CPR, through its work with Collaboration to Promote Self-Determination (CPSD), submitted a letter to the new Acting Assistant Secretary of the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) opposing the Department’s expressed intent to reopen the implementing regulations of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).
The letter was signed by groups from all 50 states and the Virgin Islands, and in total over 200 groups representing a broad coalition of stakeholders signed onto the letter, including national organizations, state agencies, employment providers, and organizations representing people with disabilities and their families.
Reopening the regulations is unnecessary and threatens the progress that has been made since WIOA passed in 2014 to expand opportunities for people with disabilities to obtain competitive integrated employment. Along with the coalition represented in this letter, reopening the regulations has also been opposed by the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities’ Employment Task Force and recommendations not to reopen the regulations have been made by the National Council on Disability and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee.
People with disabilities have fought tirelessly for the increased employment opportunities WIOA provides and we must work together to advance those opportunities, not dilute them.
To learn more about CPR’s employment work, click here.