The special education budget has been one of the fastest growing components within the Ministry of Education budget in recent years. While the Ministry of Education budget grew in real terms by 94% between 2005 and 2019, the special education budget grew by 267%. The share of the special education budget within the total Ministry of Education budget grew from 7% to 13%, while the share of students with special needs grew from 6.5% to 11%. A new study by the Taub Center conducted by Nachum Blass, Principal Researcher and Chair of the Center’s Education Policy Program, looks at the developments in the special education budget and the division of the budget among the various special education institutional settings.
Among the findings of the research: In 2005, the number of students with special needs stood at 111,515 while in 2019 their number had grown to 248,488. About 40% of the students in special education are not integrated into regular schools and they benefit from about 60% of the special education budget. Students with similar disabilities and similar levels of functioning are budgeted differently, depending on the educational setting they are in. According to the study’s findings, the recommendations, the approach, and the guiding principles put forward by the Dorner Committee (2009) — which form the basis for Amendment 11 to the Special Education Law — have yet to be adopted.
In this study, Nachum Blass, Chair of the Taub Center Education Policy Program, describes the factors that determine the size of the special education budget and suggests ways to change the budgeting principles currently in use, with the goal of slowing the growth of the budget and allocating it in a more equitable and just manner. According to Blass, there have been two dominant trends in special education in many countries: a high rate of growth in the number of students diagnosed as having special needs and increased awareness of the importance and need — both educational and social — for the integration of students with special needs in the regular school system, while in the past the practice has been to segregate them in separate systems. “Nonetheless,” he adds, “implementation is less than optimal.”
The main factors determining the size of the special education budget
The rate of growth in the number of special education students has been four times greater than that of the general student population
The growth in the total number of students in the education system who are defined as “having special needs” is the factor with the largest influence on the special education budget. Between 2005 and 2019, the total number of students in the education system in Israel grew by 29% while the number of special education students rose by 122% – four times faster. For purposes of comparison, in the US the number of special education students grew by only 7% between 2010 and 2018, and their share out of the total number of students fell from 13.7% to 13.2%. In Israel, the number of special education students grew by more than 50% during that same period and their share out of all students grew from 8.3% to 10.4%.
Students with similar disabilities and similar levels of functioning are budgeted differently, depending on the educational institutional setting they are in
Students with special needs are allocated a larger budget if they attend a special education school or are in a special education class than if they are in a regular education framework. This is justified when the students have different needs but not when they have the same disability and the same level of functioning. Between 2005 and 2019, about 60% of special education students were integrated within regular educational institutional settings while about 40% attended separate special education settings. Nonetheless, about 60% of the special education budget is allocated to students in separate settings while about 40% is allocated to students with special needs who are integrated into regular schools. The result is that a student with special needs who attends a separate setting is allocated 2.5 times more budget than a student who attends a regular educational institutional setting.
Large increase in the number of students with disabilities that require a higher budget allocation (in particular, autism and behavioral disorders)
The research findings indicate that the breakdown of students according to type of disability has changed over the years. Between 2005 and 2020, the population of students with special needs grew 2.26-fold, and the number of students with autism or serious behavioral or emotional disorders grew 7.63-fold and 5.62-fold, respectively. These disorders are allocated particularly large budgets due to the relatively greater needs of these students. In contrast, there has been a decline in the number of students with learning disabilities, for whom the cost of care is low. Since every disability is budgeted differently, any change in the weights of the disabilities among all special education students has significant budgetary implications.
A lack of professional and reliable tools for diagnosing the level of functioning among students with special needs
Blass believes that the education system does not currently possess a reliable tool for classifying students with each type of disability according to their level of functioning. The findings of the research show that according to the RAMA questionnaire, the share of students at high levels of functioning is much larger than the share determined by the assessment and eligibility committees. Blass adds that “in order to implement the approach underlying Amendment 11 to the Special Education Law, an objective tool is needed for diagnosis that is consistent, professional, and reliable in determining the level of functioning.”
40% of the Ministry of Education’s transportation budget is used for students with special needs
The costs of transportation are a major component in the special education budget, particularly transportation to and from special education schools. In the 2019 budget, this budget line was NIS 1.29 billion and more than 40% of that was designated for transportation of students with special needs. Many of the special education students do not attend a school near their place of residence and the guaranteed eligibility for transportation irrespective of distance provides parents with the freedom to choose their child’s educational setting, even though this has a major effect on the size of the budget.
Furthermore, there are gaps in budgeting based on the legal definition of the educational institutional setting. A student with special needs who attends a recognized unofficial school is budgeted at a significantly lower rate – about two-thirds the budget for a student attending an official school.
Blass claims that the implementation of the Dorner Committee’s three main recommendations — the right of parents with a special needs child to choose their child’s type of educational institutional setting; budgeting according to level of functioning, rather than only according to the type of disability; and linking the budget to the child rather than the educational setting — is desirable from an educational and social perspective and will lead to significant budget savings. He believes that the recommendations should be implemented decisively and to the letter, with the goal of achieving the educational and social goals underlying them and the declared goals of the Ministry of Education.
According to Prof. Avi Weiss, Taub Center President: “It appears that, apart from the significant increase in the number of students with special needs for one reason or another, there has also been overuse of expensive educational settings — separate schools and separate classes—rather than integrating the students in regular classes. In order to improve the efficiency of the special education system in particular and the education system in general, it is important to establish more transparent and egalitarian criteria and to implement them with determination and consistency.”