Advocates for the disabled are berating and education officials are defending some new standards for educating disabled children that Congress passed earlier this month.

“This is a step backwards for the rights of the 65,000 Kansas students with disabilities who access special education,” said Rocky Nichols, executive director of a group that advocates for Kansans with disabilities. “It will leave far too many of them behind.”

The bill would be the first major revision in seven years to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The law promises a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment to more than 6.7 million children with special needs.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill, though the White House press office on Wednesday did not know when he would do so.

Nichols, of the nonprofit Kansas Advocacy and Protective Services, said keeping current law would be better.

In a key provision, the bill aims to boost discipline, giving schools more freedom to remove disruptive children if their behavior is not a result of their disability.

The bill heavily favors schools and administrators, said Calvin Luker, a Michigan lawyer who’s one of the founders of Our Children Left Behind, a Web site for special-education parents. Luker’s daughter, who had disabilities, died in 1999 at age 24.

“The new focus is ‘we want to make it as easy as possible for administrators to expel students, to punish students,'” Luker said. “The focus is no longer on teaching; it’s on punishing.”

Others disagree.

Shelley Vann, job coach for special education students at Lawrence High School, folds towels with a volunteer worker in the Lions Laundry. Congress has approved an update of special education requirements and pledged less pressure on teachers and more enforcement of high standards for students who are disabled.

The bill maintains safeguards for students with disabilities who may hurt themselves or others, said Alexa Posny, the Kansas Department of Education’s assistant commissioner of education.

The bill, as in the past, encourages mediation in disputes between parents and schools.

But now it also allows states and districts to recover attorney’s fees if a parent’s complaint is deemed frivolous.

The possibility of the recovering of attorney’s fees will scare parents from challenging the school and “force them to accept what the school offers rather than fighting for their children’s rights,” Luker said. “It will be another way that schools and school administrations intimidate and push around families.”

Besides, school district attorneys are already paid with taxpayer money, Luker said.

“I’m paying attorney fees to help the school screw my kid,” he said.

It’s realistic to believe that schools try to settle conflicts with parents “through the least adversarial means possible,” said Bruce Passman, Lawrence public schools’ executive director of special services.

Kansas Advocacy and Protective Services, Inc.

“I’m not a Pollyanna,” he said. “The first words out of the special education administrator or principal’s mouth will continue to be ‘how can we resolve these issues so that your child can benefit from the programs … that are being offered,’ rather than the threat of legal costs.”

The bill also targets more accurate identification of which children have disabilities, earlier intervention for struggling students and stronger enforcement of how states comply.

For teachers, there is the promise of less paperwork.

New educators also will get more flexibility in proving they are “highly qualified” to stay in the classroom under new federal standards — but not as much flexibility as several education groups say is needed.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.