For the first time since the 1999-2000 school year, the U.S. Department of Education announced on June 1 that it is moving forward with a comprehensive national study of what schools spend educating students with disabilities. The National Special Education Spending Study will collect data from 1,500 school districts and roughly 10,000 students with disabilities beginning in the 2026-27 school year, with findings expected in 2028.

Why the Gap Matters

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed in 1975, promised the federal government would cover 40 percent of the additional per-pupil cost of educating students with disabilities. That target has never been met. Today, federal IDEA funding covers an estimated 10 percent of what states and districts spend, roughly $1,810 per student. States and local school districts cover the remaining 90 percent from their own budgets.

Without current data, advocates and lawmakers have spent decades debating IDEA funding levels without a reliable measure of what schools are spending. The last comprehensive federal study, the Special Education Expenditure Project, used 1999-2000 school year data and was published in 2004. It found total spending on students with disabilities was $78.3 billion, or about $12,639 per child.

Since then, special education enrollment has grown to 8.2 million students as of 2024, a 3.8 percent increase from the prior year, and service models have shifted substantially.

"The field urgently needs the findings," said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of The Center for Learner Equity. "We can track the amount of public funds schools receive to educate students with disabilities, but we have no comprehensive comparison of what is spent on their education."

The American Institutes for Research, the contractor running the study, completed a $5.6 million design and pilot phase during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years. Full data collection proceeds to the 2026-27 school year.

What This Means for Families

For families working through IEP negotiations, the funding gap between what IDEA promises and what schools receive shapes nearly every budget conversation. When a school says it cannot afford a service, the underlying reality is often that federal funding falls far short of what special education costs, and that shortfall lands on districts.

The study will examine spending by disability category, tracking whether students with specific disabilities receive proportionate funding. That data, once published, could become evidence families and advocates use when pushing for more equitable resource allocation.

It will also produce the first nationally comparable data on whether IDEA funding varies by geography, school characteristics, or student demographics, a question advocates have long raised about rural and low-income districts.

Funding cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences threatened to eliminate this study over the past year. Advocates successfully lobbied to preserve the $2 million line item in the FY2027 budget that keeps the work going.

What Families Can Do Now

• Contact your congressional representatives to support full IDEA funding. The 40 percent promise from 1975 has never been met; federal funding currently covers about 10 percent. Calls and letters from families are a direct input to appropriations decisions.
• If your district is selected for the study, participation is voluntary. Contact your district's special education director to ask whether it plans to take part.
• Use the 1999-2000 benchmark when asking your district about cost assumptions in your child's IEP: the last federal estimate found $12,639 per student, and costs have risen substantially since then.
• Watch for the 2028 report. When it is published, it will be the first nationally current benchmark families and advocates can use to push for better-funded IEPs.

The study's findings will not change funding levels on their own. Whether Congress acts on what the data shows depends on political will, and on families making clear it matters.