A comparative study of the adequacy of special education services in a low-wealth and a high-wealth school district in Mississippi

There have been many studies conducted to systematically and comprehensively investigate the relationship between local school district wealth and the adequacy of educational services provided regular education students. However, there have been very few studies nationally that examined the impact of local school wealth on the provision of educational services to students with special needs. None of the studies which investigated the relationship between local school district wealth and the adequacy of educational services provided students with special needs have been conducted in the state of Mississippi to date.This study was designed to assess, measure, and describe the educational services provided students with special needs in a low wealth school district in Mississippi, and to determine if differences exist in the educational services afforded special needs students in a low wealth school district and a low wealth school district in Mississippi. This study describes the provision of services to special education students in a low wealth school district in Mississippi and then compares the findings with a comparable study of a high wealth school district in Mississippi.From the 10 lowest ranking school districts in Mississippi on assessed valuation per pupil and the 10 highest ranking school districts in Mississippi on assessed valuation per pupil, a low wealth and a high wealth school district were purposefully selected. These districts were selected on their similarities in total school enrollment, percentages of students in special education, percentages of students eligible for free lunch, racial distributions, and percentages of students graduating with diplomas. Data were then collected and comparisons made between the low wealth school district and the high wealth school district across three categories of variables: (a) special education fiscal inputs (revenues and expenditures), (b) special education processes, and (c) the special education outputs.Findings indicated that it can be concluded that the low wealth school district provided less adequate educational services for its special education students when compared to the high wealth school district according to the current definition of adequacy utilized in this study. The conclusions drawn from this study were that the difference that exists between the local per special education pupil revenue in the low wealth school district and the local per special education pupil revenue in the high wealth school district did account for the less adequate educational services for special education students in the low wealth school district. Differences were found in the levels of certification and years of experience of special education teachers, in the amount of special education support services, and in the amount of related services that the low wealth school district was able to provide for the special education students in the school district.