Study focuses pros, cons of census funding for special ed
By Tom Chorneau
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Census-based funding of special education services offers a clear advantage by reducing incentives for districts to over-identify disabilities – but the system’s effectiveness is also limited by an assumption of uniformity in per-student costs that is inconsistent with the real world, according to new research.
Although federal law requires schools to provide a free and appropriate education for all students with disabilities, most of the funding to pay for the services comes from state and local sources. A variety of methods – none of which are without flaws – are used by states to support special education..
But scholars from the University of Toronto and Mathematica Policy Research suggest that census-based funding may be the best option even though their endorsement comes with significant qualification.
“Census funding offers a blunt approach to cost containment by forcing districts to pay the full marginal cost of services after exhausting state and federal aid,” said the study’s authors, Elizabeth Dhuey from the Center for Industrial Relations at the University of Toronto and Stephen Lipscomb of Mathematica.
As a result, the responsibility to deliver high quality programs is sometimes difficult for districts to meet, especially in the current economic setting. “For this reason, we recommend that policy makers consider ways to promote cost
