Budget Cut Blues: How Special Education Students Are Among the Biggest Victims of Federal Spending Drops

There is no one resource more important than our children. http://www.special-education-degree.net/ has created an infographic entitled “Budget Cut Blues: How Special Education Students Are Among the Biggest Victims of Federal Spending Drops” detailing how we are leaving our children with special needs behind due to the latest round of budget cuts. Unfortunately, the government has decided to slash funding to many critical education programs for disabled children. 2013’s massive budget cuts, termed the sequestration, has included a 5 percent reduction in federal funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This act impacts education far and wide, meaning disastrous implications for special education programs for those with disabilities. This infographic goes into detail as to how much has been cut in each state. This cut lowers the amount of money available for funding for children living in poverty, special education, and Head Start programs, ballooning class sizes, elimination of after-school programs, and decimation of programs for homeless students, English language learners and high-poverty, struggling schools. There’s also been cuts to financial aid for college students. This also effects those that work in education, costing tens of thousands of education jobs—at early childhood, elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels.