THE SENATE

S.C.R. NO.

145

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 
   


SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

urging the United states congress to reform the individuals with disabilities in education act.

 

 

WHEREAS, more than twenty-five years ago, the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act was passed by the United States Congress to assist handicapped children to receive a "free and appropriate education"; and

WHEREAS, since then, the mental health industry has shifted the focus and funding allocation of this law from children with physical and physically-caused intellectual disabilities to those who they subjectively label with behavioral and learning disorders; and

WHEREAS, under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, more than fifty per cent of the approximately $50,000,000,000 annual allocation for "special education" is funneled to address the range of "disabilities" now covered by that law, including the subjective psychiatrically imposed "learning disorder", "serious emotional/emotional disturbance", and "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" referred to as "ADHD", which appear under "other health impairment" of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act regulations; and

WHEREAS, of the 5,500,000 children schooled under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, 3,200,000 or fifty-eight per cent, purportedly have these subjective "learning or emotional disorders"; and

WHEREAS, the definition of "specific learning disability" under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act is so ambiguous that researchers at the University of Michigan found that eighty-five per cent of the students they tested who had previously been identified as "normal", would have been classified as learning disabled under one or another of the assessment systems used for learning disabilities; and

WHEREAS, psychiatrists admittedly do not know what "causes" a "learning disorder", "emotional disturbance", or "attention deficit disorder", and have no objective physical abnormalities to confirm that such "disorder" exists; and

WHEREAS, psychiatrists and school psychologists have utilized such subjective terminology to abuse special education, thereby essentially coercing parents to place their children on mind altering stimulants and other psychiatric prescription drugs as a requisite for learning; and

WHEREAS, parents are not informed of the many alternative reasons for learning and behavioral problems, and thus are not being provided sufficient information to give "informed consent" for psychiatric drug treatment for their child; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2002, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Legislature respectfully urges the United States Congress to reform the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act so that:

(1) The term "specific learning disability" is amended to include only those disabilities that can be physically verified and determined;

(2) The terms: "serious emotional disturbance" or "emotional disturbance" are removed;

(3) The terms, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are removed from the regulations implementing the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act;

(4) Only impairments based on objective, physically verifiably determined abnormalities such as brain injury, autism, blindness, deafness, or mental retardation are encompassed; and

(5) Only children with physically verifiable disabilities, including difficulties with sight, hearing, speech, and brain functioning, receive the funding for which the law was intended;

and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the members of Hawaii's congressional delegation.

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

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Report Title:

Reform the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act