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.