Kristen Kuchay's Op-Ed

Many people do not realize the struggles that special educators face today. They think that because they get paid more than a general educator, that it must be somewhat easy to only have to teach a couple kids at a time. This is a big misconception.
In today’s society, more and more children are being diagnosed with learning disabilities and special needs. Because of this, the demand for special education teachers as gone up significantly. But yet there are fewer and fewer special educators each year in school districts. Why is this? Because there is not enough money to keep special educators and the special education programs going. The cause of this problem? Government Funding. Or should I say lack of. According to Special Education Professor Jack Hourcade at Boise State University, the Federal Government promised 40% funding to the special education programs. This was in 1975. Today, special education programs are lucky if they see 20% funding from the Federal Government. Because of this money issue, special education programs have to shut down because they do not have the money to keep them running or enough money to recruit any new teachers. How can this be resolved you might ask. A few things have been tried by the school districts and school officials, but nothing has been successful.
The most that the school districts and officials can do is contact their local and even Federal Government and try to encourage parents of special needs children to do the same. This kind of planning takes a good amount of time; time in which these teachers and working parents do not have.
This sort of situation caused a chain reaction. Because the promised government funding at not been met, the special education programs do not have the money to keep their programs going and cannot hire new teachers. The few teachers that do work in the programs have money struggles because they need to pay for the things for their classroom and individual students who may need specific learning utensils out of their own pocket. This causes teachers to look for another job or a second job. Because teachers are leaving and programs are shutting down, these children do not get the help they need. Putting them in general education classrooms can be harmful because they are very far behind or cannot understand. Parents cannot teach their children because they are working to help support their family and pay the extra hospital, doctor and medication bills.
Do you see how one thing that may seem small can have a huge impact on thousands of people? If the Federal Government had actually kept their promise of 40% since 1975, more special education programs might still be open. Who knows the kind of effect this could have had. But it would have been a positive one. Maybe if the Government focused more on our country’s education for our children instead of other countries, this issue might not even exist.