Yet, this week it was announced that special education programs and those for low-income students in Washington schools will get an huge federal windfall over the next two years even as school administrators and teachers in overseeing general education are forced to severely cut back from the very little they have or be laid off altogether.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a kid in special education and I am thrilled to know that his school will receive part of the $400 million in federal stimulus funds allotted to our state.

But I have two children in the general education population as well and I have to say it feels mighty awkward knowing that the state’s budget crisis has forced her school to cut training and class offerings and lay off several teachers my daughters' love while their brother’s class is bolstered.

All of my kids – like every other child in Washington – deserve full funding. The Legislature’s slashing of $600 million from Initiative 728 funding, approved by the voters in 2000 to hire teachers and reduce class sizes was an unmitigated catastrophe.

The stimulus money, while sorely needed by special education teachers and their students, feels a little like salt rubbed in that wound. While districts get to improve services for some kids, they’ll be forced to hack services for others.

The answer, of course, is NOT to say no to stimulus funds as renegade leaders in Texas, South Carolina and Minnesota have done.

The answer is for Washington State to raise the revenue.needed to fund our schools fully and equitably – a task our lawmakers in 2009 failed at.

Read Andrew Garber’s Seattle Times article on the stimulus conumdrum here.