Rep. Mike Sells (D-Everett) read my post about Lindsay Legg, the mother whose autistic son Noah was turned away by her local public school officials. (See KING 5 TV story here.) Rep. Sells shares my concern for autistic children and challenged me to “solve the problems around funding for services for autistic kids.” I am delighted to respond to his invitation and provide a positive solution for kids like Noah.  

The public money for special needs children is there already. It’s just not being used in the right way. The legislature has just provided the largest increase in funding to public schools in state history, a $9.7 billion, or 75 percent increase, in less than ten years. Special education funding per student is rising next year to $18,000 per student. Lawmakers voted to impose a large property tax increase to provide these funds. This along with the other increases in funding the legislature has provided is a massive, unprecedented, and historic increase in school funding.

The problem is getting the money to the students. Most of Washington’s 295 school districts are highly bureaucratic, centralized, and unionized. A lot of the $22.7 billion the state provides is being diverted away from school classrooms and students. Central administrative office and other support functions consume on average 40 cents of every dollar, leaving little for classrooms. By comparison, private schools and public charter schools direct about 80% to 90% of their funding to teachers and classrooms.  

Index Public Schools, which denied services to Noah, spends $36,000 per student and has more employees in administration than in the classroom.

Seattle Public Schools, the richest in the state, employs 3,200 non-teachers and 3,200 teachers, full-time. Seattle has 6,634 special needs students, but diverts about $50 million in special needs funding to administrators. (See page 65 of budget, here.)

My answer to Rep. Sells’ very good question is to end the practice of diverting money out of special education services and direct these funds to parents. Give the money directly to parents like Lindsay, in the form of an Education Savings Account. Lindsay would deliver more of the benefit of these resources to Noah, and in a way suited to Noah’s needs, and not for the convenience of school officials.    

This is not some radical, far out idea; dozens of other states are already doing it.  Lawmakers in Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee, for example, provide fully-funded, tax-free Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) to parents with special needs children. Thirty states and the District of Columbia offer 61 different forms of school choice, in the form of Education Savings Accounts, tax credit scholarships, vouchers and individual tax credits, now serving nearly 500,000 students.

Imagine.  If lawmakers provided Lindsay a fully-funded ESA with the $18,000 to which her child is entitled, to use in Index or elsewhere on Noah’s education, no child would ever be turned away again.  Even better, Index school officials would have had a strong financial incentive to accept Noah into their kindergarten, while becoming more understanding and sensitive to the needs of all children.