Maintain Minnesota’s Historical Commitment to Students with Disabilities by Opposing Efforts to Sunset State Laws and Rules Fact Sheet

Position
Oppose proposals that would sunset Minnesota’s special education laws and rules and simply utilize the federal IDEA law and regulations. Do not relinquish state control over special education services by defaulting to the federal government.

Background Information
Since Minnesota began educating students with disabilities in the 1950’s it has established a national reputation for providing high quality services for students with various disabilities. Because the Federal government did not pass the Education for All Handicapped Act until 1975 (later known as IDEA), Minnesota already had already established laws and rules and an infrastructure to deliver appropriate services. While the IDEA law was amended in 2004, the federal government has failed to finalize new regulations.

Some groups are proposing that Minnesota sunset its special education laws and rules and instead simply use the Federal IDEA law and pending regulations. Minnesota extensively reviewed its special education laws and rules in 1998-99 that resulted in repealing laws and rules that were deemed duplicative or redundant. Statutory changes implemented since then have been agreed upon by the various stakeholders. It is poor public policy to utilize the Federal standards (particularly when they aren’t finalized) in lieu of the Minnesota special education statutes and rules.

Reasons to Oppose Efforts to Sunset Special Education Laws and Rules

• We’ve done this before. In the early 1990’s and again in 1998 broad stakeholder task forces were formed to review Minnesota’s special education rules and laws. In 1999, many duplicative laws and rules were repealed. Only two Minnesota special education laws have passed since then and both were agreed to by all interested parties.
• There aren’t very many Minnesota special education laws and rules that exceed the federal requirements. Those that remain are very important, such as early childhood special education, teacher caseload sizes, conciliation conferences to resolve disputes and billing third parties to pay for health related IEP services provided by schools.
• In 2003 Minnesota passed a law authorizing local district pilot projects to use alternatives to some Minnesota laws and rules that exceed the federal requirements. No school districts applied to participate in the project.
• There are no new federal regulations to implement the 2004 changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Until there is, it is impossible to know where Minnesota exceeds federal regulations.
• Proponents of sun setting cannot specifically identify which Minnesota rules and laws are causing problems. They should be required to identify a problem before coming up with a proposed solution.
• The proposal repeals all Minnesota laws and rules that exceed the federal requirements and then establishes a task force to analyze which ones shouldn’t be repealed. For any to be reinstated “consensus” must be achieved. There is no incentive for repeal proponents to bargain in good faith and only one person disagreeing can prevent reinstatement of a law or rule that the majority agree upon.
• The proposal bypasses the Minnesota Department of Education by authorizing a non-state agency to convene a task force and get them to agree on items that are very technical. The Department does not convene the task force nor is it a member of the task force.
• Local school districts often have their own policies and procedures which have the impact of increasing paperwork requirements for teachers. This proposal would not address that local district policies and procedures.

This document was prepared using private funding.