Special-education funding

Congress may be preparing to end its session this week with a battle over school-construction funding, but a new report details what happens when Washington fails to properly fund the education programs it already has. The result is harmful to students and to the school systems they learn in.

The Council for Exceptional Children, an advocacy group for the nation’s 6 million school children with physical, emotional or learning disabilities, spent two years examining the effects of the federal government’s failure to come close to its promised share of funding through IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Not only does this burden state and local governments, the report concludes, but it leaves understaffed schools turning to teachers to handle mountains of paperwork.

More than two-thirds of special education teachers spend the equivalent of one day each week filling out forms and filing papers, the report says, while about the same number are able to spend less than two hours a week in one-on-one instruction with their students. This robs students of the instruction time they need, ensures that local education dollars will be spent inefficiently and discourages new teachers from entering the field.

The money problem looks like this: Total special education spending in the United States last year was between $55 billion and $60 billion. The federal government contributed $5 billion toward it, when, had Congress reached the funding goal it set for itself, it should have been closer to $30 billion. For next year, the White House wanted something less than $6 billion; Congress wanted $7 billion and they apparently have agreed to $6.3 billion. While the increase is appreciated, the amount relative to what was pledged means that Washington is not even considering coming close to the funding it set when it established the special-education mandates.

Local school districts want much more funding though IDEA, states have been demanding more for years and members of Congress all agree it should receive far more money. So what’s the problem? No matter how much politicians say they love IDEA, they know money for new programs, rather than funding for existing ones, attracts new voters. Whether Washington adds $1 billion or $10 billion to IDEA, the headline announcing the increase is the same, so their incentive is to find new ways that bring praise.

The council’s report is about a lot more than funding – it seeks, in some ways, to make special education more successful with the understanding that the needed federal dollars will not be forthcoming – but many of the problems it describes would not exist or would not be as prevalent if IDEA was funding at the intended level. The next time politicians ask for your vote, tell them that before they support new federal education programs, they need to fully fund IDEA first.