August 30, 2004

The Honorable Maurice Hinchey
  House of Representatives
  Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congressman Hinchey:

Thank you for your letter regarding the Department's decision to disallow funding 
for the captioning or video description of nearly 200 television programs. I appreciated 
hearing your views on this issue.

As you know, the 1997 Amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education 
  Act (IDEA) specified that after September 30, 2001, only "educational, 
  informational, and news programming" could be captioned with IDEA funds. 
  Because the 1997 amendments did not define the terms "educational" 
  and "informational," the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) 
  published a public request for comments. (A copy of the notice is enclosed.) 
  More than 3,000 respondents from the deaf community responded, stating that 
  all programming on TV was informational because it provided access to the popular 
  culture. Because it is clear that Congress intended to limit what could be captioned 
  or described with IDEA funds, these comments did not provide a basis for regulating 
  further on the statutory terms.

Grantees that provide captioning or video description for television have been 
  utilizing the expertise of their consumer advisory groups to determine whether 
  or not the programs to be captioned or described are "educational, news, 
  or informational." Although we recognize the ongoing efforts of those advisory 
  groups, we believe that some of the programs that they had recommended were 
  not appropriate under the requirements in the IDEA 1997 Amendments.

The Department determined that the most consistent way to implement the law 
  is to support captioning and video description only for programming that clearly 
  fits within the "educational, informational, and news" categories. 
  To help ensure that the law is properly implemented, the Department asked five 
  external experts to conduct independent reviews of all programming submitted 
  for IDEA funding. These experts included individuals with disabilities, individuals 
  with expertise in children's television, individuals conducting research in 
  video description and in captioning, and individuals with expertise in literacy. 
  We provided the experts with a list of television programming for grants that 
  were subject to renewal (continuation awards) for activities to provide captioning 
  or video description. 
  The experts were given the following examples of educational, informational, 
  and news programming, that clearly fit within the IDEA requirements, to guide 
  their decision-making:

| | 1) Children's programming that is likely to produce an educational benefit, 
        including educational programs appropriate for use in a classroom setting 
        and programs of high interest (exception: programs that contain excessive 
        violence or adult content);
| | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | 2) News and news magazines (exception: entertainment 
      or sports news magazines);                                                                                                                                                                                                
| | 3) Adult informational or documentary programs 
      (exceptions: nondocumentary feature films and television movies unless they 
      are appropriate for use in the classroom; documentaries that profile entertainment 
      personalities, sports figures, or criminals).      

The experts reviewed a list of programs subject to approval for continuation 
  funding. OSEP used the tabulation of this review process to develop a list of 
  recommended programs. The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services 
  (OSERS) reviewed the recommendations. A Dear Colleague Letter and the list of 
  approved and non-approved programs were provided to all grantees.

The Department's decision to limit funding to captioning and video description 
  of programming that clearly fits within the IDEA requirements had no impact 
  on the total amount of captioning and video description actually supported. 
  In every instance where a specific show does not clearly fit within the IDEA 
  requirements, we gave the grantees the opportunity to submit alternative programming.

It is also worth noting that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is 
  primarily responsible for implementing and monitoring the closed captioning 
  requirements of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In this Act, as you know, 
  Congress generally requires that programming be captioned, regardless of distribution 
  technology, to ensure access to persons with hearing disabilities. In the fiscal 
  year 2004 competition we intend to provide support for captioning and video 
  description for locally produced news and children's educational programming 
  that is not required to be captioned, or is specifically exempt, under the FCC's 
  rules. In the notice for this competition we used the FCC's standard of what 
  constitutes children's educational programming. Finally, we concluded that sports 
  magazine programs could be considered news and that profiles of sports figures 
  could be considered informational. Therefore, we are deleting these as exceptions 
  in the examples we will provide to applicants.
  Thank you for your continued support of programs serving individuals with disabilities.

Sincerely,

/s/

Rod Paige

Enclosure

Additional Recipients:
  Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
  Honorable Tom Harkin
  Honorable Janice D. Schakowsky
  Honorable Jim McDermott
  Honorable Sherrod Brown
  Honorable Lynn Woolsey
  Honorable Juanita Millender-McDonald
  Honorable Jerry F. Costello
  Honorable Maxine Waters
  Honorable Stephanie Tubbs Jones

|Last Modified: 10/26/2004
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