States

State Financial Health: As Bad As You Think

By Christina A. Samuels — June 16, 2010 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

After I posted yesterday on the handful of states that have requested waivers from the Department of Education that would allow them to temporarily reduce their special education funding, I received this sobering chart from Chan Stroman, who blogs at Obsession with Education and can be found on Twitter @eduphilia.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indicates states continue to face sizable shortfalls in the upcoming fiscal year. Some of those states are in far worse condition than Iowa and Kansas, two states that were granted funding waivers from the Education Department for the previous fiscal year.

I have no information yet on whether any other states have requested special education funding waivers, other than Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, and West Virginia (and South Carolina’s and West Virginia’s requests are still under consideration.) Some states may have enough in reserves to weather this storm; other states may be able to insulate education from cuts. Still, it will be a rocky fiscal year ahead for many.

Related Tags:

A version of this news article first appeared in the On Special Education blog.