BANGOR (AP) – Maine’s special education enrollment rate is among the fastest-rising in the country because of a “bounty system” that encourages school officials to classify students as handicapped, according to a new study.

The number of special education students in Maine has risen faster than all but one state because the state allocates funding to schools based on the number of handicapped students, according to a report by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization in New York.

Maine educators agree that the proportion of special-education students is growing fast, but that the funding formula isn’t to blame.

The proportion of students classified as needing special education in Maine increased from 11.7 percent in 1991 to 15.4 percent in 2002, the study says. Nationwide, the proportion rose from 10.6 percent in 1991 to 12.3 percent last year.

Greg Forster, a co-author of the study, said 34 states use a “bounty system,” where the funding is based on the number of special education students. Sixteen states use a “lump-sum” system, where schools are allocated a pool of money for special education costs, regardless of the number of students.

Forster said that only Hawaii, along with Washington D.C., had faster-growing numbers of special education students than Maine

Forster said special education enrollment grew by 2 percent in states with bounty systems, but by only half that rate in states with lump-sum funding systems.

He said an estimated 4,640 Maine students in the past decade were identified as needing special education because of funding incentives created by the bounty system, costing the state an estimated $27.5 million annually.

David Stockford, team leader for special services at the Maine Department of Education, took issue with the report and disagreed that the state even uses a bounty system.

Schools don’t benefit financially from identifying students as needing special education services since it costs more to implement a program than federal and state dollars cover, Stockford said.

Still, he said, the state Board of Education is concerned about the rising number of special education students and is looking into the need for reform. He said Maine for more than 20 years has been among the top five states identifying students with special needs.

He said Maine schools are good at identifying students who need special education. He attributed that, in part, to Maine’s low infant mortality rate, large proportion of low-income students and small school districts that make it easier for educators to identify when students are in need.

Area superintendents rejected the notion that schools have a financial incentive to diagnose students as handicapped.

“Schools have to substantiate and quantify unequivocally whether a student meets certain criteria in order to be enrolled in a special education program,” said School Administrative District 22 Superintendent Rick Lyons. “That has to be a professional and ethical commitment.”

Jay Greene, the study’s other co-author, said some states may be tempted to identify a student falling behind in reading as needing special education, when in fact it could be the result of poor teaching a difficult home life.

“The more we shift students with learning problems into special education, the more we’re consuming resources that could be used for students with very serious disabilities” such as blindness or cerebral palsy, he said.

Also, the special education label may hurt the student because it “alters everyone’s expectations about his capability,” Greene said.

Burgeoning number of students receiving special education services also means more paperwork and rising administrative costs, he added.

In the study, researchers recommended, among other things, that more states convert to the lump-sum system; private school scholarships be provided to all special education students; and special education placements be federally audited.

AP-ES-07-16-03 0216EDT

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