Tweet [1]
Justin Bowen comments at EconTalk [2] and points readers to an analysis of special education showing the power of incentives. Forster and Greene argue (see here [3], here [4] and here) [5] that in states where there is a per pupil subsidy to kids with disabilities, schools in such states find a lot more disabilities. I am not surprised.
Some of the findings:
- There is a statistically significant positive relationship between
bounty funding systems and growth in special education enrollment.
Bounty funding results in an additional enrollment increase of 1.24
percentage points over ten years. - The
effect of the bounty system accounts for 62% of the enrollment growth
experienced by bounty states during the study period. This represents
roughly 390,000 extra students in special education, resulting in
additional spending of over $2.3 billion per year.