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Special Education

Specially designed instruction provided at no cost to parents for students with disabilities, as mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Reviewed by OpenSchoolData Editorial Team

How It Works

About 7.5 million students in the United States, roughly 15% of all public school students, receive special education services under IDEA. Disabilities served range from specific learning disabilities (the most common, at about 33% of special education students) to autism, speech and language impairments, emotional disturbance, and intellectual disabilities. Each student receiving special education has an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that specifies the services, accommodations, and goals tailored to that student's needs. The IEP is developed by a team including parents, teachers, special education professionals, and when appropriate, the student. Federal law guarantees that students with disabilities receive a "free appropriate public education" in the "least restrictive environment," meaning students should be educated alongside their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate. The percentage of special education students in a school matters for data interpretation because students with significant cognitive disabilities may take alternative assessments, and their scores are typically reported separately. On OpenSchoolData, special education percentage is displayed as demographic context to help parents and researchers understand the school's student population. Schools that achieve strong proficiency rates while serving a high percentage of special education students are demonstrating inclusive instructional excellence.

Related Terms

  • English Learner (EL), A student whose primary language is not English and who is developing English language proficiency, previously referred to as Limited English Proficient (LEP) or English Language Learner (ELL).
  • Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRL), A federal program providing subsidized meals to students from low-income families, widely used as a proxy measure for school-level poverty rates.
  • Achievement Gap, Persistent differences in academic performance between student groups defined by race, ethnicity, income, disability status, or English proficiency, one of the most studied problems in American education.
  • Per-Pupil Spending, The total amount of money a school or district spends divided by the number of enrolled students, used to compare resource levels across schools and states.

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Real federal data: NCES CCD enrollment (2022), EDFacts proficiency rates (2020, district-level), EDFacts graduation rates (2019, district-level).

About This Definition

This definition is part of the OpenSchoolData Education Glossary, 33 terms explaining how school performance data works in the United States. All definitions are written in plain language for parents, educators, journalists, and researchers.

Special Education is one of the U.S. K-12 school outcomes and enrollment concepts that recurs across this site. The definition above is the technical answer; the paragraphs below add the practical context for how the concept connects to the NCES Common Core of Data and EDFacts data behind every per-entity page on the site.

In the NCES Common Core of Data and EDFacts data, this concept shapes one or more of the fields that drive the per-entity grades and rankings on this site. The methodology page describes which fields feed into which output; this glossary entry documents the underlying term.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, 2026.