More money for special education students means more special education
students, not increased services for existing students, a new study finds.
Give the professionals more money and they will label more people to
"service" and stay employed.

kelly

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 12:00:24 PDT
United Press International
Study links school funds, disabilities

        ANN ARBOR, Mich., June 25 (UPI) -- A six-year study has found a link
between the nation's dramatic increase in students with disabilities and
state funding formulas that encourage schools to serve so-called
``special needs'' children.
        The University of Michigan study, which focused on 1,000 Texas school
districts from 1991-'97, concludes today that many districts classify
physically capable students as disabled to get more state funding.
        In many cases, the study says, schools create programs to serve
students with learning and emotional disorders and then, to boost the
budget, lump them in the same category with the physically and mentally
disabled.
        As states have increased financial incentives for special needs
education, the number of students classified as disabled has ballooned,
rising more than 50 percent in the past 20 years.
        The study says educators now classify more than 12 percent of the
nation's elementary and secondary students as disabled and in need of
extra funding. Furthermore, 80 percent of the students enrolled in
special needs education programs do not have physical disabilities.
        The study's author, UM economist Julie Berry Cullen, says she found a
10 percent increase in special-needs student funding corresponds to a 1.
4 percent increase in a school district's student disability rate.
        Cullen says in recent years schools have received more ``fiscal
incentives to classify marginal students as disabled.'' As a result she
says ``special education has evolved into program that primarily serves
students with mild learning disabilities.''
        Cullen's study could be used to support efforts to reduce state
education incentives to school districts that inflate student disability
rates.


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