Tell ISBE NO!!

The Illinois STate Board of Education ( ISBE) will hold it's board meeting tomorrow in Aurora and on the agenda is the repeal of Part 226 ( Special Education) that repeals class size limits for special education classrooms and the 70/30 composition for general education classroom. 70% of students in general education are gen ed students while 30% of students in a general education classroom can be serviced under an IEP ( Individualized Educational Plan). Since proposing this recommendation of repealing Part 226 ISBE has gotten 5, 523 public comments of which 5,158 were in oppostion and about 1/4 were submitted by individuals in Chicago via the 3 public hearing that were held. Of the 365 supporters, the majority of them were school administators .  "Nearly all the comments mentioned that without class size and class compositon limits, school districts would trim th3eir budgets by increasing self-contained special eduation class sizes and the proportion of students with disabilites in general education classes" ISBE website. Many suggested that will the elmination of the rules education of special education students would revert back to the condition of the 1960's and 1970's when our children were being "warehoused". Many who spoke felt that without class size limits and limits in composition for general eduation classroom teachers would be less likely to be able to provide the services, accomodations or other modifications that a student with disabliites require to be successful in a educational setting. Also, " the counsel for plantiffs in the Cory H. ( 70/30 composition rule) lititgation stated that the class size and the class composition restrictions are "objective measures that ISBE needs in order to carry out its duty under state and federal law to monitor districts for compliance with IDEA's protections for students with disabilites""- ISBE website. Do we want our school district making class size limits and class composition decisions without no monitoring? The only type of monitoring would be school districts that are trying to keep the budgets balanced!! Remember how without monitoring the mortgage companies nearly sent this country into a depression and caused the housing collaspe, we can't allow that for our childern's education- there is NO BAIL OUT for that!! We have only a  short amount of time in a child's life to educate him or her make it count, make it EFFECTIVE!! Come on Wednesday to ISBE"s board meeting at 1pm and TELL ISBE NO!!