This report is one in a series on special education expenditures and focuses on total expenditures for students with disabilities in the 1999-2000 school year, including spending variations by disability. Highlights reported include: (1) per pupil expenditures vary by disability category, ranging from 1.6 times that of regular education students…

The U.S. spent an estimated $50 billion on special education services in the 1999-2000 school year. Another $27.3 billion was spent on general education services, and an additional $1 billion was spent on other special needs programs for students with disabilities. The total spending to educate students with disabilities represents 21.4% of the…

This brief discusses issues of school finance equity as they relate to resources and services provided to special education students. It uses information obtained from a recent study of Chapter 1, which examined educational resources and expenditures in 95 elementary schools in 30 school districts across 5 states. The schools had students with…

This report describes two alternative approaches to measuring resources in K-12 education. One approach relies heavily on traditional accounting data, whereas the other draws on detailed information about the jobs and assignments of individual school personnel. It outlines the differences between accounting and economics and discusses how each…

This paper provides a clarification of two factors--the differences in pupil need (as reflected by the proportion of disadvantaged or handicapped pupils in a district) and the differences in the prices of school inputs across districts--that affects the cost of educational services and a conceptual framework that may be useful in making welfare…

The paper reviews state categorical funding programs to serve special need populations among school age children (including handicapped, educationally disadvantaged, bilingual, and vocational education students); examines the literature on costs of categorical programs; and presents an alternative framework for addressing the problem. A cost based…

Part of a series of reports based on descriptive information on more than 9,000 special education students derived from the Special Education Expenditure Project data for the 1999-2000 school year, this report provides information on spending for transportation services for students with disabilities. Major findings include: (1) during the…

This report explores the fiscal implications of providing procedural safeguards in special education and is part of the Special Education Expenditure Project (SEEP), a national study utilizing 23 different surveys to collect data at the state, district, and school levels for the 1999-2000 school year. Highlighted findings address: (1) total…

This report addresses the following question: How much more or less does it cost to provide the same levels of educational resources across different geographic locations in the United States? To answer this question, the report develops a comprehensive geographic cost-of-education index (GCEI) that focuses on the prices of inputs (personnel and…

Although special education services for children age three through five have been part of the IDEA mandate for nearly 20 years, until recently relatively little attention has been given to the expenditures related to these programs and to what these funds buy in terms of the mix of general and special education classroom and related services.…

This report summarizes the perspectives and attitudes of a selected set of district and school site administrators whom the authors interviewed in Twin Rivers Unified School District (TRUSD) during the fall of 2009. The authors carried out interviews and focus groups with these individuals to gain an understanding of how the current budgeting…

This paper explores the impact of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) of 1990 on the funding and allocation of resources to special education. Overall, the results indicate that the revenues generated for the special education system by KERA are approximately equal to marginal costs of special education services statewide. However, there is…

Based on estimates of differences in costs for school personnel and transportation in Missouri school districts, a cost-of-education index is computed, patterns of cost variation examined, and the impact of state aid allocations determined. Some conclusions are drawn as to implementing a cost index as part of school finance policy. (MF)

This document is one of a series of reports based on the Special Education Expenditure Project, a study of the nation's spending on special education and related services based on analysis of data for the 1999-2000 school year. This report focuses on three questions: "How much is the nation spending on services for students with disabilities?";…

Within the population of students with disabilities there is a broad range of levels of expenditures. A few students with very high levels of needs can have a serious impact on the budget of an individual school district. The recent IDEA reauthorization allows state-level "local educational agency risk pools" to help distribute the…