ents. Jay Diskey, spokesman for the House Committee on Education (as stated above), and the Work Force, says providing special-education students with nursing care will cost schools about $15,000 a year for each disabled student. If the federal government paid its share of these costs under IDEA, Diskey says, the Los Angeles Unified School District alone would get $60 million a year more from Washington. Local taxpayers would have to come up with an extra $90 million.The U.S. Supreme Court this year will hear yet another Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) casethis one impacting on school inclusion of special education students. The state of Georgia is challenging lower court rulings that a psychiatric hospital violated Title II of the ADA by failing to provide two patients with care in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. The state placed the patients at the Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta, a mental hospital for inpatient psychiatric treatment. The patients complained the hospital is a "segregated environment" and asked to be placed in community-based treatment centers. Section 504 and Title II of the ADA are considered sister statutes that share the same enforcement, remedies, procedures and rights, as well as the same definition of "person with a disability. Does this mean these people can be educated as well in America? Legally, yes. And that is a scary thought.Schools should be allowed to use the money for special-education expenses. Republicans said those costs will rise after the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that schools are responsible for nursing costs for handicapped students. In addition, it makes little sense for Congress to embark on a new teacher-hiring program when it has failed to deliver on a commitment made in 1975 to pay for 40 percent of all special-education expenses. Diane Ravitch, Head of the Brown Center on education reform for the Brookings Institute, January 14, 1999, F...
