My post today is part of a blogosphere-wide effort to raise awareness about special education and childhood disability.  Laura M, of 11D, is organizing things and I will link to all participants as they come on-line throughout the day (Liz Ditz, of I Speak of Dreams, is on board; as is Elisabeth Carnell; Jeannette; Mrs. Coulter)

   My contribution will focus on money problems.

   Here’s a passage from Confucius to start things off:

The Master said: "Hold the young in awe.  How can we know their generation will not equal our own?  (9.23).

 Of course we like to think that our children will be even better than us (Confucius did not have as progressive a view of history), but he is telling us to take care of our kids, raise them well, and, above all (given his general emphasis on education), educate them effectively.

      In an abstract sense, everyone agrees with this: we should provide children with the best opportunities to develop to their full potential.  We should hold them in awe.  That’s why Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and reauthorized it.  No one argues against providing special education; indeed, it is the law of the land, all the way from the Supreme Court down.  The problem comes when each individual parent sits down with each specific school district and tries to determine what is best, and what is possible, for each particular child who need special education.  That’s when the money problem starts.   

     I have a vivid memory of the first meeting we had with the local public elementary school, when Aidan was just turning three, about what he would need in pre-school (for those new to the ins and outs of special education, local school districts are responsible for providing all relevant therapies, including physical therapy, for all children upon their third birthday.  We can argue about how far into things like physical therapy a public school district should go, but be aware that the Supreme Court has ruled that schools are responsible even for medical treatments, including such things as maintaining respirators, if they facilitate a student’s access to education).

    The physical therapist, who had been working with Aidan for two years (in the Early Intervention program which, by law, was responsible for providing him therapies up until his third birthday), said he should have "two or three" hour-long sessions with her a week.  The Superintendent (it’s a small school district and the Superintendent was involved then) immediately said: "Two."  I knew right away what was going on: he was searching for the cheapest way out.  If asked directly if money was determining the decision to provide services, he would have said "no."  But everything I have learned from that moment tells me that the real answer is "yes."  (background: I served for a couple of years as the Chair of the local Parent’s Advisory Council (PAC) for Special Education and then was appointed and later elected to the local School Committee, right at at time when the organization of Special Education in the district was being discussed and changed).

    It’s about the money.  And what is truly unfortunate is the way that a competition is set up between "special education" (SPED) and "regular education" expenditures.  SPED funds come out of the same pot of money as regular ed.  If an expensive case, like Aidan (he needs lots of therapies and a one-on-one assistant), comes along, either the district has to get more money from the town or the state, or it must take the money from regular ed. programs.  While I was on the School Committee, SPED spending inexorably rose (lots of kids with various levels of need) and we had to press for increases in local property taxes, because the state and the Feds would not respond. 

    In school districts all around the country, SPED spending is increasing and it is taking funds away from regular ed, creating all sorts of bad feelings and underfunded programs all around.

     Now, some might say there is a lot of "waste, fraud and abuse" in the system.  This is not the key problem.  The need is genuine and increasing.  Pre-term babies, which we now can and should medically save, often have on-going medical issues and, unsurprisingly, special education needs.  If we save them, we need to support them later on.  Also, the explosion of autism has increased real SPED needs.  Here’s a quote from a GAO report (warning PDF), "Children with Autism:"

The number of children diagnosed with autism served under IDEA has increased by more than 500 percent in the last decade.

    So, I will  argue, and will continue to argue (i.e. respond to any challenges to the proposition) that increasing SPED costs reflect real social needs. 

    Following from that premise, I will also argue that this growing social need can only be adequately met at the highest level of socialized burden-sharing: the Federal government.

    And, for anyone who has been keeping track for the past twenty five years, the federal government has never lived up to its stated commitment to meet 40% of state-level needs for SPED spending.  This failure has come in both Democratic and Republican administrations and is very well documented.  Right now the Feds are picking less than half (they like to say "almost half") of what they said they would.  They know what they should do, and they have refused to do it for decades. 

    So, where does that leave us?  Here are two concrete policy proposals to think about:

  1)  Special education funding should not come out of the same pot as regular ed.  SPED spending should have a separate budget and funding mechanism.

    2) The federal government should pick up at least half (not simply the 40% that it has promised and never given) of the real SPED demand (not some hokus pokus formula-derived figure that has little connection with reality).  State and local budgets could pick up the rest.

    I am happy to flesh out these ideas, and any others suggested here, for interested commenters.  If these things were done, however, we would avoid a lot of unnecessary conflict between SPED and regular ed, and we would come close to actually meeting the needs of children.  We would truly be holding them in awe.