In The Politics of Autism, I discuss social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
An early look at new special education datasets reveals massive inconsistencies in how many children states are identifying as needing services, how much is being spent on them and whether that funding is tied to better outcomes, according to Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab.
Preliminary though the research is, even the broad takeaways are especially timely, Roza recently told a group of policymakers, educators and journalists. The number of students with disabilities has risen dramatically over the last decade, as has the share of school budgets dedicated to paying for special education.
“Historically, our tendency has been to look the other way on special ed spending,” she said. “It hasn’t gotten the same scrutiny [as] other elements in the district budget.”
One immediate takeaway is that states that provide sound literacy instruction for all students also post better reading scores for special education students, Roza noted. Case in point: Mississippi, where recent, dramatic gains in literacy have been credited to a 10-year push by state officials to ensure evidence-based reading instruction is taking place in every classroom.
Mississippi is one of two states that dedicated the smallest portion of its education budget — some 8% — to meeting the needs of special education students, yet it is one of four where children with disabilities perform the highest on the reading portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
