t a driving factor behind our nation’s mid- and long-term fiscal challenges. In fact, reversing sequestration could actually create as many as 1.4 million jobs over the next two years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports. 

So Congress can act to end a failed policy now and prevent another fiscal crisis, or deal with finding a cure for its aftermath. There is bipartisan agreement that sequestration is bad policy and ultimately hurts our nation. Let’s choose prevention over cure and Raise the Spending Caps. 

Please write a letter to your members of Congress to Raise the Spending Caps on CEC’s Legislative Action Center Here.