Darlene Hooley: “I support his amendment and I support full funding of IDEA. While I am pleased that this Congress is tackling the issue…”

“I support his amendment and I support full funding of IDEA. While I am pleased that this Congress is tackling the issue of special education today, I am disappointed that this bill does not substantively address several important issues including fully funding IDEA and the misidentification of children with disabilities. Misidentification is a serious problem in our schools. Many general education teachers are not trained to identify learning disabilities and students are placed in special education when all they need is a little extra assistance. Not only is this detrimental to the student, but it diverts precious funding away from students with serious disabilities. Full funding of IDEA has been one of my top priorities during my time in Congress. When Congress first addressed this issue in 1975, we made a commitment to provide children with disabilities access to a quality public education. But not once in the past 28 years has Congress lived up to its obligation to fund the services it requires states and school districts to provide, despite a commitment that it would do so. My home state of Oregon, like so many states around the country, is suffering tremendous budget shortfalls. When the federal government doesn't pay its share, the remaining costs don't just disappear. The state and school districts are forced to pick up the additional costs, putting additional strain on our education funding.”