The amendment to the fiscal year 2001 budget offered by Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., would have mandated $2 billion increases annually for special education over the next five years, or a total increase of $1,500 per special education student. The federal government currently is providing only about 10 percent of its promised 40 percent share of the cost of IDEA.

The Senate instead narrowly approved a substitute amendment by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, that gutted Jeffords’ original amendment, changing the funding mandate to a mere statement that the Senate should make full funding of IDEA a high priority.

Natalie Carter Holmes, Editor