A bad IDEA.

• Author: Chinni, Dante
• Position: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

New York's Mahopac Central School District will spend roughly $3.2 million on the transportation of its 4,400 students this year, an average of $727 per child. But about $68,000 of that will be spent on the transportation of just one child--a child whose classroom is nearly 400 miles away at the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia. Every week he is driven to White Plains so he can catch a plane to Rochester, where a car takes him to school. And, thanks to the nation's special education law--the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)--Mahopac must pick up the bulk of the tab for the boy's weekly round-trip and schooling.

The IDEA was created in 1975 to help level the education playing field for disabled children, many of whom were receiving little or no education in out-of-the-way, makeshift classrooms. But since then, the law has gone far beyond its goal of ensuring adequate schooling by providing some kids with extravagantly expensive instruction. The law puts no limit on the cost of special education, and then leaves school districts to pay the bills.

In Mahopac, the IDEA will force the district to spend $98,000 on the education and transportation of that one child this year, although Mahopac school officials believe the child could get an appropriate education at a nearby regional school for $60,000 less. And Mahopac's story is not an anomaly. Schools in Yorktown and Yonkers have kids on that same plane to Batavia. The Washington Post recently reported that three counties abutting Washington D.C. will spend nearly $50 million this year on 1,800 disabled students. One student alone has cost $500,000 so far.

In a time of shrinking resources for education, districts are meting out unconscionable amounts of money for a few children-more often than not, disabled children with affluent parents who can afford to force the system to provide the best for their kids. It's not that children with disabilities don't deserve a good education. But as some parents wrangle costly benefits for their kids, other children--those who are disabled but have parents unable or unwilling to fight the system, or those born with disadvantages such as poverty--are paying the price.

Given the Republicans' famous disdain for unfunded mandates, many school boards thought the GOP Congress would either fully fund the IDEA or ease its requirements. They were wrong. As the Republicans prepare to reauthorize the IDEA, they appear to be opting for a bold third option: Fix some of the...