Special Ed Funding

The Scandal of Special-Ed

Robert Worth, The Washington Monthly Online It wastes money and hurts the poor: Reforming IDEA is no easy task. Any politician who touches it runs the risk of being branded a cold-hearted enemy of kids in wheelchairs. But before we start pouring billions more into the program, Congress should ask whether it's really serving the goal of equal opportunity for all. And if special ed has become a kind of band-aid for schools that lack money to teach their kids adequately, or for kids whose parents never prepared them in the first place, then perhaps it's time to address those problems head-on. Kids like Garret Frey deserve a shot at success--but not at the expense of kids like Saundra Lemons…

Why doesn't federal government fully fund special ed?

Column: Carol Veravanich, The Orange County Register It really stuck out that the federal government only funds special education 19 percent when they should fund it at least 40 percent. Seems to me that they should fund it 100 percent and then we would be out of the woods, so to speak. Is this an Obama administration cut from funding it down to 19 percent from 40 percent?

O.C. superintendents lobby for reforms

Fermin Leal, The Orange County Register Orange County’s public schools could avert further massive budget cuts if state and federal lawmakers allow more local control over restricted money for schools, end unnecessary and unfunded mandates and pay their fair share of special education costs, county school leaders said Friday. Twenty superintendents from the county’s 28 districts gathered at the county Department of Education headquarters to announce their campaign for reforms they say would relieve much of the budgetary constraints facing public schools…