National Study of Special Education Spending
Federal, state, and local policymakers and education leaders urgently need up-to-date national estimates for what is spent to provide special education services to inform their funding policies and budget for special education expenses.
The National Study of Special Education Spending’s (NSSES) purpose is to update our understanding of the costs of special education and related services. The study will collect information from a national sample of districts and schools about what is spent to educate students with disabilities, as well as what states and districts spend to operate their special education programs and comply with federal and state laws. The Institute of Education Sciences within the Department of Education has partnered with AIR, NORC at the University of Chicago, and Allovue, a PowerSchool Company, to design the study.
Pilot Study
A pilot study for the NSSES study will take place during the 2024/25 and 2025/26 school years. The pilot study’s findings will help inform the study design for the full-scale national study, which is planned for 2026/27 school year.
The timeline for the 2025/26 pilot study is:
- Summer 2025: District recruitment
- Fall 2025: School recruitment within participating districts and sampling students within participating schools
- December 2025—February 2026: Data collection, including surveys with district and school staff and financial data from districts
- Spring 2026: Analysis of pilot study data and preparation for full-scale study
Information for Participants
The study will ask for data from district financial and personnel information systems and ask district and school staff to complete surveys about special education service delivery models and resources, instruction, and services each sampled student receives.
Districts, school coordinators, and survey respondents will be reimbursed for the time it takes to coordinate and complete surveys and provide administrative data.
Reports prepared for the pilot study will summarize findings and will not associate survey responses or other data with a specific individual, school, or district. Information collected for this study comes under the confidentiality and data protection requirements of the Institute of Education Sciences (The Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, Title I, Part E, Section 183). All the information may be used only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other purpose except as required by law (20U.S.C. §9573 and 6 U.S.C. §151).
OMB approval: The pilot study was approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The OMB control numbers are 1850-0952 v.10 and v.11 and the approval expiration date is November 30, 2026.
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