Rick Hill: “Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of my colleagues to this headline. It says they are going to cut 60…”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of my colleagues to this headline. It says they are going to cut 60 non-tenured positions in my hometown, in my hometown paper. The reason for that is that we are going to have to increase classroom size and reduce our gifted and talented programs because we cannot access dollars from any of the other Federal education programs. Specifically, we cannot access the dollars from the President's new initiative for new teachers and smaller classes. And that is a problem with our existing school funding programs. So what we can do? What we can do is fully fund special education, living up to the commitment that Congress has made. What happens if we do that? First of all, it is going to take the pressure off of local taxpayers in my home State, property taxpayers. But, more important than that, it will provide more funding for the general fund budget for education. By underfunding special education, we are forcing schools to go take money from their general education account and put it into their special education account. By fully funding special education, we will reverse that process. It will address the area of greatest uncertainty and the area of greatest cost to most of our school districts. I would urge my colleagues to support this resolution.”