Reform Special Education Funding
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Yes!
Governor Corbett signed into law yesterday historic legislation to fix Pennsylvania’s broken special education funding and accountability system.
House Bill 2 establishes a legislative commission to develop — for the first time in the Commonwealth — a funding formula for special education that uses accurate student counts and addresses actual student needs.
This is a huge victory for students with disabilities and was made possible by the work of advocates representing 40 organizations throughout Pennsylvania.
We’re close.
The General Assembly has done its part to help fix the broken state system for funding special education. The state senate unanimously approved HB2 on Tuesday. It’s now up to the Governor.
We expect Gov. Corbett to sign HB2 into law in the coming days. This historic legislation will establish a commission on special education funding and accountability to reform the out-dated system and implement an accurate funding formula based on student need.
More to come next week.
The House of Representatives yesterday unanimously approved House Bill 2, Printers No. 537!
The House version of the bill has now been sent over to the Senate for consideration. (Please note that there is also an identical Senate companion bill—Senate Bill 470, Printers No. 411.) We expect the Senate to take swift action on House Bill 2.
Congratulations to everyone involved for the tremendous work over the past four years with legislative visits, meetings, strategy sessions, letters, emails, and phone calls. We’ve gone through a lot of versions of this legislation together but—because of the hard work and relentless action from dedicated advocates—this bill may finally move and we will have a commission in place to figure out a fairer funding and accountability system for special education in Pennsylvania. This is truly a noteworthy accomplishment.
HB 2, the Special Education Funding and Accountability Bill, passed unanimously out of the House Education Committee on Feb. 11. There were favorable comments about the support of the advocacy community. Stay tuned for more news.
House Bill 2 Printers No. 537 was introduced this week by Rep. Bernie O’Neill and was referred to the House Education Committee for consideration.
This has been placed on the agenda for a committee vote on Monday, February 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM in Room 60 in the East Wing (near the cafeteria). It’s a public hearing so everyone is welcome to attend the hearing.
The bill is very similar to one of the final versions adopted last fall which unfortunately met its demise when it was amended with controversial amendments unrelated to special education.
Senator Pat Browne will be introducing a companion bill shortly in the Senate. The legislative champions for this bill have committed to moving this bill through the legislative process in a timely manner. Many organizations worked extremely hard and were disappointed in the process surrounding previous bills, but the primary bill sponsors want to work to accomplish this without any entanglements that are unrelated to our issues.
A brief analysis of the bill is attached. The bill basically upholds the mission and the core basic principles of the special education funding reform coalition and we are all hoping the General Assembly seizes the opportunity to enact this important legislation
The Education Law Center’s critical special education reform bill — SB 1115 — will not move forward in the state legislature. The 2011-12 session of the General Assembly is over. Special education legislation will need to start all over again next year when the new two-year legislative session begins.
The special education funding and accountability reforms contained in SB 1115 should have been adopted and signed into law. Those reforms were approved three different times by the full Senate and twice by the full House of Representatives, as well as receiving nearly unanimous committee votes on dozens of occasions. Unfortunately, other things were also put into SB 1115 at the last minute, such as charter school provisions.
At this time, state officials are more interested in education issues other than special education. Children with disabilities made it close to the top of the list of legislative priorities, but charter school reform and special appropriations for a community college were more important to the people in power.
The individuals and organizations that worked so hard on this legislation deserve enormous thanks and recognition. They helped to craft the reforms contained in these bills; testified at hearings; and visited legislators to tell them about the need for special education reforms.
Stay tuned for future updates and plans for the next legislative session.
We’re so close!
Senate Bill 1115 is the legislation we have worked on together for almost five years, and it’s close to final passage.
The legislation establishes a new funding formula and accountability system for special education and children with disabilities in Pennsylvania public schools. The bill creates a Legislative Commission on Special Education that will work to implement the final version of a special education funding formula in the first few months of 2013.
SB 1115 passed both the House and Senate in June, but final passage was held up over the summer when charter school reforms were amended into the bill.
The bill is moving again and was approved yesterday by the Senate Rules Committee. The full Senate is expected to vote on SB 1115 today, with final passage in the House slated for Wednesday.
The Rules Committee strengthened the special education reforms in the bill. The Committee fixed over two dozen problems that we had identified. One of the new improvements fully restores the instructions for the Legislative Commission on Special Education about implementing a new special education funding formula. This is great news.
The charter school reforms have been changed and no longer include a state authorizer, automatic conversion triggers, exclusions from the Right to Know law, or the other expansive proposals that were controversial. Other problems still exist with the charter language, including the failure to address the real issues of children with disabilities who are often excluded from the charter school system in Pennsylvania.
Some advocates may want to speak up about the problems that remain with the charter school provisions in the bill. We hope that you will support SB 1115 because of the historic special education reforms.
Thank you for your dedication to these issues.
These students are back in school and now it’s time for state legislators to get back to work and pass special education funding and accountability reforms that benefit all Pennsylvanians.
Our special education reform legislation, Senate Bill 1115, has become an unfortunate example of how the most vulnerable students always lose when politics interferes with education policy. SB 1115 was not adopted with the annual budget by the June 30 deadline. The General Assembly will consider the special education reforms later in 2012, after the summer recess. The Corbett Administration may have different ideas for special education reforms and may not accept the core principles reflected in SB 1115.
Although this is a major disappointment, parent advocates and disability groups are encouraged to stay engaged to overcome the obstacles to improving special education policy and practices. To learn more about why this happened and what we can do, click here.
