Peers with special educational needs and students’ absences

Abstract

In the United States, the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) specifies that students with disabilities should be educated in the “least restrictive environment,” yet little is known about how successfully schools have been able to apply appropriate supports, practices and resources so that all students benefit from inclusion. Using a quasi-experimental method and a longitudinal data-set provided by the Florida Department of Education that spans an eight-year panel from 2001 through 2009, this paper analyses the relationship between the density and diversity of peers with special educational needs and general education students’ absence rates in grades three through eight. Results show that a one standard deviation increase in the measure of special education peers is associated with an increase in general education students’ absences of .03 to .43 more days per year, depending on the empirical specification chosen. This represents as much as a five percent increase in the average student’s annual absences. Implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• Inclusion
• peer effects
• fixed effects
• special education

Notes

1. I focus on math teachers because math is one of the core subjects taught in grades three through eight and that teacher is likely to be the child’s primary instructor for most of the school day. As a sensitivity test, however, I also repeat all analyses using those classrooms in which reading is taught. Those results are qualitatively similar to the results presented here.

2. In the 2011–2012 school year, 36% of children aged 3–21 served under IDEA across the United States were classified as having a specific learning disability. This was followed by speech or language impairments, at 21 percent. See Snyder and Dillow (2013), Table 204.30.

4. Seventy-one percent of students with IEPs aged 6–21 experienced "full inclusion in 2012–2013 (Florida Department of Education 2014).