Crisis and Opportunity: The Role of Place and Policy in the Pandemic’s Impact on Students with Disabilities Graduation Rates
Over the past four decades, significant legislative strides such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have aimed to guarantee students with disabilities (SWD) access to free and appropriate public education (FAPE). In the 2022-2023 school year, roughly 7.5 million students aged 3-21, representing approximately 15% of all public school students nationwide, qualified for special education services under IDEA. Despite these sustained policy efforts and the targeted educational supports such as Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and supplemental special education services to provide adequate support for individualized educational progress, graduation rates for SWD have historically remained well below those of their peers without disabilities.
This report explores this intriguing phenomenon, analyzing the notable increase in graduation rates of SWD during the pandemic using the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR) data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the school level data such as student demographics, funding, and locale information from the Common Core of Data (CCD) and the Office of Civil Rights Data Collection (OCR CRDC), as well as the internet access data from the American Community Survey (ACS) data. By examining variations at national, state, and school district levels, this report seeks to unpack the complex factors behind these substantial and unprecedented increases. While temporary adjustments and policy waivers due to the pandemic undoubtedly contributed, they cannot fully explain the sustained nature and geographic variability of these gains.
