As the proud son of public school educators, I understand the importance of education and have made improving our country’s education system one of my top priorities.  I recognize that I would not have been successful as a small business owner, nor would I have even been elected to the United States Congress had I not received a solid education.  Behind every one of us, there are dozens of extraordinary teachers who inspired, challenged, nurtured and expected the very best out of us.

Yet as our country prepares to recognize educators during Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4-10, I was disappointed to consider HR 1350, the legislation offered this week to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  This bill, as passed by the House of Representatives, fails to provide full, mandatory funding for teachers to implement the regulations imposed on them when it comes to ensuring that children with disabilities receive an appropriate education.  Additionally, the initiative fails to protect the rights of special needs students and their parents by eliminating the requirement to conduct a behavior assessment and create a behavior intervention plan for students with disabilities who are to be removed from the classroom and educated in an alternative setting.  

Also this week, it was announced that the U.S. Department of Education approved Arkansas’s plan to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, a plan that will require schools in our state to dramatically increase student achievement each year.  Arkansas's plan is based on the belief that every child can learn, and demands that all of Arkansas's children achieve to high standards, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or disability.  Yet states like Arkansas, states that are taking these bold steps to improve education, are still dramatically under funded by the federal government when it comes to actually putting their objectives in place.   

Again and again, solid efforts to improve our education systems remain poorly funded, placing a heavier burden on our states to come up with the money to implement these ideas.  Our teachers do an incredible job with the resources they have.  If we raise the expectations for how they teach our children, then I think it’s Congress’s job to provide them with added funding so they can meet the new challenges and make sure that indeed, no child is left behind.