Sweeping New Bill Seeks To Help Students With Disabilities, But It May Not Go Far Enough:

Sweeping New Bill Seeks To Help Students With Disabilities, But It May Not Go Far Enough

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) speaks at an event in the Capitol Visitor Center to call on the minimum wage to be increased to $10.10 per hour. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) | Tom Williams via Getty Images

 The bipartisan overhaul of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act trumpeted in Washington, D.C. Wednesday includes provisions aimed to help students with disabilities find well-paying work, but some say the deal doesn't go far enough.

On Wednesday, Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), along with Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.), Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and George Miller (D-Calif.), announced the sweeping "bipartisan, bicameral" deal long in the making. The bill aims to modernize the 1998 law, which oversees $3 billion in job training programs, by eliminating 15 programs and creating universal performance metrics. Many expect it to advance.

For students with special needs in particular, the bill aims to make states more responsible for making sure those students graduate into jobs that allow them to make minimum wage and work alongside adults who have no disabilities. This move extends the often-controversial concept of inclusion in public schools into the workforce. Under the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, another Harkin initiative, students with special needs must be given a "free and appropriate public education" in the "least restrictive environment."

But unlike IDEA, which covers students with special needs until they turn 21, workforce training programs for individuals with disabilities aren't entitlements, meaning that there are far more students who are eligible than receive the service, known as Vocational Rehabilitation.

The changes, Harkin said, "will raise prospects and expectations for Americans with disabilities, many of whom, under current law, are shunted to segregated, sub-Sweeping New Bill Seeks To Help Students With Disabilities, But It May Not Go Far Enough: