Reform Special Education Funding
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The PA House Education Committee hearing on Wednesday, May 6 is a critical moment for the campaign to reform Pennsylvania’s special education funding and accountability system.
UPDATE: In the past the week the campaign has made great strides, getting HB 704 introduced with nearly 60 co-sponsors and receiving press coverage on the bill in newspapers throughout the state. The hearing on May 6, however, is crucial for the future of the bill. Members of the Arc of Pennsylvania, the Disabilities Rights Network, the Education Law Center, and Good Schools Pennsylvania will testify, along with bill sponsor Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster) and education officials, on the importance of a new special education funding and accountability formula.
MAY 6 HEARING: A strong showing of support by families, advocates, and organizations is important at this stage of the campaign. Please notify your contacts. The hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. in Room 50 (ground floor) of the Irvis Office Building (attached to the rear east corner of the Capitol). If you are able to attend and need more information please contact the Education Law Center’s Baruch Kintisch at bkintisch@elc-pa.org, (215) 238-6970 ext. 320 or Sandy Zelno at szelno@elc-pa.org, (412) 255-6414. Following the hearing there will be a strategy session on the next steps for our work.
CO-SPONSORS STILL NEEDED: In addition to a strong showing at the hearing, we need to push the number of bill co-sponsors as close to 100 as possible, so please check the current list of sponsors — here — and if you’re local representative has not signed on yet, urge them to do so immediately.
STORIES NEEDED: Finally, as part of our ongoing media outreach we’re looking for parents, educators, even students to tell their stories of how underfunding special education has affected them and how a new funding and accountability formula can help. If you, or someone you know, would like to share your experience, please contact the Education Law Center’s Brett Schaeffer at bschaeffer@elc-pa.org or (215) 238-6970 ext. 334
CONFERENCE CALLS: We will hold two optional conference calls if you would like a chance to talk by phone, get updates, and prepare for this advocacy work — 4 p.m., Monday, May 4 and 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 5. The dial-in number is (866) 244-1716 and the code is 5555-604-083 followed by #.
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Rep. Sturla introduces HB 704
A news brief from the AP was picked up in a few papers; Eleanor Chute from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did a news brief and longer piece; and Brian Wallace at the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal did a longer piece quoting Sturla and Baruch.
Chute’s piece: Proposed bill would change special education funding formula
Wallace’s piece: Sturla: Boost special education
The brief appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the Lebanon Daily News and Lehigh Valley Live – which is the Web site for the Easton Express Times and several other papers in that area.
Here’s the bill:
Representative Mike Sturla (Majority Policy Chair) will introduce our funding reform bill during the last week in April. He is currently seeking co-sponsors, and issued a recent memo to his colleagues for this purpose. Representatives James Roebuck (Education Committee Chair) and Barbara McIlvaine Smith (Special Education Subcommittee Chair) are also sponsors and will hold Education Committee hearings in early May.
HOW CAN YOU HELP TO GET THIS BILL PASSED?
Your immediate help is needed in two ways:
1. Schedule a meeting for yourself in the district office of one or two key legislators. Ask them to be champions for special education funding reform.
2. Issue a strong alert throughout your entire network for all individuals to call or e-mail their own state representative, asking the legislator to call Representative Sturla’s office ASAP and co-sponsor the special education bill.
You can use the following talking points:
Talking Points
(Put this in your own words and give personal examples.)
- Please support reform of the state funding system for special education.
- The current funding system is broken, is unfair, and does not provide enough resources for special education in the right places. It sets the number of students eligible for state funding for special education at 16% regardless of whether the district has fewer or more students receiving special education. It also does not focus the funding on strategies that have a track record for improving student performance.
- I have personal experience with how this broken system hurts children with disabilities and all students.
- Please take action before June to adopt a bill fixing this problem, based on the November 2007 Costing-out Study that was used to fix the regular education funding formula. The Study was updated for special education in February 2009.
- I know many families and educators who feel the same way. We will be doing our part to support your leadership on this issue.
Nice article by Evan Brandt in Monday’s Pottstown Mercury:
School district reality: Special needs require higher costs
POTTSTOWN — In 10 years, the number of special education students in Pottstown schools increased by more than one third, the number of special education classroom assistants increased three-fold and the number of special education teachers jumped from 26 to 40.
Outlined in a report to the school board Thursday, that information covers the period between the 1996-97 school year and the 2006-07 school year.
From Martha Woodall’s story in today’s Inquirer:
Zahorchak also will propose changing what charters receive for special-education students. The amount would be 20 percent less if the student has a speech or language impairment.
Pennsylvania's funding system for special education is broken and must be fixed this year.
On March 2 and 3, 2009, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees held their annual hearings on the education budget. Disability advocates attended the hearings, along with many other education lobby groups.
Special education was a hot topic of discussion at the hearings. Several Representatives and Senators expressed their opinions that the current state formula (or lack of one) for special education does not provide the resources needed by their local schools. Legislators asked Secretary Zahorchak for his opinion on this issue. He responded by making the following kinds of statements:
(1) The issue of special education funding needs to be studied before the Department can make a recommendation for changing the system. The Department does not have the data it needs.
(2) State investments in early childhood education and core elementary school improvements may lower the demand for special education resources without changing the formula.
Disability advocates and others disagreed with the Secretary’s responses. Pennsylvania’s funding system for special education is broken and must be fixed this year, using a needs-based formula that counts students and considers the resources required for a quality education.
