Frank Riggs: “I just want to make sure again, I do not know if this will allay concerns for those who believe we should be serving…”

“I just want to make sure again, I do not know if this will allay concerns for those who believe we should be serving this population, but I want to point out one of the compromises we made on a bipartisan basis was to give States greater flexibility in providing special educational services to 18- to 21-year-old inmates in adult prisons. Indeed, there were some, including the Governor of my home State, Governor Wilson, whose view I very much respect, who believed we should have flatly prohibited providing services to this segment of the population. We did not do that. Instead, what we did do in the legislation is allow prison education to be delegated to the prison or corrections system. We relaxed standards to acknowledge the security requirements associated with serving this population in a prison environment or within a correctional facility, and, most importantly, as I stressed earlier, we provided that a State deciding not to provide services to this prison population only would forfeit that pro rata share of Federal funding for that small segment of the totally IDEA eligible population.”