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Characteristics of elementary students receiving special education

By JohnL on Aug. 1, 2007.

Late in July 2007, the National Center for Education Statistics of the US Department of Education released a report by William L. Herring, Daniel McGrath, Jacquelyn Buckley that describes the students who receive special education services during the elementary years. Following a longitudinal cohort across the elementary grades, the report provides data about the disabilities by which students are identified, their ethnicity and socio-economic status, and some characteristics of their schools (school poverty, urbanicity, and geographic location).

Demographic and School Characteristics of Students Receiving Special Education in the Elementary Grades

This Issue Brief provides a detailed description of the proportion of elementary school students receiving special education in kindergarten, first grade, third grade, and fifth grade; the primary disabilities of these students; and the variation in these measures across a range of demographic and school characteristics. Data for this analysis are drawn from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). Findings from the analysis indicate that for the cohort of students beginning kindergarten in 1998, specific learning disabilities and speech or language impairments were the most prevalent primary disabilities over the grades studied. The percentage of the student cohort receiving special education grew from 4.1 percent in kindergarten to 11.9 percent of students in fifth grade. The results also indicate that higher percentages of boys than girls and of poor students than nonpoor students received special education.

Special education advocates are almost certain to spin these data in different ways. Some will say it illustrates the wait-to-fail criticism of special education. Others will point to the overlap between poverty, ethnicity, and disabilities as an illustration of the need for more systemic efforts to address problems. Still others may develop an argument against public schooling from the data.

Regardless of the interpretation, it is important to have these data available.

Link to the source of the description I’ve quoted, to the PDF of the report, and to another PDF document that provides the data in tabular form.

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