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Bill would enable Kentucky’s disabled students

 (Lexington, Kentucky) – A proposed scholarship program that would bring school choice to parents of Kentucky’s special-needs children could save taxpayers nearly $200 million, according to a soon-to-be-released report by the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank.

Legislation pre-filed today by Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, would help children with learning disabilities attend public and nonpublic schools that best fit their unique needs.

“I have heard from overwhelmed parents of special-needs children, and it’s obvious – more options are needed,” Lee said at a press conference announcing the bill in the Capitol Rotunda today. “My program would allow these parents to place children in schools that meet their unique needs and offer them the kind of education that will give them the chance to succeed in life.”

An analysis of the bill by education researcher Vicki Murray, Ph.D., finds significant savings for taxpayers in addition to the benefits reaped by families with children with learning disabilities:

• It would eliminate perverse financial incentives to put children into special-education programs unnecessarily that exist under Kentucky’s current “bounty” funding system, which pays districts according to how many students they claim are learning disabled. More than 11,000 students were likely “over-identified” because of this funding system in 2005. The cost to children wrongly placed in special education is incalculable, but the fiscal cost to the state and school districts was an additional $132 million.

• The program gives dissatisfied parents the option of using scholarships to send their children elsewhere without having to hire lawyers or take their children’s school districts to court. By removing the specter of litigation, the program allows teachers and staff to focus their talents on the classroom, not administration and paperwork – which cost Kentucky school districts about $44 million last year and parents untold millions in legal fees.

• If just 1 percent of Kentucky’s special-needs children – roughly 1,100 students – could have participated in the proposed scholarship program in 2005, state and local school districts would have realized an estimated savings of $5.7 million.

“For too long, Kentucky’s learning-disabled children have been ignored or underserved by a one-size-fits-all system,” said Jim Waters, the Bluegrass Institute’s director of policy and communications. “It’s time to give parents of these children a choice so our state’s neediest citizens can have a chance.”

– For interview information, contact Jim Waters, Director of Policy and Communications for the Bluegrass Institute. He can be reached at (270) 782-2140 or jwaters@bipps.org.

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