Goodling Says
Congress Should Fulfill its Promise
to Fully Fund
IDEA
House Education
Chairman Introduces Legislation to Meet Goal
WASHINGTON – House
Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman Bill Goodling (R-PA)
introduced a bill today to set a schedule for fully funding the federal
government’s commitment to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA).
“Today, I introduced the IDEA Full Funding Act of 2000 that will
allow Congress to fulfill the commitment it made 24 years ago to children
and families with special education needs,” Goodling said. “The commitment made by Congress
was to provide children with disabilities access to a quality public
education by contributing 40 percent of the average per pupil expenditure
to assist states and local schools with the extra costs of educating these
children.”
Rep. Matthew Martinez (D-CA) is an original co-sponsor of the bill
(H.R. 4055) and has strongly supported full funding for IDEA throughout
his career.
Since 1975, when IDEA was signed into law, Congress has failed to
meet its commitment. During
the past four fiscal years, the Republican majority in Congress has
increased funding for IDEA by 115 percent, or $2.6 billion, for the
federal share in Part B of IDEA.
Even with the increase, however, the funding equals only 12.6
percent of the average per pupil expenditure to assist children with
disabilities.
The Goodling-Martinez bill would authorize increases of $2 billion
a year to meet the federal commitment of 40 percent by the year 2010. The Congressional Research Service
estimates that more than $15 billion would be needed to fully fund Part B
of IDEA. The Fiscal Year 2000
appropriation for IDEA was $4.9 billion, leaving states and school
districts with an unfunded mandate of more than $10 billion.
“I think that before we create new programs out of Washington,
Congress needs to ensure that the federal government lives up to the
promise it made to students, parents, and schools more than two decades
ago,” Goodling said. “If we
had kept our promise, school districts would have the funds necessary to
build new schools, hire new teachers, reduce class size, and buy new
computers.”
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