Obama vs. McCain on Special Education Law

Do you know where the major candidates for President stand on the issues involving special education law? We don't!

We were inspired to think of this question by a post a while ago on the Edjurist Accord. Our buddy Justin pointed out that we don't really know where they stand on IDEA issues. So we here at the Special Education Law Blog are about to enter the political sphere. We feel that our readers should know the detailed special education positions of the candidates, and so we are going to ask them. This seemed like a very good use of the blogosphere doesn't it?

We'll ask about full funding of IDEA. School districts were promised federal funds in the amount of 40% of special ed costs when the predecessor to IDEA passed. IDEA funding is now less than 17%. Talk about an unfunded mandate!

We'll ask about Reauthorization of NCLB and IDEA. We'll ask about whether they might change Rowley standard. We'll ask about whether they will propose changes to the law in light of Supreme Court decisions like Murphy (expert W fees); Weast (burden of persuasion); Winkleman (pro se parents in court); and Buckhannon (attorney's fees).

We're also open to suggestions. We need your help. What would you ask the candidates about special education, and especially changes in the law you'd like to see. We will put together the requests in the next week or so and send them off to the candidates. If we get responses, we'll publish them here and try to get others to publicize them. If we don't we'll publish that fact and publicize it as well.

Please submit your suggestions as early as possible. We look forward to hearing from you!