For the first time in more than two decades, federal officials are moving forward with plans to find out just how much schools across the nation are spending on students with disabilities.
The U.S. Department of Education is taking steps to green-light what’s known as the National Special Education Spending Study.
“The study will produce estimates for what is spent on special education services for students with disabilities (SWDs), both overall and by disability category, including expenditures made by states, districts, and schools,” the agency’s Institute of Education Sciences said in a request for clearance from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
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The study “will provide policymakers and special education administrators with an up-to-date understanding of the key factors that influence special education spending, what this spending pays for, and to what extent federal appropriations from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) cover special education spending,” officials said.
A nearly $5.6 million pilot program conducted during the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 academic years is already complete, according to Tammy Kolbe at the American Institutes for Research who is the principal investigator for the design and pilot study phases.
Now, the plan is to conduct the actual study, which is expected to include 1,500 school districts, approximately 3,000 schools, roughly 10,000 students with disabilities and 2,000 students without from across the nation during the upcoming school year.
The last federal analysis of this kind — the Special Education Expenditure Project — was done during the 1999-2000 school year and was completed in 2004. That study estimated that total spending on students with disabilities amounted to $78.3 billion, or an average of $12,639 per child.
“The field urgently needs the findings,” said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of The Center for Learner Equity. “We can track the amount of public funds schools receive to educate students with disabilities, but we have no comprehensive comparison of what is actually spent on their education.”
Coco said that funding for the study was nearly eliminated last year, but advocates pushed lawmakers and the Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences, or IES, to keep it going.
“We’re pleased that IES has officially submitted this request to (the Office of Management and Budget) to support the study’s completion,” she said. “With years of work and federal funds already spent on the study, it’s imperative that (the National Special Education Spending Study) be completed.”
