Overview:
The number of students with disabilities being educated alongside their peers without disabilities has climbed sharply over the past decade, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.
The number of students with disabilities being educated alongside their peers without disabilities has climbed sharply over the past decade, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office; however, how much progress a student sees still depends heavily on which state, and even which school district, they live in.
The report, Special Education: More Students with Disabilities Were Educated in General Education Settings, but State Trends Varied Widely, found that the number of students with disabilities placed in general education classrooms for at least 40 percent of their school day rose 25 percent nationally between school years 2012–13 and 2023–24, climbing from 4.6 million to 5.7 million students, an increase of 1.1 million.1 That growth outpaced the overall rise in the number of students with disabilities during the same period, which increased 21 percent. The largest jump came among students with disabilities who spent 80 percent or more of their day in general education classrooms, suggesting the shift isn’t just toward partial inclusion, but toward full-time integration for a growing share of students.
Roughly 7 million children ages 6 through 21 received special education and related services under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in the school year 2023–24. Under IDEA, schools are required to educate children with disabilities in the “least restrictive environment,” a legal standard that generally favors placing students alongside their non-disabled peers whenever appropriate. The Department of Education has also encouraged the trend through guidance stating that inclusive practices can benefit all students academically and that every child deserves a sense of belonging in the classroom.
Widespread Gains, but Sharp State-by-State Differences
The shift toward general education placement wasn’t confined to a handful of states. GAO found that the share of students with disabilities spending much of their day in general education classrooms increased in 42 of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia over the 11-year period studied. (New Mexico was excluded from the most recent year of data because figures weren’t available.)
But the size of that shift varied enormously. The District of Columbia posted the largest gain, with a 7.7 percentage-point increase in the share of students with disabilities in general education settings. At the other end of the spectrum, North Dakota moved in the opposite direction entirely, with the share of students with disabilities in general education classrooms for at least 40 percent of their day falling by 3.2 percentage points over the same period.
That range, from meaningful gains in some states to outright declines in others, is central to GAO’s finding that national averages mask very different realities on the ground depending on where a student happens to attend school.
What’s Driving the Trend
To understand what separates districts with higher rates of inclusion from those with lower rates, GAO ran a regression analysis using the most recent available data, from school year 2022–23. Three district-level characteristics stood out as associated with higher percentages of students with disabilities spending at least 40 percent of their day in general education classrooms:
- Districts at both ends of the poverty spectrum. Both higher-poverty and lower-poverty districts showed higher rates of inclusion than districts in the middle range.
- Districts without a standalone special education school. Districts that lacked a separate school dedicated to special education tended to place more students with disabilities in general education classrooms.
- Districts with lower per-pupil revenue. Districts that spent less funding per student were associated with higher rates of general education placement.
Availability of Special Education Schools
The presence or absence of a dedicated special education school within a district made a measurable difference. Districts that did not have a standalone special education school were associated with a 5.2 percentage-point increase in the share of students with disabilities in general education classrooms for at least 40 percent of their day, relative to districts that did have one, on average, suggesting that where a separate special education school exists, it draws students who might otherwise be placed in general education settings.
Per-Pupil Revenue
Funding levels also tracked closely with placement patterns, though the relationship ran in a direction that may surprise some readers: districts with lower per-pupil revenue were associated with a higher percentage of students with disabilities in general education classrooms for at least 40 percent of their day.2 Specifically, GAO found that a 30 percent decrease in a district’s per-pupil revenue was associated with a 1.6 percentage-point increase in the share of students with disabilities in general education settings, on average, raising questions about whether some of the shift toward inclusion is driven by resource constraints as much as by pedagogical philosophy.
Other Factors
GAO’s analysis also identified two additional characteristics with a statistical association to placement, though the practical effect of each was small. The number of students on a school counselor’s caseload showed an inverse relationship with inclusion: an additional 100 students added to a counselor’s caseload was associated with a less than 1 percentage-point (0.35) decrease in the share of students with disabilities in general education classrooms, on average. Meanwhile, the percentage of English learners in a district moved in the same direction as inclusion, but just as modestly — a 1 percentage-point increase in a district’s English learner population was associated with a less than 1 percentage-point (0.07) increase in the share of students with disabilities in general education settings, on average.
Notably, GAO’s regression also ruled out several factors that some might expect to matter. The analysis found no association between general education placement rates and the ratio of teachers to students, the ratio of other support staff to students (such as nurses and social workers), or other district-level demographic characteristics, including student race, ethnicity, and sex.
Beyond the statistical patterns, GAO’s fieldwork pointed to more human-scale explanations. Investigators visited 12 districts and eight schools across Connecticut, Illinois, and Washington, and interviewed officials at the Department of Education as well as local administrators and educators. Across those visits, officials most commonly pointed to three factors shaping where students with disabilities are educated: the resources a school or district has on hand, how involved parents are in placement decisions, and the broader school environment — including both physical facilities and school culture.
The Reality of Building an Inclusive Classroom
GAO’s report also examined how schools are working to make inclusion meaningful once students are placed in general education settings, not just physically present in the classroom. Officials described a mix of successes and persistent obstacles.
At one school, funding constraints meant administrators couldn’t hire an additional athletic coach with the specialized training needed to meaningfully include students with disabilities in sports programs — a gap that limited inclusion outside the classroom even as it expanded inside it. At a school in another state, however, officials and educators said they had found success fostering a sense of belonging through small-group work that intentionally paired students with disabilities alongside students without disabilities, rather than relying on incidental interaction.
Those examples illustrate a theme running through the report: physical placement in a general education classroom is only part of the equation. Whether that placement translates into genuine inclusion depends on resources, planning, and school culture that vary as widely as the placement statistics themselves.
Why It Matters
The findings arrive as school districts nationwide continue to navigate the tension between federal mandates for inclusive education and the practical constraints of staffing, funding, and facilities. With the number of students with disabilities in general education classrooms continuing to grow — and growing fastest among those spending nearly their entire day there — the report suggests that the more pressing question for policymakers may no longer be whether inclusion is increasing, but why it’s happening so unevenly, and what it will take to close the gap between states like the District of Columbia and those like North Dakota.
Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office
Footnotes
- GAO-26-107814, footnote 17. ↩
- GAO-26-107814, footnote 27. ↩
