Special Education: Coming to Terms with the Issues
"Many Americans may think of basic education as a federally mandated right for all. But in fact, it’s a state obligation, and the federal government has none—with one exception: special education,” Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy, explained. “If you’re a kid, and you get diagnosed as having a disability—which,
for good or bad, is a subjective category—then you have a right, a federal right, to a free, appropriate public education. That’s true if the child has a disability. If not, they have no federal rights when it comes to schooling. None.” The dollars going to special ed have been increasing vigorously over time, but nobody knows exactly how much.
Publication Date: October 2025
Authors: Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene
