``(e) Educational Placements._Each local educational agency or State educational agency shall ensure that the parents of each child with a disability are members of any group that makes decisions on the educational placement of their child.

`(e) EDUCATIONAL PLACEMENTS- Each local educational agency or State educational agency shall ensure that the parents of each child with a disability are members of any group that makes decisions on the educational placement of their child.

`(f) ALTERNATIVE MEANS OF MEETING PARTICIPATION- When conducting IEP team meetings and placement meetings pursuant to this section and 615, the parent of a child with a disability and a local educational agency may agree to use alternative means of meeting participation, such as video conferences and conference calls.'.

(b) FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS-

(1) FINDINGS- Congress finds the following:

(A) Certain of the categories of disability that allow students to qualify for benefits under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act have not been scientifically established and, as a result, some children who do not have actual learning disabilities are classified as having disabilities under that Act.

(B) Nearly one in eight students is now labeled as disabled.

(C) Over one-half of those students are classified as having learning and behavioral challenges.

(D) Current definitions of disabilities in the Code of Federal Regulations, particularly the definition of `emotional disturbance', are vague and ambiguous.

(E) The absence of reliable methods for distinguishing children with a special learning disability from children who have lower than expected achievement leads to over-identification and misidentification of non-disabled students as students with disabilities.

(F) The lack of consistently applied diagnostic criteria for specific learning disabilities makes it possible to diagnose almost any low or underachieving child as a student with a disability.

(G) The President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education (PCESE) found in its July 1, 2002, report, `A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and their Families', that many of the current methods of identifying children with disabilities lack validity and, as a result, thousands of children are misidentified every year, while many others are not identified early enough or at all.

(H) The President's Commission also found that emotional and behavioral difficulties could be prevented through classroom-based approaches involving positive discipline and classroom management.

(I) According to testimony from a March 13, 2003, hearing before the Subcommittee on Education Reform of the Committee on Education and the Workforce of the House of Representatives, students are frequently referred to special education because they are not succeeding in the general education setting, and not because they are actually disabled.

(J) Students with controllable behavioral problems are often classified as having learning disabilities and therefore are not held responsible for their own behavior.

(K) According to testimony by Secretary of Education Rod Paige on October 4, 2001, before the Committee on Education and the Workforce of the House of Representatives, our educational system fails to teach many children fundamental skills like reading, then inappropriately identifies some of them as having disabilities, thus harming the educational future of those children who are misidentified and reducing the resources available to serve children with disabilities.

(2) SENSE OF CONGRESS- It is the sense of Congress that--

(A) students who have not been diagnosed by a physician or other person certified by a State health board as having a disability (as defined under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) should not be classified as children with disabilities for purposes of receiving services under that Act; and