The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act:

How does the new Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) differ from IDEA '97? The National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) has created a side-by-side document that compares the two laws in The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: A Comparison of P.L. 105-17 (IDEA '97) to H.R. 1350 as passed by Congress on November 19, 2004.

This small booklet has been sent out to hundreds of people, even after the initial distribution to every state department. NASDSE has reprinted the document a couple of times. In order to meet the high demand for this information, NASDSE has furnished APH with an electronic copy of the booklet, broken up into chapters in MS Word format, to distribute from our web site.

A brief note of explanation to help orient screen reader users: the documents all have two columns--the left column contains the language of IDEA '97 - P.L. 105-17, the right column contains the language of H.R. 1350 as Passed by Congress in 2004. The columns are aligned so that the relevant portions of the two documents are juxtaposed side-by-side.

Here are the links to each chapter:

Please go to NASDSE's web site at nasdse.org for more information about the organization or call them at 703/519-3800 for assistance with any special education questions.