Corrected: An earlier version of this story misnamed the federal law governing special education. The correct name is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Definition of special education
Special education encompasses the programs which serve students with mental, physical, emotional, and behavioral disabilities. The major law governing special education is the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees a “free appropriate public education” to children with disabilities and mandates that, to the “maximum extent appropriate,” they be educated with their nondisabled peers in the “least restrictive environment.” Read more.
What is an IEP?
An Individualized Education Program, or IEP, is a program tailored to meet the individual needs of students with disabilities. The program is written in collaboration with a child’s school district, their parent or guardian, and sometimes, the student.
The document outlines the special educational needs based on the student’s identified disability. Read more.
Interested in learning about more special education terms like FAPE and MTSS? Read our guide.
What’s the difference between an IEP and a 504 plan?
IEPs and 504 plans serve the same purpose—to allow students with disabilities to access the same learning as students without disabilities. But, which students are eligible for them and how they are managed varies greatly. IEPs are generally more strict—both in the disabilities they cover, and in how they are created, tracked, and enforced. The federal government also provides some funding to districts based on how many students they have with IEPs, but not for students with 504 plans.
For more information on the differences between IEPs and 504 plans, read our guide.
How many students are in special education?
In the U.S. overall, 15.2 percent of all students were special education students (ages 3-21) in 2022-23. The percentage varied by state from 11.7 percent in Hawaii to 21.1 percent in Pennsylvania.
Share of special education students by state
See the percent of special education students by state in the map below:
Has the number of students served in special education increased?
Yes. In the past decade, the number of students with disabilities has grown from 6.4 million, or 12.9 percent of all students in 2012-13, to almost 7.5 million, or 15.2 percent in 2022-23.
Special education statistics by race
While overall, 15.2 percent of public school students were served by IDEA in 2022-23, that number varies by race and ethnicity.
What is the breakdown of students served under IDEA by race?
The highest percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native students (19%) were identified as needing special education services. Asian students are less likely to be served under IDEA, with only 8 percent receiving services. That’s below the national average of 15 percent in 2022-23.
Read more about how students are identified for special education and how demographic factors, including race, affect whether or not students are identified as having disabilities in need of special services.
Are schools overidentifying minority students with disabilities?
Federal law requires that states monitor their districts for overidentifying students with disabilities. Several studies have found that minority students are actually being underidentified for disabilities.
But some newer studies are uncovering more nuanced findings, suggesting that minority students are overidentified in some contexts and underidentified in others. Read more.
What are the demographics of special education teachers?
Although research has shown that students often do better in school when they have a teacher of the same race, just over 81.8 percent of special education high school teachers in public schools are white, higher than the teaching population as a whole, according to the most recent data available. But under half of all students receiving special education services are white, according to 2022-23 data.
Read more about efforts to prepare, recruit, and retain special education teachers of color.
Inclusion statistics
A majority of special education students—almost 68 percent of those ages 6-21 and 5-year-olds in kindergarten—spend 80 percent or more of their time in classes with students without disabilities, according to 2023 data. That number has more than doubled in recent decades. In 1989, only 31.7 percent of students ages 6-21 spent 80 percent or more of their time in general classes.
Read how a district leader helped increase inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms.
But, getting students with disabilities into general education classrooms is not a silver bullet, researchers say. Read more to learn what else needs to happen to raise academic outcomes for students with disabilities. And here are some tips to help students with disabilities feel like they belong.
Learning disabilities statistics
The specific learning disabilities category is the most common one covered under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—in 2022-23, 32 percent of students with disabilities had specific learning disabilities. That’s 4.9 percent of all students.
Autism statistics
13 percent of students with disabilities (or 2 percent of all students) have been diagnosed with autism alone, according to 2022-23 data.
Which disability categories have grown the most?
In the past decade, the number of students with disabilities as a percentage of total enrollment has increased a small amount, from 12.9 percent in 2012-13 to 15.2 percent in 2022-23. The mix of disabilities those students have, however, has changed dramatically.
The percent of students with disabilities who had a specific learning disability, like dyslexia, decreased from 35.4 percent in 2012-13 to 32 percent in 2022-23. And the percent of students with disabilities with autism grew from 7.8 percent to 13 percent over the same period.
See more statistics about ADHD, autism, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and dyslexia.
How much money is spent on special education by the federal government?
In fiscal year 2018, the federal government earmarked $12.3 billion for the education of children ages 3-12 with disabilities. That’s only about 15 percent of the excess cost of educating students with disabilities, compared with the cost of educating a general education student. The federal government under the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act set a goal to pay states up to 40 percent of the excess cost. It never reached that goal.
For more on special education funding, read this explainer.
Is there a special education teacher shortage?
Teacher shortages are hard to track on the national scale. But the October 2024 School Pulse Panel survey found that 34 percent of public schools report being understaffed in special education positions, the highest of all the teaching specialties.
And an EdWeek Research Center survey in April 2024 found that 62 percent of principals and district leaders said it had been more challenging to fill special education teaching positions in 2023-24 compared with 2021-22.
What can schools do about the special education teacher crisis? Read about three strategies they are trying.
For more information on special education, check out our Special Education topics page.
