Report: Special Education Costs Are Ballooning, As State Funding Lags Behind

On the same day that Pennsylvania’s Special Education Funding Commission held its first on-the-road hearing in western Pennsylvania, a leading education advocacy group called on the state to increase the amount of funding available to districts for students with disabilities. 

State aid to school districts has failed to keep pace with rising costs of special education, where expenditures have ballooned by a whopping 58 percent over the past decade, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center.

The stagnant support from the state has forced school districts to shoulder an ever-increasing share of special education costs, the report states.

“Pennsylvania’s chronic underfunding of special education cannot be resolved solely through the work of the legislature’s Special Education Funding Commission,” the report reads. “The General Assembly must make an increased state investment. Without prompt and comprehensive state action, issues of inadequacy and inequity will deepen for students with disabilities across the Commonwealth.”………...……………………..