Lynn C. Woolsey: “like so many of all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I am hearing constantly from parents and educators at…”

“like so many of all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I am hearing constantly from parents and educators at home about the importance of meeting the Federal commitment to fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. Parents of children with special needs are absolutely frantic about their children's access to public education. They often feel like the schools are giving them the runaround, but schools are equally as worried about having the resources to do the job that they need to do. And the parents of students without special needs are more than fearful because they believe that special needs students are taking precious resources away from their children. This cannot continue. Congress must step up to our responsibility, and we should do it this year while the economy is good and we have a surplus. If we cannot do it now, we never will. But we should not be pitting one education program against another as this particular resolution does. When we do that, we pit students against students, parents against schools, and we pit schools against each other. However, there is a way that we can in this Congress meet the Federal commitment to fund IDEA. We can do this while continuing our support for other important education programs. We can do this by using some of the funds that have been set aside under the Republicans' balanced budget agreement for tax cuts to fund IDEA.”