Debunking the Federal Share alibi for the Special Education Deficit

In my post "Closing the Special Education Gap is Not all that Hard,"  I wrote about the devastating impact of the special education deficit -- the $700 plus million shortfall annually in what school districts are required by state law to spend, compared to  revenues provided to pay for that spending.   The special education deficit is impeding school districts ability to meet their constitutional obligation.   Minneapolis school district has a $51 million deficit, the difference between state mandated spending on special education and revenues provided.   My own district, St. Cloud, has a $12 million deficit.  The money to cover the deficit comes out of cuts to programs for students who need stronger education and more of it.   And, the size of the deficit tends to be largest in those districts that have more students who need more educational support.   

Education organizations have been calling for full funding of the special education funding deficit for years.  Routinely these organizations, MASBO, MSBA, AMSD, MASA, and others exclaim that Minnesota has a constitutional obligation to fund mandated programs and the Special Education mandate is by far the largest of these.  And they are right to do so:  the failure to fund special education mandate is a blatant violation of the constitutional education clause, and everyone knows it.   But for some reason, its a constitutional mandate that everyone tolerates, or winks at.  The violation of this constitutional mandate has become so pervasive and insidious that legislators and the executive have basically given up any effort to fix the problem.  And if they talk about fixing it, they seem to believe that they can fix it by forming a committee to talk about it some more.  

The deficit is $700 million per year.  How is a committee going to solve this problem?  The solution is easy.  You need $700 million more dollars in the budget.  You have to stop pretending that the budget has a surplus and come up with the money.   Creating a committee is a dodge, an evasion, a method of putting off an unpleasant truth:  this problem is going to get solved by stepping up to the plate and appropriating the full cost of special education. 

A second dodge that has become popular is the concept that the problem is so big that we can't fix it all at once: we have to solve it in little bite size pieces.  Say, $60 million a year added to the budget over a ten year period.  That is really a silly solution. What is so different about the state's finances 10 years from now, that it can handle $700 million, whereas this year's budget cannot.  The legislature and Governor easily found $600 million in tax cuts last session.   Nobody said, oh no, we can't find $600 million:  we have to cut taxes gradually, $60 million at a time.  

Fixing a $700 million problem $60 million at a time is just another way of breaking the constitution for ten years. a The way this strategy works is: first we have a committee that studies the problem for as long as it can be avoided. Then the committee proposes fixing it $60 million each year.  The first two years that costs $180 million, and in the meantime school districts absorb just about $700 million per year, or $1.4 billion. Over the ten year period where this strategy operates, school districts accumulate billions of dollars of deficit.   That deficit is a form of tax on the students who need better and more education the most.  And then, at the end of that first two years, maybe the state has no surplus. Or everybody wants to run on a tax cut.  Sixty million dollars is a drop in the bucket, they say.   Let's suspend the increases for a while. 

So let's call the ten percent per year strategy what it really is.  A deal with the devil, which is breaking the constitution for the foreseeable future.

Recently, some education organizations are asking school boards and educators to begin this legislative session by giving the governor and legislature another bogus alibi for failing to meet its constitutional obligation.   This alibi was invented by some legislators who are looking for an additional excuse to avoid their constitutional obligation. I call this the "federal share" alibi.  The alibi claims that decades ago, a prior Congress called for providing more significant funding than it is now providing, and that should be called the "federal share," and that the state of Minnesota should somehow be excused from its constitutional obligation to provide school districts funding to meet their special education expenses because of this federal share.

JvonKorff on Education is bent out of shape, because it believes that public officers have an obligation to uphold the constitution.  Its not their job to give legislators cover for breaking the constitution.   Some argue that we shouldn't ask the legislature to obey the constitution.  They contend that it is unrealistic.  We need to be timid, otherwise they won't listen to us.   After all, the legislature couldn't have passed a $600 million tax cut, if it was compelled to  fully fund the $700 million special education shortfall.   Tax cuts, they seem to say, comes before the constitution.   We need to give those legislators an alibi, so we will pretend, with them, that its not their fault that they don't fund special education, because its "the federal share," that is causing this problem.

The claim that Minnesota need not reimburse Minnesota Districts for state mandated special education costs because the “that’s the federal government’s share,” is based on multiple disingenuous claims and blatant legal errors.  But to do a proper job of explaining why, we're going to need another post. 

• Is it really true that the federal government has a legal obligation to fund special education? 
• Is it really true that the obligation to provide students with disabilities with an free and equal education exists only because of Federal law.   
• Is it really true that when the federal government passes a law protecting the rights of children, that means the states don't have to obey it, unless the federal government pays its share?   
• Is it really true that the Minnesota Constitution requires the state to provide all districts with funds necessary to meet state standard, "except for the unpaid federal share?"  

Stay tuned.
Closing the Special Education Deficit is not All that Hard

Debunking the federal share alibi Part 2