AASA is leading a massive, far-reaching effort to achieve full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) at the level the federal government promised in 1975, when the law was created.

We need your help, today, to make this promise a reality. Every seat in the U.S. House and 33 Senate seats are up for election on November 7. In these final days of the 106th Congress, your legislators will pay close attention to what you, as a voter and community leader, have to say about education.

The evidence you can present is compelling:

• The share of local school budgets devoted to special education has grown from 3 percent to 20 percent since 1975. The funds to fulfill the requirement to serve all six million children with special needs have come from local from local education budgets. 
• Serving a child with a disability costs 2.28 times more than the average per pupil cost for all students, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That means the estimated average cost for educating a child with is disability is $14,952. 
• Currently you receive $833 from the federal government for educating that child, a mere 13 percent of average per-pupil costs. You should be getting at least $2,640. 
• Read AASA's new proposal to make IDEA an entitlement

Bringing the federal contribution to the promised 40 percent won’t happen unless the funding becomes a mandatory entitlement, no longer subject to annual approval.

AASA’s reasonable proposal calls for a mandatory phase-in to boost special education funding by $2.2 billion per year, each year for the next five years. By that time the program should be funded at the full 40 percent. And Congress would be required to keep it at least at the 40 percent level, so whenever the average national per pupil expenditure goes up, your federal IDEA grant will also rise. Further, we propose no state would be allowed to use the federal money to "supplant" what the state currently spends in state funds for the education of children with disabilities.

At this site on our home page on the Internet— http://www.aasa.org/ --you will find a presentation of AASA’s proposal and the reasoning behind it. We urge you to go to our Web site, copy the information and share it with your House and Senate members.

They can be reached at: U.S. House, Washington 20515; U.S. Senate, Washington 20510; or 202.224.3121. The message: Keep Your Promise; Provide Full Funding for IDEA!

Acting together, we can make it happen.

Read AASA's new proposal to make IDEA an entitlement