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When Congress passed a broad law on educating children with disabilities in 1975, it agreed to kick in federal dollars to help cover the excess costs of meeting students' individual education needs.
In the time since, federal funding for what's now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has consistently fallen short of the target included in the law, leaving state and local officials on the hook.
Education groups, who call that shortfall an unfulfilled promise, have long campaigned for "fully funding" IDEA, which underpins services for nearly 7 million students with disabilities. More federal funding for IDEA, which gets $13.6 billion in the current budget, would help special education programs, they say, but it would also more broadly affect all students as schools would no longer have to pull as much from their general education budgets to meet the law's mandates.
That plea has gotten the attention of candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, many of whom have included pledges to "fully fund" IDEA in their education plans alongside calls to dramatically expand federal education spending across the board.
"We believe in treating these, the least of thy brethren, as people of value," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a December debate in Los Angeles, referring to a Bible verse that calls for protections for the most vulnerable people in society.
The candidate, who frequently touts her year as a special education teacher, has pledged $20 billion in additional annual funding for IDEA.
Other candidates—including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar—have pledged to fully fund IDEA, but they have not included a specific dollar amount in their plans. And the idea has seen bipartisan support in the past with bills sponsored by lawmakers in both parties seeking to ramp up the grant program to full levels.
Just how much does the spending gap affect states and districts? Special education needs and expenses vary greatly nationally, so it's difficult to pin down. In California, for example, the annual cost of educating a student with disabilities averages about $27,000, compared with general education costs of about $10,000 per student, the state's legislative analyst's office reported in November. Federal funds cover about $1.2 billion of the state's $13 billion special education...