Fixing the Morass of Special Education Funding

Despite the fact that states and school districts are legally required to ensure a free and appropriate public education to students with disabilities – as a condition of accepting federal funding – the federal government does little to fund the special education that students with disabilities receive. This places the overwhelming burden on states and localities to implement and pay for special education programs.

The result is a diffuse funding system in which almost all states fail to provide enough funding to cover the cost of special education in their local districts. In a brief released today by the National Education Policy Center, Tammy Kolbe of the University of Vermont examines the complex – and largely incoherent – policy framework that creates this precarious system for funding special education.

Funding Special Education: Charting a Path that Confronts Complexity and Crafts Coherence describes how increased federal funding should be packaged with a new framework for federal policy that would establish a fair and effective system for funding special education.

Professor Kolbe provides specific and immediate steps for federal policymakers, with the goal of moving the country closer to a new, more coherent national policy framework grounded in thoughtful consideration of what special education should cost, who should pay the costs, and how best to align funding models with policy goals for identifying and providing appropriate educational opportunities for children with disabilities.

Find Funding Special Education: Charting a Path that Confronts Complexity and Crafts Coherence , by Tammy Kolbe, at: http://greatlakescenter.org/

This policy brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice ( greatlakescenter.org ).

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu

About The Great Lakes Center

The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform. Visit the Great Lakes Center Web Site at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org . Follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/greatlakescent . Find us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/GreatLakesCenter.

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The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of

research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.

Visit the Great Lakes Center website at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/