IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v13y2021i4p72-111.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Long-Run Impacts of Special Education

Author

Listed:
  • Briana Ballis
  • Katelyn Heath

Abstract

Over 13 percent of US students participate in special education (SE) programs annually, at a cost of $40 billion. However, due to selection issues the effect of SE placements remains unclear. This paper uses administrative data from Texas to examine the long-run effect of reducing SE access. Our research design exploits variation in SE placement driven by a unique state policy that required school districts to reduce SE caseloads to 8.5 percent. This policy led to sharp reductions in SE enrollment. These reductions generated significant reductions in educational attainment, suggesting that marginal participants experience long-run benefits from SE services.

Suggested Citation

  • Briana Ballis & Katelyn Heath, 2021. "The Long-Run Impacts of Special Education," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 72-111, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:72-111
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20190603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190603
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E126241V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190603.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190603.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20190603?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bryant G. Hopkins & Katharine O. Strunk & Scott A. Imberman & Adrea J. Truckenmiller & Matthew Guzman & Marisa H. Fisher, 2023. "Trends in Special Education Identification During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Michigan," NBER Working Papers 31261, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. David N. Figlio & Krzysztof Karbownik & Umut Özek, 2023. "Sibling Spillovers May Enhance the Efficacy of Targeted School Policies," NBER Working Papers 31406, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Briana Ballis, 2024. "Early Life Health Conditions and Racial Gaps in Education," Working Papers 2024-016, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    4. Alina Kovalenko, 2023. "Natural Resource Booms, Human Capital, and Earnings: Evidence from Linked Education and Employment Records," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 184-217, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:72-111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.