Bass Pushes to Make Special Education Funding Mandatory
SPECIAL ED
The Keene Sentinel
Lauren Katims
Boston University Newswire
10-5-06
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 – As New Hampshire schools prepare their 2007 budgets, money for special education will fall short of needs—again, school officials say. But when Congress returns in January, the state’s congressional representatives will try to do something about it–again.
Parents of special-education children, like Jeanne Haase of Jaffrey, whose son is autistic, are hoping Congress will respond.
Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) has been a long-time activist for special- education spending and is renewing his effort to make increases in federal special-education money mandatory.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed three decades ago and reauthorized in 2004, requires states to fully provide funds to all children with mental and physical disabilities. The federal government pledged to cover up to 40 percent of the costs, but it never provided more than 18 percent. Currently, it pays 17 percent of local costs.
As a result, special-education programs in the school districts are left with too many kids and limited funds, said Catherine Reeves director of special education in the Keene school district.
“In the federal government, it’s more of a money matter,” Reeves said. “it’s not about special education…, it’s not about a philosophical issue, it’s about money.”
Bass’s bill would require that special-education funds be increased each year until by fiscal year 2011 it reaches the promised 40 percent of state costs.
The bill was introduced last year, and if it doesn’t become law before the new Congress comes into session in January, he will introduce it again that month.
The 2007 budget estimate for special-education programs in New Hampshire is about $48 million, a 0.8 percent increase from 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
But schools are still lacking funds to provide more services for students.
“If we had more resources in our state, more federal dollars, we could do more programs,” said Santina Thibedeau , director of special education for the New Hampshire Department of Education.
The cost of special education is going up, and the government needs to increase its financial aid to keep up with inflation, Bass said.
“If we don’t continue to increase funding, the percent that federal government gives will go down,” he said.
One reason the cost is rising is because the number of students enrolled in special-educations programs in New Hampshire and around the country has doubled since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed, to an estimated 6.9 million, or about 11 percent of all students nationwide.
In New Hampshire, about 14 percent of students enrolled are special-education kids, said Reeves, the special education director in Keene.
On average, children with disabilities cost more to educate than regular students, Reeves said, and school districts do not have the funds to give these students the education they deserve.
Haase, the mother of the two-and-a-half-year-old autistic son, is feeling the crunch.
Her son, John Michael, was diagnosed with autism about a month ago. He is at a critical time, she said, where he needs the most attention and therapy he can get. However, the state froze funds for the program just at the time he was diagnosed, so John Michael receives only one hour of home therapy a week, where he would have benefited greatly from 20 hours, she said.
“The most important thing is parents working with the children when they are this age; I have three boys, and I just don’t have the energy in me,” Haase said.
Haase was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She and her husband do not have health insurance, and her illness is hurting them financially, she said Her family does not have the money to do anything for John Michael, she said. “It’s really impacted our lives…been really hard on us,” she said.
“I take him with me wherever I go; I’m here trying to do what I can with him,” Haase said.
When he’s three, John Michael can go to a pre-school program where he will get the treatment he needs, but until then, he has a lot of time that Haase wishes was better used.
To help parents like Haas, Amanda DiNino, who moved from New York to Peterborough with a 5-year-old autistic son, started a support group about six months ago for parents with autistic children. She was surprised about how little people knew about autism. Many families did not realize there were other kids in the area with autism, and some people did not even know what autism was, she said.
But she was most surprised by the lack of funds for treatment.
“People were more aware in New York…. Taxes are higher, there’s more money put into it, more resources, more services,” she said.
Kids with autism need a full 40 hours of attention each week, and the programs the schools offer are only for half the school day, she said. Her son is in kindergarten, and has an aide working with him throughout the day.
DiNino said, “We’ve been happy with what we’ve received, but it’s just not enough because the money’s not there.”
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