I very much enjoyed Rick Hess’s latest post, which includes a number of gems:

As Julia Isaacs at the Brookings Institution has pointed out, the federal government now spends about $7 on seniors for every $1 it spends on children—even though the poverty rate among children is higher, with 21 percent of all children in families under the poverty line. Hell, the median net worth of married elderly couples in 2008 was $385,000—more than three times median household net worth nationally. Do we really think it’s a good idea to spend half of all non-interest spending on making retirement ever more comfy? Because that’s where we are. I know my progressive friends are aching to insist that we can do it all, that we can avoid serious cuts and unpleasant talk of “winners” and “losers”—but the problem with overpromising is you eventually have to deal with the consequences.

I recommend reading the entire post, as it offers a valuable lens through which to view broader policy debates. Hess also praised the Department of Education for making a commonsense reform on special education funding:

Education Week’s Nirvi Shah yesterday reported that, “Districts that want to reduce special education spending from one year to the next without restoring what was cut now have the blessing of the U.S. Department of Education.” In June, Melody Musgrove, ED’s director of the office of special education programs, sent a letter to the National Association of State Directors of Special Education declaring that a school district “is not obligated to expend at least the amount expended in the last fiscal year for which it met the maintenance-of-effort requirement.” This is a healthy and important development. (And kudos to Shah for the coverage–I, for one, had totally missed this).
You see, federal law has long been taken to mean that special ed spending cannot be adjusted downward except in tightly constrained circumstances (such as when an especially costly student leaves a district). Shah noted that, “Cutting the special education budget for other reasons meant a district was running the risk of losing its share of federal funds.”
Yep, you read that right. A district which provides special education services more cost-effectively has long been threatened with losing their federal aid unless they keep on spending at the same rate. In other words, special ed policy has made it essentially illegal to improve special ed productivity. This is problematic on principle, but especially at a time when districts are being asked to make tough choices about services for all other students. Of course, the special education advocates are never called out on the troubling implications of the push to protect children with special needs no matter the cost–and folks of all stripes are terrified to ever label such sympathetic efforts as “selfish.” But systematically privileging kids in special ed necessarily requires giving short shrift to all other students.

Recently, I spoke at some length to a senior official at New York city’s Department of Education, who noted that tackling the misaligned incentives in special education funding is perhaps the most egregious fiscal challenge facing city schools.