Special-ed helps students improve, says new study

Fifty years after the  Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guaranteed extra help to students with disabilities, a new study finds that special education works, reports Matt Barnum on Chalkbeat. In three states, "access to special education services changed students’ academic trajectories for the better."

Researchers looked at test scores for students identified as needing special education in fourth through eighth grade in Connecticut, Indiana, and Massachusetts. Before the diagnosis, students were losing ground on reading and math tests, compared to classmates. Once they began receiving special-ed services, their scores began to rise.

The gains were “immediate, quite large, and sustained,” says lead author Marcus Winters, a professor at Boston University.

Access to accommodations, such as extra time on tests," is unlikely to explain the learning gains," writes Barnum. The study doesn't suggest which services are helping students improve.

"About 15 percent of public school students are in special education, a figure that has been ticking up in recent years," he writes.

It's not clear whether the gains from special education justify the much higher costs, said Ashley Jochim, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE). It's possible "alternative strategies could produce even larger results," writes Barnum.

"While the expansion of special education has undoubtedly provided valuable support to some struggling students, millions of others remain underserved in general education classrooms, even as special education consumes ever larger shares of education budgets," a recent CRPE report stated.