Reform Special Education Funding
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The special education reform bills have been introduced and are now on their way.
Please take a minute right away to click on the bill numbers below and see whether your Representative and Senator have signed on as cosponsors.
If you do not see their names, give a quick call to their Harrisburg office and ask them to immediately cosponsor this legislation.
If your representative and senator are already listed as cosponsors, call them to say a big “Thank you!”
The new bill numbers are House Bill 704 (yes, the same number as last year) and Senate Bill 1115.
Download a .pdf of the Summary.
Summary of Senate Bill 1115 and House Bill 704
as Introduced in 2011 by Senator Browne and Representative O’Neill
CONTACT: Education Law Center
Baruch Kintisch, 215-238-6970 x 320
Sandy Zelno, 412-255-6414
PURPOSE – The legislation addresses the current problems with the state systems for funding and accountability of special education for students with disabilities. The Commonwealth benefits when all students are educated and prepared for meaningful employment, higher education, and self-sufficiency. Reforms are required at this time because most school districts do not have the basic resources needed to provide a quality education with supports and services for children with disabilities. The state funding and accountability systems for special education are broken and need repair.
SUMMARY – The legislation is being introduced in the same form as adopted by the House in 2010, making the following improvements:
o Provide an effective formula to distribute state funding for special education, without creating compulsory annual targets or limiting the discretion of the General Assembly;
o Increase the accuracy of the special education formula by using three weights;
o Establish a transparent process to set the final formula weights through a legislative commission and subsequent regulation;
o Maintain spending at 2008-09 levels for 2011-12 if insufficient funds are appropriated;
o Streamline and strengthen school district accountability without imposing excess bureaucracy, applied when sufficient funds are appropriated in future years; and
o Maintain the Contingency Fund and make it more accountable and transparent.
It’s been a while since we had news to report about special education reforms in the PA General Assembly. Well, now we have some really good news.
And we all need to get busy!
The major reform legislation helping students with disabilities that we all worked so hard on last year is being re-introduced in the PA Senate and House.
In 2010, House Bill 704 was passed by the House with bi-partisan support and came close to getting a vote in the Senate. We just ran out of time.
The bill fixes the distribution and accountability of state funding for special education, aimed at improving opportunities to learn for children with disabilities.
The same bill will now be re-introduced in both the Senate and the House, in the same form as it passed the House in 2010. Click here for a detailed summary. Continue reading »
