Report Finds CT's Special Education System Insufficient, Ineffective, Inequitable

Connecticut’s methods of funding and delivering special education services are insufficient, ineffective, and inequitable, according to a new report and analysis by Connecticut Voices for Children.

The report, “Reimagining Connecticut’s Special Education Systems for a Post-Pandemic Future,”  examines Connecticut’s special education systems and explores the loss of learning experienced by special education (SPED) students due to the COVID-19 pandemic and outlines policies policymakers can implement to build a more effective and equitable education system.

Connecticut’s student enrollment decreased by 47,000 students between 2007 and 2019—a decline of more than eight percent. Yet during the same period, Connecticut’s population of special education students grew by nearly 16,000 students —an enrollment increase of 23 percent.

While statewide SPED costs increased by more than $472 million in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2014 and 2017, according to the report, state contributions to special education through the state’s Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant, which is the State’s largest source of SPED funding, fell by $54 million over that period.

This is largely because ECS funds are allocated based on the state’s decreasing total student enrollment rather than its increasing SPED enrollment, the report stated.

“While the pandemic has exacerbated inequities across the board, this period has contributed to an even more significant resource and learning gap for SPED students. This is in large part due to the funding for special education not being based on the differentiated needs and the growing number of SPED students across Connecticut,” said Emily Byrne, Executive Director of CT Voices.

“Ultimately, the totality of the State’s policies are not ones that allow families to root and grow here—policies that provide residents agency and real choices in terms of where to live and where caregivers can send their children, irrespective of needs associated with disabilities, to receive an excellent education. We hope these findings highlight the opportunity for policy- and decision-makers that acting now can make a difference.”

The 50-page report also indicates that between 2014 and 2016, Connecticut’s wealthiest districts received eight times more per pupil Excess Cost Grant funding than Connecticut’s most impoverished districts. This funding disparity has a disproportionate impact on Connecticut’s students of color, according to the report.  Additionally, between 2010 and 2019, the report noted, Connecticut experienced a 74 percent increase in students identified as having Autism, a 42 percent increase in students identified through “Other Health Impairment,” and a 37 percent increase in students identified as having a “Learning Disability.”

“Even before the pandemic, Connecticut’s SPED funding and delivery systems failed to keep pace with the growing needs of the state’s special education students, so we cannot count on them to surmount the additional setbacks posed by the interruption to in-person learning,” added  Daniel Curtis, a former Research and Policy Associate with CT Voices and the report author. “Enacting this report’s proposals now would provide the support special education students will need to recover from the effects of the pandemic in the coming years and make long-lasting progress towards a more effective and equitable education system.”

Using Connecticut’s current methods of funding and delivering SPED services, school districts are struggling to keep pace with these rising costs, and the state’s students are suffering because of it.

The budgetary strain of districts’ increasing SPED costs has coincided with a decline in the performance of SPED students relative to their general education peers.  The achievement gap between SPED and general education students was found to be even greater in districts with above-average concentrations of students experiencing poverty, which are disproportionately comprised of students of color.

CT Voices estimates that remediating learning loss for SPED students will cost the state at least an additional $1.7 billion over the next five years. Though some help is on the way via federal COVID relief funding, the federal pandemic relief money will not be nearly enough to cover these expenses.

“We expect our schools and educators to provide equitable learning opportunities for all of our state’s children, but our current system is not adept at ensuring schools have the funding and services they need to support the unique educational needs of SPED students,” said Lauren Ruth, Research and Policy Director with CT Voices. “COVID relief is a start, but is wholly inadequate to address the learning gap experienced by SPED students. If we want our special education systems to be effective and sustainable we must restructure the ways we fund special education.”

Children with special education needs are entitled to a free and appropriate public education in Connecticut.  The report proposes the following policies to support students and schools:
 

1. The State should increase its contribution to the SPED portion of the ECS grant and re-distribute funds through a multiple weights formula that accounts for student needs.

2. Distribute Excess Cost Grant payments above the current basic contribution threshold using an equity measure, and introduce a second, higher threshold above which the state would assume all costs.

3. RESCs should build district capacity to identify and serve the emotional and mental health needs of students in early childhood, specifically those from Black and Latino/a/x backgrounds.

4. Increase the number of direct SPED service programs offered by RESCs and house these programs in pre-existing district schools spread across the state.

According to the report, while the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the state’s previous special education challenges, the increased attention that it has brought to them also presents an opportunity. 
Other states have seized this moment of increased awareness and unprecedented change to improve their special education systems, the report stated, to make them more sustainable, emphasizing that there are options available to Connecticut to do the same.

By implementing these systems now, the report concludes, Connecticut could make long-lasting progress towards a more effective and equitable education system.