Students with Disabilities More Represented in School Choice

If you’ve spent much time in the school choice conversation, you’ve probably heard the claim that private school choice programs do nothing for students with disabilities (SWDs).

The ACLU posits that choice programs can “further segregate and impoverish the education of students with disabilities,” and the National Education Association thinks that “vouchers continue to discriminate against students with disabilities, strip away students’ human and civil rights, and exacerbate racial segregation.”

Under this thinking, private schools participating in choice programs are stopping most SWDs from enrolling in the first place, and then for those who manage to “sneak in,” these schools would be doing a poor job of meeting those students’ needs such that those families would withdraw from that school and re-enroll in a traditional public school. SWD enrollment in choice programs *must* be close to 0%, or at least below the K-12 public school estimated rate, right?

Not so fast.

The American Enterprise Institute just published a report featuring three co-authors from the EdChoice research team that tests these assumptions against real-world evidence. Put simply, our conservative estimate is that 17.2% of all the students enrolled in private choice programs across the country are SWDs. To put that number into context, the latest federal data hold that 15% of public school students are SWDs.

To the skeptics, this finding is counterintuitive, but I believe that it makes sense after some reflection. Federal education law already requires that SWDs be educated in the least restrictive environment “to the maximum extent appropriate,” and recent research shows that the number of SWDs spending the large majority of their daily time (80%) among non-SWD peers continues to increase. While there is clearly great need for more studies on how different educational environments offer the greatest benefits to SWDs, we have seen findings from a study published in The Journal of Special Education showing higher average ELA and mathematics results for high-inclusion (>80% daily instructional time) students, compared to mixed- and low-inclusion students.

You might also hear that running the optimal school for a student with special needs is just about adding more money. However, comparing the per-pupil spends and the choice program average award values throws this assumption into doubt. One recent estimate for TPS per-pupil spending on SWDs nationally is $13,127. Although a few programs exceed or approach this total (like the Wisconsin Special Needs Scholarship Program at around $16,000 per-pupil, or Tennessee’s SWD-only ESA at $12,788 per-pupil), many have a lower award amount. These include the Oklahoma Henry scholarship ($8,083), Mississippi’s Equal Opportunity ESA ($8,007), and the most popular choice program on this list by far, Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities ($10,000). This comprehensive list of available spending options (23!) for Unique Abilities families indicates the variety of ways that families can customize their education spending. The popularity of these programs (especially ESAs with many options) that aren’t at per-pupil spending parity yet is a clear testament to how much families desire this kind of flexibility.

Back in 2017, my colleague Michael McShane explained how a parent’s decision to move their special needs child from a public to a private school is a sensitive one, with legal ramifications. Since then, new programs in states like Arkansas, Texas, and Utah now open to all are serving many thousands of students with special needs. The fact that there are new types of schools that didn’t exist during the passage of IDEA in the 1970s, like microschools, hybrid learning, and virtual learning also contributes to these enrollment patterns.

The momentum in expanding choice is bringing on board lots of families who are seeing the results they’ve long hoped to see.