“This is the part that concerns me the most: The ones who will bear most of the brunt are our country’s most vulnerable students, and we are just weeks away from kids going back to school in many parts of the country,” said Jen Psaki, former Biden Press Sec and now TV host on MSNBC.
Psaki, like other democrats, claims the sky is falling because the Trump White House is moving forward eliminating 1400 positions inside the Federal Department of Education (FDOE).
One of the false notions democrats are making is that the cuts to the FDOE will hurt programs that support low-income students and students with disabilities.
But that is not the case. It’s true the FDOE has played a role in assisting students with special needs but what democrats aren’t telling voters is states like Florida implement the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Florida has its own program dealing with special needs students, which is called Exceptional Student Education (ESE).
According to the Florida Education Department, the ESE program provides specially designed instruction and related services to students with disabilities, ages 3 through 21, who need special help to progress in school and prepare for life after school.
The state also has the Individualized Education Plan (IEP), where every eligible student with a disability has an IEP, which is a written plan outlining their educational goals, the services and support needed, and how progress will be measured.
Florida has other programs that benefit students with special needs, like Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), which allows students with disabilities to be educated with their nondisabled peers.
Another part of ESE is what is known as Related Services which includes services such as therapies (physical, occupational, speech), transportation, counseling, and assistive technology and it’s no cost to parents.
Democrats also making claims that republicans are destroying education
In March of this year, Florida Democrats’ Chair Nikki Fried put out a press release that stated Republicans and Florida Gov. DeSantis were targeting teachers, rewriting American history, banned books and turning classrooms into a political battleground.
But The Nation’s Report Card, also called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, has reported that math and reading scores decline during the Biden presidency, “with fourth and eighth-grade scores reaching some of the lowest levels in decades,” the report said.
