The General Assembly’s failure to pass a special needs tax credit bill has everything to do with the influence of big-money special interest groups and powerful state government bureaucracies.
The N&O puts it into perspective:
Opposition from the School Boards Association, State Board of Education, state Department of Public Instruction, N.C. Association of School Administrators and N.C. Association of Educators has essentially eliminated the chance it will be approved this year. The General Assembly is expected to end its session this month.
On the other hand, parents of special needs children clearly would like to choose where their child goes to school.
“I can’t believe education groups are against this,” said Catherine Eubanks, parent of an autistic child and the principal of Eastern Wayne Middle School in Goldsboro. “It gives parents of special-needs children extra help.”
…Parents such as April Raines of Raleigh say they’d like to see what they could do with the tax credit. Her son, Jermanic, 5, has attention deficit hyperactivity disorde [sic].
“If there’s something better out there, I want to help him,” she said.
HT: Leanne Winner, lobbyist for the N.C. School Boards Association and Cecil Banks, chief lobbyist for the N.C. Association of Educators. Children suffer because of you.
