What Research Shows About Improving Special Education Without Increasing Costs
This post is the third of a three-part series, “Improving Special Education While Moderating Costs IS Possible. Here’s How,” which shares how school districts can effectively narrow the special education achievement gap even in times of tightening budgets using research-backed cost effective best practice approaches to delivering special education services and managing staff time more proactively.
Other posts in this series:
The research is clear: raising achievement for students with special needs and students who struggle without raising costs is possible when academic best practices are implemented district-wide, when districts provide guidance on the use of special educator time, and when districts take a more integrated approach to managing special education.
In fact, the schools and districts throughout the country that are seeing the greatest gains in achievement have been implementing exactly these shifts in practice and management of special education.
Research Dispels the Myth that Smaller Group Size is Most Important
While general education teaching loads and class sizes are closely prescribed, typically special education group sizes are left to special educators themselves. Carefully managing special education group size could reduce staffing requirements by 40 percent in many districts, but the thought of doing so often meets pushback, because the perception is that managing group size deprioritizes student needs.
In actuality, the research shows that, in comparison to having smaller groups, the best practices we have pointed to—access to quality core instruction, content-strong teachers and extra time to learn—are more significant factors for increasing student achievement. As a result, proactively slightly increasing group size paired with grouping together students according to similar learning need, becomes a mechanism by which a district can expand the reach of its highly skilled teachers to meet the needs of more students Simply put, it is possible to provide better services for more students at a lower cost with a different approach.
Similarly, studies continue to show that more special education staff is not correlated to higher outcomes for students with special needs. How students are served matters much more than how many adults are serving them.
Louisiana - A Case Study of the Impact of Special Education Best Practices: Much higher achievement without more staffing
The state of Louisiana is the exemplar in application of the best practices and the resulting improved outcomes for students with disabilities. New Solutions K12 had the honor of partnering with the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) to develop its Special Education Playbook for System Leaders, and to support the rollout of the best practices. The Playbook offers a set of best practices (inclusive of the best practices outlined in the first post of this series) and a call to action to close achievement gaps for students with disabilities and is a valuable resource for leaders and educators.
The data shows that Louisiana’s efforts are delivering dramatic results for students with disabilities:
Leading the Nation: Students with disabilities in Louisiana are the only students in the country to improve over the last 6 years on NAEP! These students increased by four points, while the national average declined by four points – the largest ever spread between a state and national average. And, Louisiana is the only state where students with disabilities exceed pre-pandemic outcomes.
Highest Growth Rates: Within Louisiana, the early adopters of the best practices outlined in the Special Education Playbook for School and District Leaders had the highest growth rates for students with disabilities based on state test scores (LEAP) combining all grades and subjects. One early adopter outpaced the state average growth for students with disabilities by five-fold!
Repeated Success: Nearly two-thirds of the high growth districts had top growth for two years in a row.
Decrease in Low-Performing Schools: In one district, the number of schools identified for low performance for students with disabilities dropped from 10 to 3 and is on track to have no schools identified!
With results like these, it is no wonder that Louisiana’s efforts have been lauded by the United States Department of Education for improving outcomes for students with disabilities.
Replicated Success in Districts of All Sizes and Demographics
Districts of all types, regardless of size, demographics, and prior performance of students with disabilities, have seen gains in special education achievement following their shifts to the best practices for improving special education.
Here are just a few examples:
A small semi-rural school district, saw its students with disabilities outperform general education students in the state.
A mid-sized suburban school district, closed the general education-special education achievement gap in math and ELA by nearly 40 points.
A large urban district, went from no growth to record setting growth including for students living in poverty.
Best practices, not spending levels, drive achievement
With results like these without increasing costs, it is no wonder that enthusiasm and momentum are growing to shift to the best practices for improving special education: a focus on core instruction, extra time to learn, and content-strong teachers. When combined with a new approach to managing special education that provides guidance for the use of special educators’ time and integrates special education leadership, the best practices are incredibly effective and cost effective.
These ideas are increasingly being embraced by both general and special education leaders across the country, are becoming the foundation of state-level guidance, have been endorsed by many special education associations, and have even received praise from the US Department of Education.
Where this approach has been adopted, it is working, and its potential is exciting for students, teachers, parents, and taxpayers alike.
Other posts in this series:
Nathan Levenson has spent the last 25 years working to improve the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of K-12 education and brings a unique perspective to this passion, having served as a school superintendent, school board member, researcher, and consultant to over 300 districts in more than 30 states and around the world. He is widely recognized as an expert on improving special education and has authored numerous books, including Six Shifts to Improve Special Education and Other Interventions: A Commonsense Approach for School Leaders (Harvard Education Press).