Darlene Hooley: “I grew up in a family where if we gave our word, we kept our word. We did not break our promise. And this budget is full…”

“I grew up in a family where if we gave our word, we kept our word. We did not break our promise. And this budget is full of broken promises. I want to talk about just one of those today. There are many, including for veterans, No Child Left Behind, IDEA; but one of the things we do is we fill niches in education, and education is the one piece that gives everybody equal opportunity in this country. Education is incredibly important. Twenty-nine years ago, this Congress pledged it would fully fund IDEA, which is Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We would fully fund it at 40 percent of the excess cost. And for 29 years Congress has failed to keep that promise, leaving States to shoulder the brunt of this unfunded mandate. This budget continues to fail our students, our schools. It costs on average twice as much to educate children with disabilities than a nondisabled child. With the Federal Government failing to live up to its end of the bargain, the State and local school districts are forced to divert already-meager resources from other students in order to ensure that special needs students also receive instruction.”