Protecting Education for Children with Disabilities

Floor Speech

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Ms. BYNUM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes) for bringing us together to stand up for children with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, if I were to not pay something I owed for 50 years, the consequences would be tremendous. That is exactly what the Federal Government has done with the IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

In 1976, just a year after I was born, Congress promised to pay for 40 percent of the cost of public education for children with disabilities. Yet, here we are in 2026. I am 50, almost 51, but the Federal Government is paying less than 12 percent. In my home State of Oregon, that means a $315 million gap between the funding that our students are getting and the amount that these schools are owed.

On top of that, it has been credibly reported that the Trump administration has started dismantling the Department of Education, including the staff who oversee these IDEA programs. Now the program is both underfunded and there is no one there to send the money out.

That is why earlier this Congress, I introduced the IDEA Full Funding Act. I urge my colleagues to join me in finally giving our students with disabilities exactly what they are owed.

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