John,

In 1975, Congress passed what would become the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to ensure every child with a disability has access to educational opportunity. At the same time, Congress promised to pay for 40 percent of the cost of educating students with disabilities. Congress has never lived up to that promise—the closest it has come to reaching the 40 percent commitment was 18 percent in 2005. And current funding is less than 16 percent.

Click here to urge Congress to keep its promise by co-sponsoring the IDEA Full Funding Act.

The cost of Congress’ broken promise is that school systems must choose between shortchanging students with disabilities’ access to robust educational opportunities or cutting critical parts of the education system for all—such as smaller class sizes, art programs and counseling services. But Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D.-Md.) and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation to fully fund IDEA, ensuring that schools have the resources they need to provide every student—with or without a disability—the opportunity to succeed.

Write to your members of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor the IDEA Full Funding Act (S. 3213/H.R. 5984) so that school districts don't have to bear the burden of Congress' broken promise.

In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President