A Letter from the Guest Editor
American Institutes for Research |
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This issue of the JSEL is dedicated to issues of special education finance. Very few JSEL readers may admit to finance as a favorite subject, rather remembering economics as "the dismal science," if they remember it at all. As a former elementary teacher of children with special needs, who later became a specialist in school finance, special education has become a natural interest of mine. However, I have also noted among my finance colleagues a relatively low level of interest in special education. It seems to be perceived as a mysterious set of services outside the realm of mainstream education.
Clearly there are unique aspects to considering how special education programs should be equitably and adequately funded in ways that will encourage the provision of appropriate and efficient programming. However, to view special education as outside the realm of mainstream instruction and as something apart from general education, is at the heart of the problem we face in enacting comprehensive school program and finance reform.
Approximately 12% of all students now receive special education services, which constitute about 13% of total public education spending-- numbers which continue to grow. Special education enrollments have risen as a percentage of total enrolment every year since the passage of the IDEA. Special education spending also appears to be increasing at a much faster rate than general education. For better or worse, issues relating to the funding of special education have garnered the attention of the nation. I was reminded of this as former Vice-President Gore and Governor Ventura of Minnesota emerged from a lengthy meeting during the height of the campaign to report that the main topic they had discussed was funding special education.
Thus, special education finance is generating attention. At the same time, because it occupies a space between the very disparate worlds of special education and school finance, it does not often generate the thoughtful and scholarly attention it warrants. This is one of the reasons I am especially pleased that JSEL has agreed to publish this set of articles dedicated to special education finance. A few years ago, we edited a similarly dedicated edition of the Journal of Education Finance (JEF). However, my guess is that there are very few readers of both journals. If these articles are to have any chance of affecting policy, they must be read outside the finance community. Ultimately, of course, we must also bridge the gap between special and general education providers and policymakers.
With these goals in mind, we have tried to include five diverse articles in this JSEL. The first presents analyses on special education spending over time and its impact on general education. The three articles that follow analyze the impact of special education finance policies in Pennsylvania, the province of Ontario, and Kentucky. The edition concludes with a cost analysis of mainstream versus more inclusive models of providing preschool for children with disabilities. These articles show varying perspectives on funding special education across the North America and also illustrate the range of topics falling under the realm of special education finance. We hope that they may play a small role in increasing the dialogue between those of us specializing in issues of special education finance and those of you who strive every day to provide high quality programming for children with disabilities under difficult resource constraints.
I would like to acknowledge the support of the Office of Special Education Programs within the U.S. Department of Education for their support of this work through the Center for Special Education Finance (CSEF) at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). I would also like to thank Amy Merickel, Phil Esra, and Jean Wolman, of AIR, for the considerable editorial assistance they provided in producing this edition of the JSEL.
Thomas B. Parrish, Ed.D., Editor Email: tparrish@air.org |