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NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY APRIL 8 2007
Schools
Special Education Enrollment Up Again in ’06
Published: April 8, 2007
THE number of New Jersey schoolchildren in special education grew faster than regular enrollment in most districts last year, continuing a trend that has persisted for many years and adding millions of dollars to school costs.
Related
Spending and Special Education Enrollment by District
School Aid in the 2007-8 New York State Budget
In the Region
Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey
Enrollment in special education grew 4.9 percent from 2002 to 2005, when total enrollment statewide grew 2 percent.
Preliminary numbers for each school district released March 23 by the State Department of Education indicate that the trend continued in 2006, and now three-quarters of the state’s districts have a greater proportion of students in special education this year than they did in 1998.
Special education enrollment was 215,539 students, the state says, among a total enrollment of about 1.4 million.
School officials have many theories about the growth, including the increasing sophistication of parents advocating for services for their children and backdoor efforts by districts to get more state money and increase achievement scores.
But one thing is certain: The increase in special education enrollment is adding to tax bills.
At a time when the state is struggling to find ways to cut property taxes, special education stands out as a major contributor to ever-escalating school taxes. Special education students cost twice as much to educate as regular students, on average, and the state picks up only one-third of the bill.
“It’s a major cost driver for schools,” said Lynne Strickland, the executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, an association of suburban school districts.
The State Education Department estimated that special education cost $4.7 billion in 2006, a 33 percent increase in four years. State officials say they are not sure why this number has gone up so much faster than enrollment.
The officials, who say they think the special education enrollment increase is slowing if not declining, say more students are being classified because of the increasing sophistication of parents in advocating on behalf of their children.
“There is a continued increasing awareness by parents and an increasing desire to get help,” said Barbara Gantwerk, assistant commissioner for the Department of Education. “Special ed is viewed as a way to get needed services to students. We’d like to see them get it in general ed, but there is a desire to get the special, extra services.”
Frank J. Legato, the superintendent of schools in Carlstadt, a small district where the number of special education students has nearly doubled since 1998, agreed. “The educated awareness that parents have about the developmental stages of children has increased,” he said.
But alternative explanations for the growth abound.
For instance, state financing formulas create a potential incentive for classifying students in special education. Because the state gives districts a set payment for each child in special education, districts can get more money by increasing the numbers. Once they get the money, districts can spend it on anything.
“Let’s say you’ve got a child who’s taking a lot of class time,” said Diana Autin, director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey, a federally financed group that helps parents of disabled children. “There’s a perception that the only way you can get funding for extra help for such children is to classify them.”
The districts, however, say they do not do this.
“There is no real incentive to classify because we’re getting very little money from the state,” said Janice Dime, the superintendent of Paramus Public Schools, where special education enrollment has increased to 13.9 percent this year from below 8.6 percent of students in 1999.
Dr. Dime said she believed the increases were driven by a jump in autism diagnoses at early ages. A recent study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said New Jersey had the highest rate of autism among 8-year-olds in the 14 states it studied.
“Most of the increase has come among preschool handicapped youngsters, and that’s consistent with the increased identification of kids with autism,” Dr. Dime said.
Ms. Autin suggested that districts could be classifying more students as needing special education in misguided attempts to meet the federal No Child Left Behind standards. Classifying borderline students for special education, the theory goes, helps ensure better passing rates among regular education students, Ms. Autin said.
She also said the influx of immigrants over the last decade might be contributing.
“Studies have shown that students with limited English proficiency are more likely to be classified because of their difficulties in English as opposed to a real disability,” Ms. Autin said.
In 2005, the United States Supreme Court made it harder for parents in New Jersey to dispute school districts’ special education plans, ruling that the burden lies with parents to prove that a district is not serving their children’s needs. But Ms. Gantwerk of the State Education Department said the decision had probably not affected the special education census.
