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The number of schoolchildren diagnosed with autism has swelled during the last decade. The federal funding for special education has not.

Across the nation, school districts are seeing their number of special education students climb, noticeably those diagnosed with autism and related disorders. Data suggest as many as 1 in 166 children have some type of an autism spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the Mankato district that number ballooned from three identified cases in 1994 to 96 in 2005.

The progress that school districts have made in early identification of children with autism and the more mild Asperger’s syndrome is significant. One local autism expert said that “once it’s identified and people know what’s going on with the kid, it solves about 80 percent of problems they have.”

It was heartening to hear Gov. Tim Pawlenty say last week during a speech at the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute that he’d like to see more money spent on early childhood programs. Early childhood programs are where children with special education needs are often first identified. The sooner those children can get extra attention, the better.

But that extra help doesn’t come cheap. In the Region Nine area, staffing has grown from one autism specialist nine years ago to six this year. Training, classes and special autism rooms are being expanded in the Mankato district.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed 31 years ago and was supposed to fund 40 percent of special ed costs of the mandates. That funding has never come through as promised. The federal share as of 2006 is only 18 percent. That’s a pinch every district feels as more students fall under the special education umbrella.

That unfunded mandate has been a sore spot for three decades and will continue to be one if lawmakers don’t rectify it. School districts can’t tell families with special ed students they can’t educate them because they don’t have the money. Instead the funding is taken from other areas within the district.

All children deserve a fair shot at a quality education. Federal officials have long ignored the huge gap between requiring special education and their funding of it. With demand for special education rising as diagnosis for different disorders improves and intervention occurs earlier, U.S. lawmakers, and candidates for office, need to give special education funding the attention it deserves.

http://www.mankatofreepress.com/editorials/local_story_212001144.html?keyword=topstory