IDEA Rules Await White House Review, State Special Ed. Officials Told

Minneapolis

The U.S. Department of Education is following its own internal timetable for completing final regulations for the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, but the final approval of the rules may be bogged down in a bureaucratic logjam at the White House budget office, a federal education official told state special education administrators here last week.

John H. Hager, the assistant secretary in charge of the Education Department’s office of special education and rehabilitative services, said that the White House Office of Management and Budget is focused on preparing the fiscal 2007 federal budget proposal and dealing with hurricane-related issues. Those concerns, he said, have bumped the required OMB review of the special education rules to a lower priority.

“Our goal is to have them done at the end of the year, although we’ve got this little agency called OMB to deal with, and they’ll probably slow us down in the end,” Mr. Hager told the annual convention of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education...