Lois Capps: “I rise in support of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. When special education legislation was first…”

“I rise in support of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. When special education legislation was first enacted in 1975, the federal government, recognizing the extraordinary costs of inclusion, pledged to provide state and local education agencies with forty percent of the excess costs associated with educating students with disabilities. Sadly, the federal government has not come close to meeting this obligation, with annual appropriations never exceeding twelve percent of excess costs. The chronic underpayment of this federal mandate has left state and local governments with a burden of more than $146 billion in lost funding over the past twenty-two years--a staggering shortfall that has forced education agencies to shift resources out of lower-priority, but important necessities such as building maintenance and upkeep. Special education departments end up eating large portions of local and state school budgets, which creates a competitive relationship between regular and special education, as they vie for the same scarce funds. This situation is not the fault of school districts, but a direct result of Congress's inadequate funding of IDEA. Special education has received a billion dollar increase over the past two years. Yet even with this substantial increase, funding is still substantially below Congress's 40 percent promise. This means that states and districts will continue to be unfairly burdened by these excess costs.”