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| Home > Press Room > Billions of Special Education Federal Funds Historically Go Unspent |
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Billions
of Special Education Federal Funds Historically Go Unspent But state calculations show that the charter spent less than a third of the $9.4 million it received for special-education students on special education". "That analysis showed that special-education over funding was worse than the state reported. Charter schools across Pennsylvania received about $91 million in subsidies, while spending only $50 million. They were able to spend the surplus funds for any purpose they wanted." A news brief dated November 2008 from the Thompson Compliance website stated: "It is difficult to make the argument that more federal funds are needed to support special education and related services under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act when millions of dollars go unspent each year. "Several years ago, we had about $32 million of IDEA funds that reverted to the Treasury," said Ruth Ryder of the Education Department's Office of Special Education Programs' Monitoring and State Improvement Planning Division. "Congress sees that there are these large balances that are not being used within states. It does raise a concern for them. In working with states on this for several years, we have gotten that down to where now it's about $5 million." In 2003, Suzanne Whitney, the research editor at Wrightslaw.com put together a great summary showing how states were sitting on over 5.7 billion in federal education funds. Interesting tidbits included: "Every state has millions of unspent federal education dollars from 2000-2002. New
York ranks #1 with $689 million in unspent federal funds (12%
of their allotment for 2000-2003) Arkansas is in last place - it used all but 1.7% ($12 million) of its funds. How does your state rank? Are you curious? Check this chart! While states hire lobbyists to seek changes in No Child Left Behind, millions of children are not learning to read, spell or do math at grade level. (Graphs of student proficiency in reading, math, science)" Remember that every dollar not spent may be sent back to the federal government OR subtracted from the next years allotment OR they can be put into the general fund. The irony in all this, is the fact, unspent funds in 2002 were from a far lower distribution than the money received in 2009! How much of the 2009 year cash infusion for disabled students will go unspent on the disabled students? Will there be more "reverse encroachment" where schools siphon the money into their general fund? Do
school districts deliberately withhold funding from special education
students so money can be put back the general fund so they can pay
for pet projects? Why are these so kids undervalued?
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