Feds need to hike
special-ed fundingThe issue: House and Senate
conferees have agreed to a bill that
fails to provide promised funding
for educating disabled children.CONGRESSIONAL conferees are patting themselves on the back for their bipartisan agreement on an education bill, but they have left important increases in funding for the education of disabled children on the cutting-room floor. The bill neglects particular needs of Hawaii's school system and other school districts around the country in providing adequate special education as required by a 1975 law.
The most important part of the current legislation seeks to redirect federal aid to schools with large numbers of poor children. That is a positive step but it does little if any good for Hawaii, which, with its unique statewide school system, already provides fair distribution of education money.
Instead, Hawaii must continue to cope desperately with a federal court order that it provide handicapped children a "free, appropriate public education" as prescribed by the Individuals with Disabilities Act. Congress initially called for the federal government to bear as much as 40 percent of the cost of educating a child in special education. The Congress has never come close.
Instead of 40 percent, the federal expenditure nationally is only 16 percent -- the highest it has ever been -- and is less than 8 percent, or $16 million, in Hawaii. Meanwhile, the national cost of special education has soared from $1 billion to more than $50 billion in the past quarter century. In Hawaii, the cost has risen to $213 million, nearly one-fourth of Hawaii's entire education budget.
Sens. Paul D. Wellstone, D-Minn., and James M. Jeffords, I-Vt., the only dissenting House-Senate conferees, complained about rejection of the Senate-backed provision that would have increased annual spending on special education from $6.3 billion to $21 billion after six years. Jeffords, who bolted the Republican Party to put the Democrats in control of the Senate earlier this year, cited special-education funding as a priority and said the level of funding that emerged from the conference "may actually do more harm than good."
The Bush administration successfully argued that the issue of special-education funding should be postponed until next year, when the entire 1975 law comes up for revision. The White House should be held to that promise and agree to funding levels that remain a federal responsibility.
Bush is correct
to dissolve arms pactThe issue: President Bush plans
to withdraw the U.S. from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.PRESIDENT Bush is on firm ground in his plan to pull the United States out of the 1972 ABM treaty with Russia so that the Pentagon can go ahead with developing and testing missile defenses intended to protect the nation, our forces abroad and some allies. The potential threat is out there from rogue states such as North Korea and possibly from ambitious nations such as China.
Of all the issues surrounding the president's controversial proposal to build missile defenses, withdrawing from the ABM treaty should cause the least anxiety. Treaties are neither sacrosanct nor written in concrete. Otherwise, they would not include provisions for withdrawal. Diplomatic history is replete with instances in which treaties have outlived their initial purposes and have been allowed to lapse or have been abrogated. Far better that the United States play it openly and straight by withdrawing from the treaty than seek a subterfuge to get around it.
Much more to the point is whether the president and his administration, in their eagerness to forge a missile defense, are rushing ahead before the technology is proven. A nation that can put a man on the moon and explore the far reaches of the solar system can surely figure out the physics of a missile defense. The engineering to build it and make it work, however, is the critical question.
Bush might take a lesson from President Reagan, who pushed the Pentagon into the Star Wars missile defense long before it was ready. Consequently, uncounted billions of dollars were wasted. Bush and his equally avid enthusiast for missile defenses, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, would do well to fashion a carefully phased plan that could be easily explained to the public and particularly to the Congress that must appropriate the funds for the project.
Some critics object to building missile defenses because, they contend, that will set off an arms race. The world, however, has been in an arms race since the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars of 2,500 years ago. Soldiers charged with defending their nations always have looked for better weapons to counter the offensive arms of their opponents; the opposite is just as true. This is but the latest chapter in a continuing tug-of-war.
Politically, the mood of the nation -- and the polls -- since the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11 suggest that the president can count on strong support for his proposal. He need only be careful not to squander that support by failing to take the voters and taxpayers into his confidence.
Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, assistant managing editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.comRichard Halloran, editorial page director, 529-4790; rhalloran@starbulletin.com
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