Finally, something I'm knowledgable about. Sarah Palin wants to use IDEA funds to allow vouchers to be given to parents with special needs children to send them to whatever school they'd like.
Obviously, she does not know how IDEA funds are used at the present time. Schools and Special Education Cooperatives use these much needed funds to pay for programs that help both special needs children and the personnel who teach them. I know, I work for one such agency.
I am an accountant for a Special Education Cooperative in the great blue state of Illinois. I have been employed there for the last fourteen and a half years.
We employ School Psychologists, School Social Workers and Coordinators. Each member school district has their own team that works with them from the beginning of the referral process all the way to the time the child graduates. The focus of late has been to get a team from the school and work with our staff. The first procedure is called Building Based Teams. When a teacher has a concern, they contact our staff and set up meetings with the parents involved also. The purpose of these BBT's is to try to get help for the student before they are labeled as special education. It can be as simple as giving the teacher pointers on different ways of communicating with the student. Does that mean we never label children as special education? Of course not, but it can make life much easier for both teacher and student.
Five percent of our federal monies budget must go towards professional development. This is not just for our internal staff; we send regular and special ed teachers, support staff and administrators to workshops that can better educate them on how to reach children with special needs. We also sponsor workshops that are many times free to member districts, or they pay a reduced fee. For instance we just sponsored a workshop on dealing with autistic students. Later on in the year we will sponsor workshops to educate teachers and staff on the new Response to Intervention methods.
We are truly a cooperative, we involve district staff as much as possible to find ways to reach special needs children. For whatever reason, autism diagnoses are on the rise. We have started a preschool program to better reach these children at a younger age.
What happens to this if IDEA funding is used for vouchers? Besides putting us out of business, it leaves the school districts with the burden of hiring their own psychologists, social workers and coordinators, if they can even find them. School funding is not equitable in the state of Illinois so many schools could not afford to hire these staff members. Right now, if a special needs students child attends a private school, they are not guaranteed services. The home district is only required to put a certain percentage of dollars into a "pot" and when the money is gone, guess what? No services.
Our internal staff goes to private schools to service those children; this is not true in all parts of the state. IDEA is grossly underfunded, so just think what would happen if parents used these vouchers and no money was left to fund programs in the public schools? My home area is financially depressed in good times, so what happens to those districts if no funds are available? It is not a pleasant thought. Preschool IDEA funds have not seen a significant increase in years. Studies have shown that the younger the children are seen the larger chance of success. For whatever reasons in lower income areas there seem to be more special needs children.
Sarah Palin has no idea what she is saying and that makes her very scary. We need to make sure that McCain-Palin are not elected otherwise those special needs chidren that she claims to care so much about are in danger of receiving reduced or no services at all. Please help our kids and vote Obama-Biden on November 4th.