Making Further Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003-Continued

MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003—CONTINUED

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I would like to add my wholehearted support for the amendment offered by my friend from Connecticut.

The passage of IDEA was a watershed event—for children with disabilities and for all Americans.

By opening the doors of our public schools, we enabled millions of talented students to join their peers in becoming productive members of society.

Equally important, we improved education for all students by allowing them to know the strength and richness that diverse people with different experiences, challenges, and abilities bring to our lives.

Finally, we took yet another critical step on our journey to becoming a country that lives out our ideals of democracy, opportunity, and equality.

Because we have not lived up to the commitments made in IDEA, the full promise of this law has yet to be fulfilled.
Having failed to provide the full 40 percent of excess cost that was committed over 25 years ago, we have cheated students of the high-quality education they deserve.

This amendment gives us another chance to right that wrong and move forward on a path to full funding.

Last year during the ESEA debate, this body unanimously adopted an amendment that would have fully funded IDEA over the next 6 years.

The Dodd amendment would add the first increment of the full funding to the appropriations bill.

I hope my colleagues have not changed their minds about the importance of funding special education. I hope this amendment will also be adopted unanimously.

Frankly, given my home State's projected budget shortfall of $2.4 billion, these funds are even more desperately needed to maintain and improve education for children with disabilities.

We have all agreed time and again that it is important to fully fund IDEA. Now we can actually provide the dollars to back up those statements. With this amendment, we have the opportunity to make an important choice for our children's future.
Are we going to make the investment in education that all our children deserve?

Or are we going to offer another false promise?

Cheating children of their education cheats them of their chance to succeed.

This is especially true for children with disabilities, who already face a more challenging future. We must do everything in our power to ensure all children have that chance.

I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment.

Mr. President, recently I received a note from an educator in my state reminding me what this money could mean for our students.

Northport School District is a small, rural school district nestled between the Idaho panhandle and the border with British Columbia. It serves 202 students in grades K-12.

Mary Swaim is both the special education director and the only special education teacher in Northport, WA. She has one aide, who spends the majority of her day giving physical therapy to six students.

Mary told me that they currently have 15 special needs students with disabilities that range from Autism to muscular dystrophy and from Down's Syndrome to learning disabilities.

[Page S1354]

According to Mary, one of these students costs the district $30,000 a year. They have spent a small fortune on therapeutic equipment that includes a Hoyer lift, tables, wheel chairs, walkers and therapy balls.

But Mary's concern is not the cost of educating these children. She is worried that this small school cannot afford the staff to provide the quality education these students deserve.

According to Mary, fully funding IDEA would give Northport the money to hire another special education teacher, and would greatly improve these children's chance to learn and to succeed.

Mary told me:

I've watched your legislation to keep class sizes small in general education but, in special education, we frequently have higher numbers than the general education classes and all of our students have far greater needs. More funding would mean quality education. Thank you so much for asking my opinion.

I believe we need to do more than ask Mary's opinion. I believe we need to listen to her valid concerns and act, as we can today, to make a difference for the students about whom she is so rightly concerned.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from Mary Swaim be printed in the RECORD.