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Abstract:
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Private tuition and support expenditures by public school districts pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have received increased media attention as their incidence and magnitude have risen. A narrative has emerged depicting urban districts as the target of affluent parents rent-seeking under the law. And in fact, relevant literature highlights demographically driven variance in disability classification, quality of programming, expenditures, and school finance, suggesting other potential mechanisms for disproportionate placement costs along demographic lines. But little has been done to systematically probe variation among local educational agencies with respect to race, wealth, urbanicity, and state-level funding incentives. Using district-level fiscal, administrative, and demographic data from the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data and School District Demographics System, I present findings from a series of regressions that identify district-level demographic characteristics associated with both private tuition and related expenditures and the amount of special education funding received. Results from pooled models indicate that race and urbanicity are consistently positively associated with private placement expenditures, while median household income is negatively associated with such expenditures. These same relationships are observed with respect to categorical funding received for special education purposes. However, state-level regressions reveal substantial differences in the effects of demographic variables across states containing districts with at least one private placement. |