Vouchers Fail as House Passes Special Education Bill

A Republican-led push to let parents send disabled children to private school with government money failed Wednesday as the House passed legislation renewing a 28-year-old law governing special education. Critics said the school choice proposals amounted to a dangerous expansion of the voucher program. Almost every Democrat and about one-fifth of Republicans joined to reject the ideas.

The proposals were a major point of contention in the debate over reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The bill passed by a 251-171 vote.

One plan would have enticed states to create private school options so parents could use public money for tuition and transportation. A second intended to give certificates to children already enrolled in private schools so they could get extra services. Supporters said the amount - about $1,400 - is the share of federal money that would go to the students if they were in public schools.

"Federal funds should not be used for private school vouchers for any children, but it's particularly dangerous for children with disabilities," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.

Democrats said the changes would strip money from public schools and offer no accountability to parents or the public about how well disabled students are served. But the sponsor of the main private school plan, Rep. James DeMint, R-S.C., said parents deserve a range of choices.

"I have concerns with special education today," DeMint said. "Instead of meeting the needs of the children who are truly disabled, special education is becoming a label for every child who learns differently, or who has not been taught basic skills."

"This just demonstrates how little public support there is for school vouchers," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "This public is not convinced this is a way to reform education."

Reps. Ralph Hall of Texas and William Lipinski of Illinois were the only two Democrats to vote for the private-school options.

Members of both parties agreed on the central points, including early intervention for children needing help and better identification of which students have disabilities.

The focus now shifts to the Senate, which expects to release its special education bill by Memorial Day. Senators are negotiating a bipartisan bill that would leave contentious issues, including vouchers and mandatory funding, for debate.

The Bush administration, which has endorsed the House bill, said it would work with the Senate to strengthen some areas, including preparing disabled children for college or the work force

"This bill will help reduce the misidentification of students with disabilities and relieve the paperwork burden on teachers, allowing them to spend more time doing what they do best: teaching our children," Education Secretary Rod Paige said.

Advocates for the disabled say the bill weakens protections for students with special needs. They are concerns about expanded punishment for students who break school rules and reductions in the educational reviews given to each student.

"We have to do a better job of articulating what's at stake for kids and their families," said James Wendorf, executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. "We will seriously reach out to the grass roots in order to make that message take hold."

Democrats lost a bid to make Congress pay 40 percent of special education costs, the amount it promised when it approved the education law more than 25 years ago. But GOP leadership ruled out amendments that would have phased in mandatory funding over six to seven years.

The money issue is significant because states and school districts must pay for whatever expenses the Congress does not cover. That amounts to billions of dollars that school leaders say they need for teacher training and salaries, books, equipment and other expenses.

Federal spending on special education, which stood between $1 billion and $2 billion throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, has increased to $8.9 billion in recent years. The House plan would increase the federal commitment from 18 percent to 40 percent over seven years at the discretion of Congress.

Republicans said mandating yearly increases would reduce oversight of special education and limit lawmakers' ability to respond to other needs.

Roughly 6.3 million children with physical or emotional disabilities receive special education.

Wrong.

My autistic son is doing just fine in a private school setting, and they're quite pleased with him. It's a matter of choice and personal responsibility. If people can afford to choose an appropriate setting, why, there will be more appropriate settings from which to choose. Private schools are free to decide whom to take and whom not to take, whereas the public school has to take everybody--and then can let them all down equally. Ask any parent of a physically disabled child how much fun it is to have to constantly fight the school for basic safety and comfort for their child. Academics fall by the wayside for so many who by default end up in lower-functioning programs despite high intelligence, because there aren't enough aides who can change diapers or feed a quadriplegic, while still providing enough time in the mainstream classroom they could otherwise handle.

Vouchers would help a lot. But I do what's best for my children with or without the government. I'm paying taxes like any parent, but my children are out of the failed public schools. Am I resentful? No, I'm blessed because I have the means to make the choice (new car or private school?) while so many parents do not.

Getting my son where he is now really HAS been an adventure, and I am grateful beyond words for this school.

Our public school system here is a total disaster for everyone, and they are incapable of providing a safe environment for any of the autistic kids. I don't think much of what they provide the mainstream kids either, let me tell you. (How would you like to eat lunch with someone ranting at you through a megaphone the whole time? Isn't something wrong when a third of all the kids on a playground are in time-out--routinely? Do you remember your elementary school being so prisonlike as the ones I see here?)

The special ed director made a shocking admission to me--they are having trouble finding enough ways to spend the money they have--they're buying a lot of stuff they don't even need because they have to spend the money, while the mainstream budget is laying off needed teachers left and right. Mainstream kids aren't getting field trips, aren't getting to go to spelling bees and sports competitions because there's no money. But Special Ed is deliberately wasting funds because it's use it or lose it. Of course if the media went to them over this, they'd deny it, but this is what she said to me.

They can't just move the money over, either, even though the infrastructure problems that affect the mainstream kids affect the special ed kids just as much! A delapidated building is a delapidated building, and inadequate supervison of the mainstream kids because of fired teachers endangers everyone. They tend to locate special programs like the autistic programs in the very worst schools, and bus the kids in from all over the city--this helps them to keep the troubled schools open, but it means that good special ed teachers sometimes actually fear for their own safety, and are more likely to quit. The school they put my son in when he was in the public autistic program has NASTY facilities. Beyond bad. NASTY. Depressing, repressing.... The fewer adults there are around, the more damage the kids do, and things just get worse.

(For some reason, administration never gets the axe.)

They put my son on a bus with broken brakes when he was in 2nd grade, before I pulled him out. The driver was having to downshift and then use the emergency brake to make the bus stop. The epidemic broken buses meant that the rest of the fleet was having to stay on the road more, exacerbating the problem. Some kids were on the bus for 3 or 4 hours without even a potty break! School out at 3, kids home at 6:30--that's not acceptable to ME. But I was told that's just how it is. (He was never picked up on time, either. Late to school sometimes an hour, almost every day! And waiting for his bus meant his sister was tardy for her kindergarten 59 times in one semester!)

The district can't afford to maintain the special ed and other buses, but Special Ed is buying unneeded toys to spend federal money. They (by law) can't pay aides enough to make them stick around, so turnover and shortages result in them hiring dangerous and meritless people that McDonald's wouldn't let flip burgers.

You have to be a special kind of person to change a 10 year old's diapers, and even more special to stick around long enough to bond a little bit with such children. Most times these people quit without notice, leaving the teachers completely overwhelmed and in the lurch, and THEY burn out. What do you do when you're alone with 8 autistic elementary kids because the aides both quit, and two of the severely autistic need diaper changes, which has to be done in another room? Leave seven alone, unsupervised, lift and change the others, pray the couple who are occasionally violent don't hurt the others? Pray the one so disturbed he will break and eat glass doesn't decide to get up and find a window? Pester the principal (who has an Attitude about being stuck with the program) to please come down again and babysit for you?

And what happens all this time to the bright, Aspergers kid who **can** learn, can be brilliant in fact, if someone is helping him stay on task? High functioning disabled kids are put in with low-functioning kids, which does the low-functioning ones a lot of good but means the high-functioning ones aren't getting what they need. That attention is NOT a waste of time. It can make the difference between a high-functioning autistic kid (or otherwise disabled kid) becoming a working taxpayer (and a happy, functioning person who needs minimal help) and a kid becoming institutionalized as an adult, lost, unable to achieve his potential...and a burden on the taxpayer.

I'm just very blessed--my son is very blessed--that a way out opened up for us. There is no way that my son could be functioning at grade level if he had been left in that public special ed program...a pawn in a sickening money game. We drive two hours a day between us to get the kids to and from this school. We will stay here when we could make more money moving elsewhere because of this school.

There's truth in every word you wrote!

This however:

And what happens all this time to the bright, Aspergers kid who **can** learn, can be brilliant in fact, if someone is helping him stay on task? High functioning disabled kids are put in with low-functioning kids, which does the low-functioning ones a lot of good but means the high-functioning ones aren't getting what they need.

was a particular sticking point for us.

The school district had/has a decent program for high functioning kids that are verbal and are nearly potty trained. My 4 year old is non-verbal, low functioning and definitely not appropriate for the class that the school district wanted to put him in. My wife implored the directors that the high functioning kids, which we only wished our son could be, would suffer if my son was placed in their class. Didn't matter to them.

It hasn't been easy, but I would go to the ends of the earth to help my son be all that he can be.

Private schools generally are not equiped to deal with special education students, nor do they want to be.

Private schools also have the option of deciding whether or not to accept a child- *any* child- into the school setting. Aside from that, it's impossible to try to group 'special education' children together; the spectrum of issues has such a wide range.

My three children attend a private Christian school. My oldest child, if attending public school, could be classified as 'disabled', as he has a specific learning disability. Any needed amount of related assistance given him is done so using our doctors of choice, utilizing our health insurance, and paid for out of our pockets- not the school system. Our choice.

A couple of years ago and while attending the same private school, my other two children both were in need of speech therapy. Upon discovering the federal requirements outlined in the

1997 Amendments to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

Joshua and Faith-Hannah had their initial speech tests and evaluations; as well as the subsequent 1-2 years of evaluations, speech therapy and transportation, overseen by our Child-Find program which is part of the public school system. Again, my choice.

Until I was in possession of the IEP forms myself and understood the vernacular, I had no idea that as a result of utilizing Child-Find for speech therapy, my children would be given a label of sorts and be recognized and acknowledged by the school system as children for which testing suggests they qualify for, as well as should receive, special education services.

I know just how you feel. I don't want to give you false hope but when my son was 4 we were told a lot of very negative stuff by a neurologist who diagnosed him as LOW-functioning--if we'd believed him, we wouldn't have come as far as we have today. We believed that a very bright child was in there somewhere and we were determined to reach him. Over time we REALLY got my son's splinter skills integrated with his deficits. He is functioning at grade level in all academic areas and socially has come a VERY long way. We still have some significant deficits but they are subtle. When he was 4, *no professional* had that positive a prognosis.

I also think that a several-months-long course of prednisone made a dramatic difference in a very short time. The pediatrician who tried it had a theory that some autism is caused by an inflammation in part of the brain, too subtle for MRI to pick up. Don't know if her theory was right but there is NO QUESTION that my son's eye contact improved, his echolalia subsided, and his original speech began almost immediately after he started the steroid treatment. He began to express his wants and needs for the first time, verbally! and even to have temper tantrums. Look into this. His abilities improved dramatically, and though we had a few short bouts of regression afterward, he never lost any major gains nor any permanently.

My son was on that med when he was 3 and it opened so many developmental windows for him.

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