Special Education for Prisoners
Washington threatens to withhold $332 million in special education funds if California does not educate imprisoned felons, some on death row, as it does school children (April 18). Why does Washington have the money to dictate such stuff? Why do we send money to Washington to have some pointy heads there skim off millions for “administration” and then return some of our money to us with directions on how to spend it? That money should not have left California in the first place.
Why does this happen? Because you and voters have sent liberal Democrats to Washington for decades. They love big government. The more control they have over our lives the more important they become. It’s wrong, but will continue until voters wake up and get government out of our lives.
WILLIAM H. HUBER
Ventura
* Beau Phillips, spokesman for Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Windsor), is quoted as saying: “It is utterly unfair to take precious special education dollars away from students in the public schools to give those dollars to muggers, murderers and rapists.”
Has it ever dawned on Phillips that, had we done a better job of educating yesterday’s students, today’s muggers, murderers and rapists might not exist? What are we doing now to ensure that today’s students--even the difficult, troublesome ones, with or without disabilities--don’t become tomorrow’s inmates? Right now, all we have is a political turf war over funding. Nobody is addressing the real issues (again!).
BETTY ROME
Culver City
Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. In your inbox three times per week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
