Friday, June 28, 2013
Tarr Succeeds in Securing Special Education Study in Supp Budget
Yesterday the Massachusetts State Senate debated a $127
million supplemental budget to fund existing appropriations contained within
the FY’13 state budget. With senators
filing 52 amendments to the spending measure I succeeded in securing a greatly
needed special education study to assess the services being provided within the
Commonwealth.
Providing effective special education at an affordable cost
is one of the single most daunting challenges our school districts continue to
face, and this comprehensive review will provide us with the knowledge and
understanding we need to meet that challenge.
The study, which passed unanimously by a voice vote, authorizes
Salem State University, in partnership with the Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education, local educational authorities, and private educational
providers to conduct a sweeping review of the system for providing special
education. The study must be filed by May
1, 2014 to the legislature’s Joint Committee on Education.
The comprehensive study must:
- Evaluate existing and
potential models for providing special education, and the associated costs
and benefits such as personnel compensation, transportation, housing and
assistive technologies;
- Seek to identify means by
which services and instruction may be provided in a proactive manner,
without the requirement or need for an individual education plan, but so
as to maximize learning progress in local educational settings; and
- Include any legislative
recommendations for the legislature to consider.
Given the cost and importance of providing special
education, we need to ensure that we aren’t missing any opportunities to do so
more cost-effectively. This long-overdue
analysis of our present system will be critical in helping us to chart a course
toward a system that’s financially sustainable and that students rightly
deserve.
The supplemental budget will now move to a Joint
House-Senate conference committee charged with reconciling the two versions of
the spending plan into a single bill for final consideration in each chamber.
