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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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State
Rep. Barb McIlvaine Smith |
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House Subcommittee on Special Education holds funding hearing
HARRISBURG, Feb. 12 – State Rep. Barb McIlvaine Smith, D-Chester, chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Special Education, held a public hearing today on the need to enact special education funding reforms at the state level.
McIlvaine Smith held the hearing due to growing concerns that most school districts in Pennsylvania lack basic resources to provide a quality education to children with disabilities.
"School districts are consistently coming up short and having to cover significant gaps in funding for essential special education programs with property tax increases," McIlvaine Smith said. "The testimony offered to the committee today clearly illustrates a need to scrutinize the equation used to fund special education at the state level and determine if there is anything we can do to reduce this burden."
McIlvaine Smith said she was concerned that the current projected state budget deficit of $2.3 billion could prevent increases in funding for special education, even to keep up with inflation.
"Obviously, with a difficult national economy, there are going to be cuts in the overall state budget, but my goal is to ensure they are not at the expense of students who have specific instruction needs that differ from the general student population," McIlvaine Smith said. "Senators Specter and Casey can help to protect funding for these students by including a decent level of funding for education and other aid to states in the final version of the federal economic recovery package."
The hearing largely centered on testimony from Augenblick, Palaich and Associates Inc. on its findings in a recent study, "Costing-Out the Resources Needed to Meet Pennsylvania’s Education Goals for Students with Disabilities." The study is a follow-up to a report done by the same firm that served as a basis for the state's basic education funding formula enacted last year.
Commissioned by The Arc of Pennsylvania, the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania and the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania, the report provides a detailed account of the shortage in adequate annual funding levels.
According to the report, almost 400 of the state's 500 school districts have inadequate funding for special education, averaging an annual shortfall of $1 million per district. The report says the total gap in annual funding for special education in Pennsylvania is $380 million.
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