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Does Special Education Raise Academic Achievement for Students with Disabilities?

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  • Eric A. Hanushek
  • John F. Kain
  • Steven G. Rivkin

Abstract

While special education has become a hotly debated issue of school policy, most of the discussion has centered on the aggregate costs of providing mandated programs for disabled children. Little attention has been paid to the effectiveness of such programs or possible interactions with the provision of regular education. This study, building on the unique data of the Harvard/UTD Texas Schools Project provides direct evidence on the effectiveness of special education programs. The average special education program boosts mathematics and reading achievement of special education students, particularly those classified as learning disabled, while not detracting from regular education students. These results are estimated quite precisely from models of fixed effects in achievement gains, and they are robust to a series of specification tests. At this stage, it is not possible to judge whether the program benefits are sufficiently large to justify the added spending involved.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 1998. "Does Special Education Raise Academic Achievement for Students with Disabilities?," NBER Working Papers 6690, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6690
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    2. John F. Kain & Kraig Singleton, 1996. "Equality of education opportunity revisited," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue May, pages 87-114.
    3. Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, 1996. "Understanding the 20th Century Growth in U.S. School Spending," NBER Working Papers 5547, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    Cited by:

    1. Card, David & Payne, A. Abigail, 2002. "School finance reform, the distribution of school spending, and the distribution of student test scores," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 49-82, January.
    2. Cullen, Julie Berry, 2003. "The impact of fiscal incentives on student disability rates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1557-1589, August.
    3. Timothy J. Halliday & Sally Kwak, 2007. "Bad Apples, Goody Two Shoes and Average Joes: The Role of Peer Group Definitions in Estimation of Peer Effects," Working Papers 200730, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    4. Reed, Deborah K. & Aloe, Ariel M., 2020. "Interpreting the effectiveness of a summer reading program: The eye of the beholder," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 1999. "Do Higher Salaries Buy Better Teachers?," NBER Working Papers 7082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Joseph Torgesen & Allen Schirm & Laura Castner & Sonya Vartivarian & Wendy Mansfield & David Myers & Fran Stancavage & Donna Durno & Rosanne Javorsky & Cinthia Haan, "undated". "National Assessment of Title I Final Report Volume II: Closing the Reading Gap: Findings from a Randomized Trial of Four Reading Interventions for Striving Readers," Mathematica Policy Research Reports eaf3a94e66d34b79bafa3db8b, Mathematica Policy Research.
    7. repec:mpr:mprres:5835 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Valentin Verdier, 2020. "Average treatment effects for stayers with correlated random coefficient models of panel data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 917-939, November.
    9. Brian A. Jacob, 2002. "Accountability, Incentives and Behavior: The Impact of High-Stakes Testing in the Chicago Public Schools," NBER Working Papers 8968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods

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