Special Education
4 articles
The Unfunded Mandate: How Federal Promises Shape School Budgets
When Congress passed IDEA, they promised to fund 40% of special education costs. They've never come close. The actual number hovers around 15%. Someone has to make up the difference.
The Special Education Spending Puzzle
Here is a pattern in the data that raises more questions than it answers. Some California school districts have substantially more money than others. Yet they all spend roughly similar shares on special education.
How Protecting Special Education Shifted Cuts to General Ed
Special education's share of school budgets increased during and after the Great Recession. That sounds like good news: districts prioritizing their most vulnerable students.[1] But the story is more complicated than it appears. The Share Paradox When we say a "share" increased, we usually imagine an active choice. Someone decided to allocate more resources to special education. That's not what happened. Special education's share increased not because special ed spending went up faster, bu
The Fiscal Cliff Schools Faced After the Stimulus
When we talk about the Great Recession's impact on schools, we usually focus on 2008 and 2009, when budgets cratered and teachers received pink slips. But the story is more complicated. In some ways, the real damage came later.[1] The Numbers That Don't Add Up Looking at California school districts in 2010, something strange appears in the data. Despite a historic recession, many districts saw their budgets stabilize or even grow. The answer is ARRA (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Ac