Achieving inclusion? Effective resourcing of students with special educational needs

Abstract

In line with the increasing policy emphasis on inclusive education, there is now a greater focus on how best to provide for students special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools. However, there is little consensus internationally as to the most equitable way in which to support these students. Despite ongoing evaluations of the existing funding structures, there has been little discussion to inform future changes and ensure an equitable distribution of resources. This paper examines the system of SEN funding in Ireland during a period of policy change. Using data from a National Survey of Schools, we examine the profile and distribution of students across different school contexts to assess the extent to which the existing funding model targets those most in need. Findings show that the current through-put funding system broadly targets students with SEN but in any new model, there is room for greater differentiation in the allocation of funding, particularly within disadvantaged school contexts. The paper highlights the need for further discussion around how we conceptualise special education in mainstream education. We argue for greater emphasis on student outcomes and school accountability where SEN funding is received to support students.

Keywords:

• special educational needs
• funding
• resource allocation
• inclusion

Notes on contributors

Dr Joanne Banks is a Research Analyst at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin and Research Associate at Trinity College Dublin. Her research interests include special educational needs, inclusion and student engagement. She has published work on special educational needs prevalence and identification, special class provision and the everyday school experiences for students with different types of needs.

Ms Denise Frawley is a Data and Policy Analyst at the Higher Education Authority (HEA), Dublin. She has worked broadly on policy-relevant educational issues, spanning primary, second-level and higher education sectors. She is currently completing a part-time doctorate in Childhood Studies at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and is researching the educational transitions of children and young people with special educational needs.

Dr Selina McCoy is an Associate Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin and Adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin. Her research interests include social inequality in education, inclusion and post-school transitions. She has published extensively on a range of educational issues and most recently was lead author of Leaving School in Ireland: A Longitudinal Study of Post-School Transitions (2014).

Notes

1. The terms SEN and disability are used interchangeably in this paper. The authors predominantly use SEN; however, a number of official documents and policy reports use the term disability for classification purposes.

2. This model can either use country-specific categories of disability or in some cases, the International Classification of Functioning system is being used to assist in identifying a child's SEN.

3. The ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ of 2001 was signed into law in 2002 in the USA. At the core of this act were a number of measures designed to drive broad gains in student achievement and to hold states and schools more accountable for student progress (US Department of Education 2001).

4. Recent research (McCoy et al. 2014) points to significant differences between these school contexts in student social background, prevalence of parental unemployment and parental educational attainment. In addition, the study shows a net impact of school context – students in Urban DEIS schools, particularly Urban Band 1 schools, do less well in standardised tests than other students, all else being equal. The study highlights the role of school climate, expectations and teacher turnover in explaining some of these differences.

5. The weighting parameters used were gender mix of the school, size category, DEIS status, language medium and region (eight regions). The procedure involved constructing school-level weights such that the distribution of school responses post-weighting is identical to the corresponding distributions for the population of schools. This was accomplished using a minimum distance algorithm that adjusts an initial weight so that the distribution of characteristics in the sample matches that of the set of control totals in the population as a whole.

6. The issue of weighting multivariate analyses or not has been the subject of much debate. We follow Solon, Haider, and Wooldridge (2013) in not using weighting in the modelling since we control for the factors (school type and DEIS status) which are associated with differential non-response.

7. Called the DEIS. This scheme is comparable to in Zones d'Education Prioritaire in France, Disadvantaged Schools Programme in Australia and Title I Programme in the USA.

8. As described above, second-level schools comprise three sectors: voluntary secondary schools (mainly founded by religious orders), vocational schools (including community colleges) and community/comprehensive schools.

9. A WSE is a process of external evaluation of the work of a school carried out by the Inspectorate of the DES.