Bill alters special-ed funding

Sunday, June 27, 2010

By BRIAN WALLACE, Lancaster Intelligencer Journal Staff Writer

The state House has approved a new funding formula for special-education services, but the bill doesn’t include the mandated funding increases hoped for by some school officials and advocates for the disabled.

In fact, the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Mike Sturla of Lancaster, said state special-ed subsidies are likely to be frozen at 2008-09 levels for the next two years.

What House Bill 704 would do is assure that whatever money is available for special-education services each year goes to the school districts that need it most, Sturla said.

Jeff Hawkes’ piece in today’s Lancaster Intelligencer Journal made a great case for fixing PA’s broken special education funding system.

Here’s the link:

Special education funding formula inequity in action

Here’s an excerpt:

Pennsylvania for too long has stacked the deck against taxpayers in Columbia, Lancaster and other high-poverty communities where schools are burdened by greater than average numbers of students who require special education.

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.