Trends in Special Education Identification During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Michigan

Bryant G. Hopkins, Katharine O. Strunk, Scott Imberman, Adrea J. Truckenmiller, Matthew Guzman and Marisa H. Fisher

No 31261, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We use data from Michigan and an interrupted time series (ITS) strategy to show how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted new special education classifications and discontinuations. We find a substantial decrease in K-5 classifications and discontinuations during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years. Classifications fell by 19 and 12 percent in these years, respectively, with smaller but still significant reductions in discontinuations. Districts with remote schooling and Black, Asian, and economically disadvantaged students saw larger decreases in classifications. While rates returned to trend in 2021-22, there was little “catch up” beyond that to make up for these delays, suggesting that as of that year many students had not yet gained access to services for which they may be eligible.

JEL-codes: I10 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ure
Note: ED
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31261.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31261

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31261

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().