California serves more than 725,000 K-12 students with disabilities and invests roughly $12 billion annually in special education, with LEA unrestricted funds covering the majority of spending¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? California's K-12 system serves more than 725,000 students with disabilities (about 11.7 percent of enrollment) and invests roughly $12 billion annually, of which state funding is about 28 percent and LEA unrestricted funds about 61 percent. → Jason Willis 2020

Evidence¶

Jason Willis 2020¶

Jason Willis, Sara Menlove Doutre, Kelsey Krausen, Tyson Barrett, Tye Ripma, and Ruthie Caparas. (2020). Study of California's Special Education Funding System: Phase I Report — A Descriptive Analysis of Special Education Funding in California. WestEd. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED616102

q2 · i? · associational · r1

Descriptive analysis of 2018/19 publicly available California data in the executive summary reports the scale of the system: "more than 725,000 students with disabilities" and roughly $12 billion invested annually. A companion figure reports state funding at approximately 28 percent and LEA unrestricted funds at 61 percent of spending.

"California serves more than 725,000 students with disabilities (approximately 11.7 percent of the K–12 population) and invests roughly $12 billion in federal, state, and local dollars annually in special education"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Charter LEAs enroll a lower proportion of students with disabilities than traditional LEAs and serve smaller proportions in higher-cost disability categories — related
• Most educationally related mental health services were provided by LEAs even though funds for them are allocated to SELPAs — related
• Per-student special education costs fall with enrollment up to an ideal size, then rise as diseconomies of scale set in — related
• California would need roughly $4,000 more per pupil—an additional $26.5 billion annually—to meet its K–12 education goals — related
• Special education identification is disproportionate for English learner and socioeconomically disadvantaged students in California — related
• Michigan's partial reimbursement system shifts special education costs onto districts, which divert more than $500 per pupil of general education funds on average — related
• California's statewide high-cost pools are among the lowest-funded in the nation, and SELPA directors report paperwork burdens outweigh their benefit