IDEA was passed in 1975. In 1976, nine percent of kids had special needs, 2023, 15 percent
- The end of childhood
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Oct 28, 2025, K12 Dive: A potential ‘fix’ for special education?
A more effective system is needed to address learning challenges all students face, not just those receiving IDEA services, CRPE researchers say.
Special education has become a “stopgap for a faulty” education delivery system that underserves millions of students even as the number qualifying for special education services continues to rise, a paper released Tuesday from the Center on Reinventing Public Education argues.
To solve this conundrum, CRPE recommends a more effective system for addressing all students’ learning challenges and their varying needs for support. For instance, instead of sorting students into categories like special and general education, schools could use assessment tools to more quickly identify and act on students’ individual academic and behavioral needs.
Likewise, teacher preparation programs traditionally offer separate pathways for special and general education. The CRPE paper suggests educator preparation programs instead train teachers to work in general education classrooms — teaching students who have diverse needs, with assistance from tutors and paraprofessionals. The paper promotes protecting specialized instruction, educational environments and support services for students with the highest needs.
CRPE researchers further suggest establishing a needs-based system to identify educationally disadvantaged students with and without diagnosed disabilities. This could “level the playing field” so that similarly disadvantaged students receive supports, but specialized instruction remains for students with the highest needs.
While special education services have helped multitudes of students, there are many others who struggle with reading, the English language or behavior but don’t qualify for support and legal protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the CRPE paper said. . . .
In other words, special education delivery is an “exclusionary” system that lacks reliable, nonsubjective and unbiased approaches for determining who is eligible for IDEA services because of a disability and those who face learning challenges because of other factors, such as race, household income and parental involvement, CRPE argues.
IDEA eligibility grows over 5 decades
Over nearly 50 years of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the portion of all public school students, ages 6-21, qualifying for special education services has almost doubled.
The increase in students qualifying for special education services has been driven by those diagnosed with learning disabilities, autism, and other health impairments, which can include attention deficit disorder.
About 2 in 3 students who qualified for special education services in 2022-23 had a learning disability, autism or other health impairment. That’s up from 1 in 4 in 1976. In 2023, about 15% of all public school students qualified for IDEA. In 1976, that figure was 9%. . . .
“We think that there’s an opportunity right now” for change, “given financial pressures that districts are experiencing, given increasing identification rates for special education,” Jochim said. These pain points create opportunities “in a way that may have been less true in the past, and there’s no question that the sustainability of what’s occurring now, it just is not possible.”
‘Asking a fish to climb a tree’
The CRPE paper also argues the special education system favors IDEA compliance over accountability for student outcomes such as graduation rates and achievement gaps between students with and without disabilities.
This “dual” education system for special and general education is not effective, despite efforts at inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms and approaches like multi-tiered systems of support for all students where interventions increase in intensity based on individual student needs, the CRPE paper said.
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