Study: Idaho funding lags in special ed

BOISE — A new report found that Idaho’s K-12 public funding doesn’t adequately support districts for their students with higher needs.

The Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE), which produces studies of the effectiveness of government programs, presented the results of its K-12 funding model study to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Friday.

The state largely allocates money based on average daily attendance, but does not “meaningfully increase” to adjust for the percentage of students with special needs, English learners, and students from low-income households, the report found.

“The way that the formula currently works is it’s not adjusting to meet the individual needs of districts and students,” Casey Petti, OPE principal evaluator, told the committee Friday.

Idaho’s school districts are left with these funding gaps, and many turn to levies to help pay for the difference. However, revenue from voter-approved levies this year fell to its lowest level since 2012, according to the report.

Special education

In 2023, there were 81 districts that spent more on K-12 special education than what they received from the state for exceptional education support, creating a total funding gap of $82.2 million.

“In order to fill this gap ... districts either have to divert funds from other support units toward special education or they have to rely on supplemental levies and that could be one explanation why we have seen a decrease in the use of bonds and plant facilities levies but simultaneously a historic increase in the usage of supplemental levies because they’re filling gaps such as this,” Petti said.

The state provides extra funding for special education support assuming a flat rate of 5.8% of students in the district, but the agency found that 11.5% of students in Idaho are in special education.

Idaho effectively provides around 1.2 times more state funding per student in special education than for the general student population — which is behind neighboring states. Utah provides 2.43 times the funding for special education while Washington and Oregon spend 2.06 times and 1.73 times the funding respectively, Petti said.

The study found that special education students are most often enrolled in urban districts, and also that more-populated districts receive less funding per student than smaller districts.

The smaller districts often face proportionally more students in special education, but each district varies and this proportion can change significantly year-to-year.

English learners

Idaho provides for specialized instruction to students who need additional English language support, but is also far behind nearly all its neighbors in supporting English learners (EL), with an average appropriation of $228 for each EL student, compared to $4,236 per student in Nevada and $5,374 per student in Oregon.

Wyoming in fiscal year 2023 provided one full-time equivalent teacher for every 100 English learners, which comes to about $856 per student. Only Utah provided less support than Idaho, at $213 per student.

Students who need English learning support are most common in Idaho’s urban districts, but a number of midsized “town districts” — such as Homedale and American Falls — show an overrepresentation of English learners.

No funding for low-income or gifted students

Idaho is one of seven states nationally that does not provide dedicated funding for students from low-income families. Around 44% of students in remote districts and 42% of rural districts are identified as low-income.

The federal government does provide some funding to districts and schools serving primarily low-income students through the Title I program. In the 2021-22 school year, 50% of Idaho schools received school-wide Title I funds.

The report did not expand on costs to educate low-income students or potential gaps in funding.

Idaho code requires that schools meet the needs of “gifted and talented” students, which is defined as those who possess “high-performing capabilities in intellectual, creative, specific academic or leadership areas ... who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities.

In the 2022-23 school year, 56% of districts identified gifted and talented students. An Idaho Department of Education report said that budget reductions related to COVID-19 resulted in a deprioritization of the gifted and talented curriculum.

More information to come

Petti said the office is hoping to gather more information from districts to release another supplemental report on how the gaps in funding are affecting services.

There was little discussion about the report at the JLOC meeting, but House Assistant Minority Leader Steve Berch, D-Boise, said, “I just can’t help but walk away from this and think how much more we could be doing for public education if we weren’t reducing state revenue by more than $400 million every year.”

Berch referenced a slate of tax cut bills introduced this year that total more than $400 million total reduction in ongoing revenue. The largest of these bills, a $253 million income tax cut, was recently signed by the governor. Another $50 million bill to increase the grocery tax credit was also sent to Gov. Brad Little’s desk last week.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.