Reauthorization Process Research Articles

Evaluation of Environmental Tritium Activity Levels and the Impact on the Public Health Around the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant after 25 Years of Operation

The Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the only CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) technology in Europe, is located in the southeast of Romania at the confluence of the Danube River and the Danube–Black Sea Channel, about 60 km from the Black Sea (Constanta County) and about 160 km from Bucharest. The Cernavoda NPP has two operating units of 700 MW(electric) and produces about 20% of the electric power of Romania (Unit 1 since December 1996 and Unit 2 since November 2007). The Environmental Control Laboratory (ECL) of the Cernavoda NPP, located in Cernavoda town 2 km from the Cernavoda NPP, is part of the Radiation Protection Department and is equipped with performant analyzing systems to determine the natural and artificial radionuclide levels in the environmental samples within a 30-km area around the Cernavoda NPP. The Environmental Radioactivity Monitoring Program for the Cernavoda NPP started in 1996, and all necessary activities are performed in the ECL, which has a quality assurance program according to the appropriate international standards and is participating in many intercomparison exercises and proficiency tests to validate the analyzing methods and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the environmental program, as a mandatory condition in the certification of the ECL and the reauthorization process of the Cernavoda NPP by the Romanian regulatory body, National Commission for Nuclear Activities Control. The annual report contains all the results for the environmental radioactivity monitoring and effluent monitoring; the results of the monitoring program are annually compared with the results of the Preoperational Environmental Monitoring Program performed between 1984 and 1994. This paperwork presents the evaluation of tritium activity levels in environmental samples around the Cernavoda NPP and the impact on the public health after 25 years of operation (1996 to 2021).

El proceso de reautoría, en la intervención narrativa, de la terapia familiar ante el COVID-19

Objective: to describe the importance of the narrative reauthorization technique in the context of family therapy in order to identify the ways in which this procedure helps families to develop new ways of coping with their life in the face of COVID 19. Methodology: the documentary research technique was used that facilitated the collection of information for the contextualization of the reauthorization process, in the narrative intervention, of family therapy in the face of COVID-19, through the search, selection, reading, analysis, registration and criticism of the references found. In addition, a process of analysis, classification, ordering and description of the care models used in family therapy from its beginnings to the present was carried out, placing the emphasis on the foundations of the reauthorization process of narrative therapy, for which They identified the characteristics and the elements that identify them. Contribution: a description is presented of some contributions that describe the models of care in family therapy, emphasizing the foundations of narrative therapy and specifically in the ways of re-authorship as a process of reissuing the lives of families in conditions of confinement such as those caused by COVID-19.

Policy Series: The Older Americans Act Reauthorization: Major Successes and Shortcomings

This session provides an update on the2020 Older Americans Act (OAA) reauthorization process and passage of the new law “Supporting Older Americans Act of2020.” Presenters will provide insights on both the content of the new law and the process that led to the bicameral, bipartisan legislation. Speakers will include representatives of the aging network and other stakeholders, who will discuss key changes to the OAA and how they may be implemented over the next five years.

OAA AND THE GOAL TO END MALNUTRITION

Home delivered and congregate meals programs are a foundation part of the OAA and are a part of each reauthorization process.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 and IDEA Regulations of 2006: Implications for Educators, Administrators, and Teacher Trainers

First we briefly review the reauthorization process. Next we consider the influential effect that No Child Left Behind and two major reports had on Congress when it reauthorized the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Third, we discuss major changes to the law. We conclude with an examination of how the law will directly affect special educators, administrators, and teacher trainers. As we address these topics, we caution the reader that (a) courts will clarify many of the provisions, and (b) states will have to change their special education regulations to align with IDEIA. To understand and implement IDEIA appropriately, teachers and administrators will have to monitor these due process hearings, court cases, and state law, regulations, and guidelines.

Reauthorization Ready: How NASFAA Influences the Higher Education Policymaking Process

The Higher Education Act (HEA) is due to be reauthorized by Congress and the higher education policy community is working hard to be a part of those efforts. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) plays a unique role in this process, as the HEA contains the legislation behind all of the federal student financial aid programs. As partisan politics infiltrate Washington D.C., NASFAA is working with its members and association colleagues to put forth innovative recommendations to shape and inform the reauthorization process. This paper examines the reauthorization process; highlights NASFAA’s specific work, including policy recommendations; and explains how NASFAA utilizes its members and operates within the broader Washington D.C. higher education policy community to influence policy.

Performance effects of failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): Evidence from a regression discontinuity framework

As the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law moves through the reauthorization process, it is important to understand the basic performance impacts of its central structure of accountability. In this paper, I examine the effects of failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under NCLB on subsequent student math and reading performance at the school level. Using panel data on Maryland elementary and middle schools from 2003 to 2009, I find that the scope of failure matters: Academic performance suffers in the short run in response to school-wide failure. However, schools that meet achievement targets for the aggregate student group, yet fail to meet at least one demographic subgroup's target see between 3 and 6 percent more students in the failing subgroup score proficiently the following year, compared to if no accountability pressure were in place. I discuss alternative interpretations and policy implications of the main findings.

Legal Eligibility of Students with Learning Disabilities: Consider not only RTI but also § 504

To encourage dialogue among professionals, this occasional feature is a forum for the opinions, ideas, and work of a variety of constituents concerned about learning disabilities. For criteria and submission guidelines, please visit www.cldinternational.org and select Publications. The modern history of the legal protections for students with learning disabilities in K-12 education focuses on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which is funding legislation with detailed accompanying regulations that, respectively, are periodically revised as part of the reauthorization process. In contrast, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act ([section] 504), which dates back to 1973, and its sister statute, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), have played a rather distant secondary role for students with learning disabilities specifically (e.g., Zirkel, 2006) and students with disabilities generally in elementary and secondary education (Zirkel, 2004). The current focus on response to intervention (RTI) exemplifies the seeming primacy of the IDEA in terms of the legal eligibility of students with learning disabilities and, thus, their entitlement to substantive treatment, such as individualized appropriate education, and procedural protections, such as complaint resolution investigations and impartial due process hearings. Yet, the literature in the field has largely failed to recognize the emerging significant impact of [section] 504 that results from the recent Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments (ADAA). This article provides a brief overview of the respective roles of RTI under the IDEA and [section] 504 as a result of the ADAA in terms of the legal eligibility and, thus, entitlement, of students with learning disabilities. RTI UNDER IDEA Thus far, although the literature is replete with promotion of and debate about RTI (e.g., Burns, 2007; Fuchs & Deshler, 2007; Gresham et al. 2005; Kavale, 2005), the legal effect has been relatively slow in taking shape. As explained in more detail elsewhere (e.g., Zirkel, 2008), the most recent reauthorization of the IDEA and its resulting regulations expressly permit but do not require RTI, while changing the status of the severe discrepancy approach from mandatory to either permissible or prohibited, with the ultimate choice left initially to the state level. Thus far, only a handful of states have elected to mandate RTI and prohibit severe discrepancy, with the vast majority instead opting to delegate the choice to the local level (Zirkel & Krohn, 2008). As a result, the case law, which consists of published hearing/review officer and court decisions under the IDEA concerning eligibility for the classification of specific learning disability (SLD), continues to hinge on the severe discrepancy approach. More specifically, the case law prior to the effect of IDEA 2004 reflected a pronounced tendency to uphold district decisions of SLD noneligibility based on either the lack of preponderant proof of (a) severe discrepancy or (b) the need for special education (Zirkel, 2006). The latest case law continues the same trend. For example, there have been 10 subsequent and pertinent published decisions, and RTI was only mentioned in one case, where the hearing officer displayed confusion about it and in any event where its role was of no consequence (High Tech Middle Media Arts School, 2007). All but one of the cases, which had an inconclusive outcome (E.N.v. Pajaro Valley Unified Sch. District, 2008), were in favor of the defendant district based on lack of severe discrepancy and/or the need for special education (e.g., Hood v. Encinitas Union School District, 2007; Jaffess v. Council Rock School District, 2006; M.P.v. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified Sch. District, 2008; S. v. Wissahickon Sch. District, 2008). In the relatively few states that have mandated replacing severe discrepancy with RTI as the approach for determining SLD eligibility under the IDEA, with the understanding that the evaluation must be based on a variety of sources, the litigation is still only in the gestation stage. …

Resilience and vulnerability in US farm policy: parsing the payment limitation debate

Since the New Deal era, the commodity title has been the major farm support program in US farm bills. Commodity programs have encouraged farmers to pursue specialized, monocultural, and input intensive production strategies that are increasingly viewed as unsustainable. Yet commodity programs remain politically resilient. As revealed in the farm payment limitation debate in the 2007 farm bill reauthorization process, political support for commodity programs is maintained through policy elasticity adaptations that combine new with old policy rationales. The recent extension of farm program support to producers of commodities that have not received benefits in the past poses a potential threat to existing commodity programs, as this legislation has institutionalized competition within production agriculture over the allocation and design of subsidies. This paper argues for renewed attention to the policy support mechanisms that undergird the conventional agrifood system in order to better understand alternative agrifood system possibilities and constraints.

Pay Relief Tied to Unrelated Funding Issue

Pay Relief Tied to Unrelated Funding Issue

School Choice and Educational Privatization Initiatives in the 106th and 107th Congresses: An Analysis of Policy Formation and Political Ideologies

This article is a policy analysis that considers how the policy option of using federal programs to promote educational choice was proposed and debated in the 106th and 107th Congresses. This debate was part of the reauthorization of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) between 1999 and 2001. Over the past 20 years, Congress has debated numerous variants of private school voucher plans. The account demonstrates how the positions of the Clinton and Bush administrations, the 2000 presidential election, think tanks’ advocacy of educational privatization, and public opinion shaped congressional action. The article explains why private school voucher proposals failed to pass in two consecutive Congresses, when the Republicans held control of both houses for three of the four sessions. The article draws on interviews with congressional aides and members of interest groups during the ESEA reauthorization process, and it applies John Kingdon's framework on agenda formation to explain the persistence of alternatives for privatization within Title I. The issue of school choice in Congress reveals the limits of the GOP's ideological unity—that is, that there could be demands from Republican Party leadership to include vouchers in Title I, but President George W. Bush chose to steer his party away from those demands.

Reviewing Delegation: An Analysis of the Congressional Reauthorization Process

Reviewing Delegation: An Analysis of the Congressional Reauthorization Process

The Office of Special Education Program's LD Initiative: A Context for Inquiry and Consensus

Memo: Problems in Assessment of Children [T]he fundamental problem in the assessment of the learning disabled is making the initial determination that a child is or is not learning disabled. This appears ... critical for at least two reasons. First, from a service point of view, an adequate diagnostic procedure assures us that appropriate children are being served. Second, from an administrative point of view, one can be assured when one speaks of learning-disabled children, one is referring to an identifiable group. Obviously, people are currently classifying children as with a variety of approaches. [S]ome of these approaches suffer from such conceptual problems that their validity must be questioned. Most ... suffer from sufficient technical problems such as to make them less than adequate. Just as important as the initial decision that a learning disability exists, however, is the determination of appropriate programming. There is little reason for educators to be concerned about whether children are learning disabled unless it somehow relates to the education program that children receive. Decisions concerning appropriate programming for children would undoubtedly [be] best made using criterion-referenced instruments. At this point, [they] are not available. The requirements in PL 94-142 for Protection in Evaluation Procedures, Least Restrictive Environments, and Individual Education Programs make the whole decision-making process for classification, placement and programming exceedingly complex. A critical concern ... is ... [how] assessment information relates to and is integrated with decision-making. Many people have voiced concern over the critical nature of early identification of the learning disabled. I ... [agree] that this is extremely important. However ... we cannot hope to engage in early identification with all of its attendant difficulties unless and until we have resolved our definitional and operational problems. ********** The U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) recently relocated their offices. Among the historical treasures found in the move was a carbon copy of a letter written by then junior staffer Lou Danielson to a university professor. Although Lou's letter was written in 1977, 27 years ago, it could well have been composed today. Indeed, points nearly identical to Lou's were made in a letter written during the 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reauthorization process by the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD). OSEP's comprehensive response to the NJCLD letter has become known as the LD a multiyear process involving many activities and numerous stakeholders intended to probe, document, and discuss what we know about the identification and classification of children with learning disabilities (LD). Below, we describe OSEP's Initiative, including the creation of the National Research Center on LD. Background In 1975, Congress passed the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142), now known as the IDEA. A central intent of the law was to guarantee a free appropriate public education for all children with disabilities. This would be accomplished by supporting states and localities to improve child outcomes by protecting the rights, and meeting the individual needs, of all children and youth with disabilities and their families. Early and accurate identification of children with disabilities was viewed as critical to ensuring that they receive services essential to their success. Much progress has been made over the past three decades in providing effective programming, special education, and other related services to children with disabilities. In 1997, the reauthorization of IDEA changed the focus of the law from providing access to services to improving results and accountability. Essential to achieving improved results is the accurate and early identification of children with disabilities. …

Cordell Hull, the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act, and the WTO

Cordell Hull, President Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of State from 1933 to 1945, developed a set of ideas about free trade that formed the basis for the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. The ideas were, in turn, the fundamental negotiating principles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and are still the basis for the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha round of trade negotiations. The principles include reciprocity, nondiscrimination, advance trade negotiating authority from the U.S. Congress, and automatic implementation of tariff agreements reached out of the public eye between professional negotiators. Later, as GATT negotiations moved beyond tariffs to non-tariff barriers involving domestic law, Congress began to refuse to implement the resulting agreements, an impediment that was overcome by Congressional implementation. The fast track process is being undermined by the U.S. Congress through statutory provisions that give individual Congressmen the right to be informed before proposals are tabled by U.S. negotiators (thereby affording protectionist interests an opportunity to influence the negotiations) as well as by a mid-round reauthorization process that gives one House the opportunity to abort the negotiations. The original Hull principles have to be revisited if the movement toward freer trade is not to be arrested.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program: successes, shortcomings, and challenges.

This paper examines successes and shortcomings of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). SCHIP is a source of coverage for millions of children, improving their access to health care and sparking innovation in program design and improvements in Medicaid. However, SCHIP adds to the complexity of the insurance system and introduces new inequities in access to insurance; it is imperfectly targeting eligible children who are uninsured; and its financing is problematic because of the block-grant funding structure and use of SCHIP funds to cover adults. These issues need to be addressed during the SCHIP reauthorization process.

Education: “The One Factor that Can Keep Me from Sliding into Hopeless Poverty”

ABSTRACT The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act severely restricted access to postsecondary education for people receiving welfare. Through well-organized advocacy efforts, Maine was able to maintain access to higher education for families on welfare–one of only two states to do so in 1997–through the Parents as Scholars (PaS) program. This paper reports on the second wave of data in a longitudinal study of PaS participants. Findings indicate many benefits for survey respondents, including increased earnings and enhanced self-esteem. We conclude with a discussion of how these findings have been used to support the reintegration of education into welfare programs through the reauthorization process.

Getting Ready for IDEA

Getting Ready for IDEA

Insurance Advocacy

Insurance Advocacy

Better Hearing and Speech Month Celebrated on Capitol Hill

Better Hearing and Speech Month Celebrated on Capitol Hill

The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in a Republican-Controlled Congress: A View From the Bishops’ Conference

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, the largest single federal education program, is due to be reauthorized in 1999. ESEA is aimed at offering a variety of services to students and staff in public, private, and religious schools. For the first time, reauthorization will take place in a Congress with Republican majorities in both houses. The idea of the Republicans radically altering the program has been raised in many circles. This article addresses the purpose and history of ESEA as well as the prospects for any radical reshaping of the statute in the current reauthorization process.