OK. I’m thoroughly confused. I can’t find a straight answer on exactly what the latest ‘compromise’ is, but from what I’ve been reading, it sounds like special education funding was salvaged to something back to its original funding levels. This is in spite of the overall pool of money going to states toward overall stabilization of their massive budget shortfalls being cut significantly.
It looks like school infrastructure investments got hit hard, though. I can’t find any reliable information about other disability services and vocational programs at this point. If you know what the heck is going on, I’d love to hear from you.
And as a general comment, if you know someone concerned about funding special ed not stimulating the economy, you should tell them about the massive backlog of everything in the school systems and county agencies, the complete lack of adequate numbers of teachers and therapists in the vast majority of counties, and argue that, hey I bet hiring more people would help some of this!
Whatever passes the Senate – presumably by Monday – will lead to a group of Senators and Representatives locking themselves in a room for a conference committee and hashing out what will ultimately go to President Obama’s desk. Conference committees are confusing things. At least I don’t understand them. Though it seems like anything from tax rebates for bloggers to investments in alternative energy from harnessing methane from cows could be in that final bill for all we know at this point.
Anyway, enough soapboxing. None of this is a done deal, so keep contacting those who represent you in Congress!
Posts that hopefully are similar:
- URGENT ACTION ALERT! Special Education and Disabilities Funding on the Chopping Block (Updated)
- Stimulus Bill Passes House! Time to Focus on Senate
- Action Alert x 2! The Stimulus Package and Funding for Disabilities Services
- Action Alert! Stimulus Package and Disabilities Funding
- President Obama and Autism
- And Now We Will Hold You To It
- Obama and McCain on Autism Spectrum Disorders, Education, and Health Care
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The most helpful list I’ve seen so far is from McClatchy’s Planet Washington blog, supposedly out of Senator Leahy’s office. Biggest education-relation hits: school construction, Head Start/Early Start, NCLB. I don’t see any big disability-related items on the list…
Makin’ my head spin. Thanks for continuing to post on this.
@JoyMama – I still haven’t figured out what the actual situation is, but as best I can tell, what you and I have been saying in here is apparently more or less in the ballpark of being what’s really happening. Of course, I wonder if the people voting on it even know what’s in it.
Assuming it passes in the morning, which by all accounts it will, what happens next in the conference committee is a lot like 52-card pickup. Who knows.
I gather from reading disability blogs that there’s a sense of ‘well, it could be worse, but it could be a lot better’ but with the same lack of clarity about what the end result will be.
And lobbying our state legislature or county commissioners for anything is pointless right now since everything on the planet is being held up until the stimulus is resolved. Blech.
On a lighter note, I heard a news commentator say, “I don’t think the size of the package is big enough.” They should warn me before they say stuff like that so what I’m drinking won’t come out of my nose.
@Tim – Heh… not enough warning for me either!! Coffee spray, LOL!
Stimulus effects… size of the package… the mind boggles.
Although, here in Wisconsin, we actually do have autism insurance legislation moving forward quickly, well worth lobbying for (blogged about it Saturday if anyone wants details). There were state senate hearings on it yesterday. So — everybody keep track of what’s going on in your own state too!
There’s a national database on the National Conference of State Legislatures web site that lets you see what’s going on in your state with autism-related legislation. Some of it is very legalese-y, but you can at least get a pretty good sense of what’s going on.