1.1                             A resolution
  1.2             memorializing the President and Congress to stop 
  1.3             unfunded mandates and laws that support the 
  1.4             over-identification of children with mental disorders 
  1.5             in special education. 
  1.6      
  1.7      WHEREAS, in 1975 Congress passed Public Law 94-142, which 
  1.8   came to be known as the Individuals with Disabilities Act 
  1.9   (IDEA), and provided a national framework for providing free, 
  1.10  appropriate public education to all students regardless of the 
  1.11  level of severity of disability; and 
  1.12     WHEREAS, when passing Public Law 94-142, Congress 
  1.13  explicitly and specifically abrogated state sovereign immunity 
  1.14  with regard to special education by requiring states to provide 
  1.15  a free appropriate public education to children with 
  1.16  disabilities; and 
  1.17     WHEREAS, Congress has allowed a maximum payment of 40 
  1.18  percent of the average per-pupil expenditure in public 
  1.19  elementary and secondary schools in the United States for 
  1.20  children with disabilities; and 
  1.21     WHEREAS, the federal government's share of funding for 
  1.22  children with disabilities costs in Minnesota has never exceeded 
  1.23  17 percent; and 
  1.24     WHEREAS, special education services are being provided to 
  1.25  all eligible children in the State of Minnesota from birth to 
  2.1   age 21; and 
  2.2      WHEREAS, according to the 2002 Presidential Commission 
  2.3   Report on IDEA, <i>A New Era</i>, 90 percent of the children receiving 
  2.4   services under IDEA are classified with specific learning 
  2.5   disabilities, serious emotional disturbance, or other health 
  2.6   impairment; and 
  2.7      WHEREAS, also according to <i>A New Era</i>, the other health 
  2.8   impairment category has increased 319 percent nationally, and 
  2.9   according to the department of children, families, and learning 
  2.10  data, has increased 837 percent in Minnesota since 1991, when 
  2.11  attention deficit/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was 
  2.12  added to that category; and 
  2.13     WHEREAS, the criteria for the high incidence categories of 
  2.14  emotional disturbance, specific learning disability, and the 
  2.15  attention deficit disorder part of the other health impairment 
  2.16  category are all extremely vague; and 
  2.17     WHEREAS, the vagueness of those criteria have helped 
  2.18  Minnesota become consistently number one or number two in the 
  2.19  nation in labeling black children and American Indian children 
  2.20  with emotional disturbance or learning disabilities; and 
  2.21     WHEREAS, a child labeled with attention 
  2.22  deficit/hyperactivity disorder can receive IDEA funds as an 
  2.23  emotional disturbance, a specific learning disability, and as 
  2.24  another health impairment; that according to the National 
  2.25  Institutes of Mental Health, there is no laboratory test 
  2.26  diagnostic of this disorder; that between six and ten million 
  2.27  children are receiving psychoactive stimulant Schedule II 
  2.28  medication; and that the largest group of those children 
  2.29  receives Medicaid funds; and 
  2.30     WHEREAS, the recent increases in federal funds for schools, 
  2.31  including the increases in special education funding, have come 
  2.32  with substantial mandates and limitations on the use of funds; 
  2.33  NOW, THEREFORE, 
  2.34     BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota 
  2.35  that Congress should either speedily and adequately fund the 
  2.36  mandate set forth in 1975 or remove it and let the State of 
  3.1   Minnesota decide how best to educate its children with 
  3.2   disabilities. 
  3.3      BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if the federal government 
  3.4   continues to abrogate Minnesota's sovereign immunity, then IDEA 
  3.5   funding not be contingent upon compliance with the No Child Left 
  3.6   Behind Act, which also abrogates Minnesota's sovereign immunity 
  3.7   with regard to the education of its children. 
  3.8      BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if Congress is going to 
  3.9   continue to abrogate Minnesota's sovereign immunity, the 
  3.10  following changes should be made in the IDEA law: 
  3.11     (1) the definition of a child with a disability be changed 
  3.12  for the classifications "emotional disturbances" and "other 
  3.13  health impairments" to be for children with a demonstrable 
  3.14  organic etiology as shown by verifiable, physiological, 
  3.15  clinically useable, and acceptable medical tests which preclude 
  3.16  the use of surveys and questionnaires; 
  3.17     (2) the threats of or actual exclusion from school or 
  3.18  special education, charges of medical or educational neglect, or 
  3.19  special education placement shall not be used if parents refuse 
  3.20  to use psychoactive medication on their children; and 
  3.21     (3) parents shall be informed of the side effects of 
  3.22  psychoactive medication as listed on FDA-approved labeling 
  3.23  before their children begin psychoactive medication as part of 
  3.24  IDEA and then maintain the right to refuse that medication 
  3.25  without suffering any of the consequences listed under clause 
  3.26  (2). 
  3.27     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the 
  3.28  State of Minnesota is directed to prepare copies of this 
  3.29  memorial and transmit them to the President of the United 
  3.30  States, the President and the Secretary of the United States 
  3.31  Senate, the Speaker and the Clerk of the United States House of 
  3.32  Representatives, and Minnesota's Senators and Representatives in 
  3.33  Congress.