Building on Historic Funding Increases for Special Education

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act

January 2005

In 1975, with original passage of the nation’s special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal government made a commitment to pay up to 40 percent of the additional cost of educating children with disabilities.  Although that original goal has never been met, we are closer today than ever before to reaching that commitment to help states and schools educate children with disabilities.  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, signed into law by President Bush on December 3, 2004, will build on ten years of historic funding increases, putting the federal government on a six year glide path to reaching the original funding goal of 40 percent.  

• Special education funding is at the highest level in history.  In FY 2005, federal special education grants to states are funded at $10.6 billion, an increase of $500 million over last year.

• IDEA funding has received unprecedented increases under ten years of a Republican Congress.  Since 1995, the last year of a Democratic-controlled Congress, funding for special education has increased from $2.3 billion to $10.6 billion for FY 2005.  That’s an increase of $8.3 billion, more than 360 percent. 

• President Bush has made special education funding a priority.  In his first term, President Bush will have increased special education grants to states by $4.3 billion, or 68%, from $6.3 billion in FY 2001 to $10.6 billion in FY 2005.

• The federal government is paying the largest share of special education costs in history.  In the first two decades under IDEA, the Democratic-controlled Congress allowed the federal share of special education costs to hover below ten percent.  Yet in just ten years, the Republican Congress has increased the federal share to 19 percent, the highest level in the history of IDEA.  The federal government is well on its way to reaching the original 40 percent goal set in 1975.

• H.R. 1350 puts the federal government on a six year glide path to reaching the 40 percent goal.  Under the bill, House and Senate negotiators have agreed on funding authorization levels, through the traditional discretionary appropriations process, to help the federal government reach the original funding goal of up to 40 percent of the additional cost of educating students with disabilities.

• A bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate have rejected making IDEA a new entitlement-style program.  99 House Democrats voted “NO” on mandatory IDEA spending in the last Congress.  On July 18, 2001, a total of 99 House Democrats (led by House Appropriations Committee ranking member David Obey, D-WI) joined 167 House Republicans in voting to reject a motion calling for making IDEA a new entitlement spending program through “mandatory” spending.  The Senate has also rejected the idea of making IDEA a mandatory spending program, which would significantly impair the ability of Congress to improve the system for students with disabilities.

• H.R. 1350 will give local communities more control over their resources.  The federal government is not yet meeting its commitment to pay up to 40 percent of special education costs, and states and local communities are making up the difference.  Under Republican leadership, the federal share of special education costs has risen dramatically, and the funding increases will continue.  As the federal share of special education costs continues to increase, local communities should have more flexibility in how they spend their own resources.  To increase options for local communities, H.R. 1350 will allow local schools, as the federal government moves closer to paying 40 percent of special education costs, to redirect a share of their own, local resources for other educational purposes, consistent with activities in the No Child Left Behind Act.