For the past couple of elections, candidates nationwide would show how aware they were of the issues and how they intended to stand up to those bureaucrats in Washington by demanding that special education be fully funded.

Those who got elected would nudge the funding up a little, both claiming partial victory and leaving an issue to run on next time. This year, however, the attempt to get the federal government to come up with its share seems more sincere than usual, a change that could save states $38 billion in the next budget.

Or could if not for specific language in the 1975 act that created the special-education guarantee. It says that federal dollars are to “supplement, but not supplant” state funding, meaning that additional federal money would not excuse states from continuing their funding effort. The law was amended in 1997 to allow 20 percent of new federal funding under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to go to other education programs, but the pressure on the states remains.

President George Bush, well aware of the costs of special education from his time as governor of Texas, included a substantial increase for IDEA in his new budget, but did not meet the full federal amount of 40 percent of the total, the intention when the act was created and a campaign promise he made. Maine’s delegation has been vocal about the importance of meeting that target, and now a bipartisan group of senators may have the votes to see it met. The key for states however, will also be the rules change on how the money may be spent.

The law as written in 1975 and even as amended in ’97 made sense in that not all states had embraced the notion of devoting needed resources to special education. Now that situation has sufficiently changed, and while increases in federal funding have helped state special-education programs in the last couple of years, they have not kept up with the scope or costs of the programs, which often end up pitted against general education in chasing scarce dollars.

Any increase in IDEA funding would be appreciated by states but an increase that would really make a difference would be accompanied by a removal of the “supplement” rule. The change would go a long way toward reducing the animosity that currently exists between special and general education without harming the programs the federal money was intended to fund.