Tuesday, February 12, 2008

For those who were wondering about Tuesday

"...he believes that we should increase funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to truly ensure that no child is left behind."

I kept going back to that single statement, which lead me to make up my mind in the voting the booth that I would indeed support Barack Obama. This comes up in the Special Ed Advisory Committee meetings all the time - the fact that IDEA is an unfunded mandate, meaning we get very little from it. Having IDEA fully funded would make a huge difference to kids with autism all over the country, instead having it passed through to the local school districts as an unfunded mandate. I am all for research and better treatments, but fully funding IDEA now is a fantastic goal and one I believe he could and would achieve with the help of Congress.

Having said that, I hope Senator John McCain eventually makes an equally strong policy statement on autism as part of his platform. This is not a one party issue - at least it shouldn't be.

No comments: