This is one of our editors' picks from our ongoing roundup of Investigations Elsewhere.
The federal stimulus package set aside $11.3 billion for special-needs education in this school year and the next, but school districts across the country are using those funds for other purposes, reports The Wall Street Journal. A provision in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a version of a statute originally enacted in 1975, makes the move perfectly legal, but it has left special-needs advocates feeling shortchanged.
5 comments:
I'm not trying to be mean here. But why in the current economic climate, during a time when we need to focus on training our kids to compete globally, would we waste 11.3 billion on kids who will mostly only be fit to be greeters at Walmart?
That is a disgusting comment. How do you know where the childen will end up if given the chance to succeed. How any person could make such a heartless comment is really appalling. Let me take a guess..you don't have a child with a disability do you? Good thing God knows who to place his special children with.
12:32 - you're probably right and the previous comment doesn't understand. If they haven't walked that path, how could they?
9:40 - Without sounding mean, I can understand your ignorance as you probably have never been told that "with the proper attention your child COULD talk, with the proper attention, your child COULD walk, but I'm sorry, due to lack of funding and the current status of insurance companies in general, your child WILL NOT talk, your child WILL NOT walk."
It's a situation you have to experience to understand. After what I have been through with my son over the past five years, I'm eternally grateful that he is alive at all. Now we are getting messages similar to what I stated above, and it's just sickening.
Oh... and if my boy can get to the point where he can take a job as a greeter at WalMart, well, I would be the proudest father you could ever see. I would have a level of pride that maybe 1% of the population could ever hope to comprehend. Some fathers are proud when their boy does well in sports but will NEVER feel the pride involved with a special needs child achieving a major goal. They'll never know the pride of seeing their 4 year old situp by hiself for the first time. They'll never know how it feels to see their son do something which doctors said would never happen... and believe me, this is one area where doctors LOVE to hear that they were wrong!
Anyway, this is about those certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness. This money is about maximizing potential in these children in hopes of a better life.
Another way to look at it is... would you rather pay for the children now or later. The sad fact is that you/we are going to pay for these children regardles of how, when, and where. As much as I hate to say it, there probably will be a day when my boy is too much for me to handle. When that day comes, where do you think he's going? More than likely to a state facility where, you guessed it, the government will pay for him through our tax money. With that being said, IF the money is invested in the special ed programs now, maybe the outcome will be independence for the child. Independence from support from tax payers.
In my opinion, if this money is not going to the programs in which it was intended for, then the school districts involved are stealing your tax dollars. If people behaved like the government in this situation, you would probably call the police!
Maryland is not in compliance with Federal Laws..Johns Hopkins Hospital Has developed Education Methods for Dysfunctional Readers...There is NO ONE on the Lower Shore HIRED to Provide the Program....Where are the Special Needs Funds GOING?
9:40 Are you a Nazi? It sounds like a comment that would have been made by Adolf Hitler. What an idiot!!! To not care about individuals with disabilities is to not be human.
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