Additional special education costs vary substantially by primary disability category¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2026: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Average additional per-student cost was 20.9 percent below the cross-category average for Speech or Language Impairment and 41.1 percent above it for Orthopedic Impairment. → Doutre 2021

Evidence¶

Doutre 2021¶

Doutre, S. M., Willis, J., Barrett, T., Ripma, T., Caparas, R., & Krausen, K. (2021). California State Special Education Funding System Study, Part 2: Findings, Implications, and Considerations for Improving Special Education Funding in California. WestEd. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED616106

q2 · i? · associational · r2

The education cost function analysis of California data found additional costs varied by students' primary disability category, with "the Speech or Language Impairment category" 20.9 percent below and Orthopedic Impairment 41.1 percent above the cross-category average (Exhibit E-1).

"the average additional per-student cost for the Speech or Language Impairment category was 20.9 percent less than the cross-category average, whereas for the Orthopedic Impairment category, the average additional cost was 41.1 percent greater."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Differentiating special education funding by disability, disability category, or student need can lead to improved outcomes for students with disabilities, and IEP-progress metrics offer a new adequacy-study measure — a broader claim this one bears on
• Charter LEAs enroll a lower proportion of students with disabilities than traditional LEAs and serve smaller proportions in higher-cost disability categories — related
• Students with disabilities cost 50.5 percent more to educate to comparable academic growth than peers without disabilities — related
• Among 2012 disability groups, youth with intellectual disability, autism, deaf-blindness, multiple disabilities, and orthopedic impairments were most at-risk in preparation for life after high school — related
• Educating a student with disabilities costs approximately twice as much, on average, as educating a student without a disability — related