The Problems with Special Ed

Perverse incentives cause schools to misuse special ed for remedial education.

by Jay P. Greene

Officially reported disability rates in public schools are entirely unreliable and are almost certainly inflated ‎indicators of how many students are actually disabled. Eventually, school and government ‎officials are going to have to acknowledge that our current procedures for identifying ‎students as disabled are fundamentally flawed and commit themselves to improving these procedures.‎‎ ‎

One of the reasons we know that reported disability rates lack credibility is that they vary ‎dramatically from state to state. In New Jersey, for example, 18 percent of all students are ‎classified as disabled, but in California the rate is only 10.5 percent. There is no medical ‎reason why students in New Jersey should be 71 percent more likely to be placed into ‎special education than students in California.

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