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Historical Trends In Funding Special Education

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The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of historical trends in funding special education programs, discuss current mandates and issues influencing funding, and explain the impact on services to students with disabilities. The information will include past, present, and current mandates and issues affecting local, state, and federal funding for special education. As a leadership and supervision doctoral student it is essential to understand the allocation procedures for local, state, and federal governments that fund special education programs and the mandates attached to the funding. There are nearly 6.5 million current students classified as special education in the United States, ages three through 21 (McCann, 2014). …show more content…

Per McCann (2014), this bill known as the Education of Handicapped Children Act of 1965, provided a two-year $3.5 million formula grant to states for the education of children with special needs. The population of children ages 3 through 21 would be the bases for funding (McCann, 2014). This bill was the first time in history that the federal government assisted states in funding these services and according to Griffith (2015), some policymakers saw this act as an intrusion into school districts. Griffith (2015) explains that these policymakers believed that prior federal court rulings made if clear that districts and states were responsible for providing all students, including students with disabilities, with an appropriate …show more content…

In fact, state funding makes up 45 percent of the total special education dollars, with local monies making up 46 percent and IDEA federal dollars totaling only 9 percent of the total allocation (McCann, 2014). Griffith (2015) indicates there is little information about how much funding school districts are expanding on special education because most states do not require districts to report their special education expenditures. The most recent attempt to collect this information, per Griffith (2015), was in the 1990-2000 school year when the federal government commissioned a special education expenditures study. In this study, the findings indicate that general education student expenditure was $6,556 compared to $12,474 for a student with disabilities (Griffith, 2015). Griffith (2015) notes that this data is 15 years old and the spending for special education services have changed along with the changing needs of students. However, currently, there is no way to collect and analyze this

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