Service Delivery Models: Impacts for Students With and Without Disabilities

Abstract

Students with and without disabilities may be educated across various service delivery models (SDMs): general education, cotaught, pull-out, and self-contained. Still, evidence for their relative effectiveness at scale remains limited. Using longitudinal administrative data from Indiana, we measured the effect of different SDMs on test scores, attendance, and disciplinary incidents. We leveraged within-student variation in SDM assignments and differences across students, applying student fixed effects and lagged outcomes models, which bound the causal effect within a narrow, policy-relevant range. Students with disabilities performed better in less restrictive environments, although the magnitude was often modest and varied across SDMs. Coteaching had a positive impact on students without disabilities. This work contributes to our understanding of inclusive practices’ effectiveness as experienced statewide.

Keywords

coteaching econometric analysis educational policy inclusion longitudinal studies mainstreaming placement pull-out regression analyses self-contained service delivery models special education

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

K. P.

(2021). The relationship between inclusion, absenteeism, and disciplinary outcomes for students with disabilities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 43(1), 32–59. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373720968558

Angrist

J. D.

Pischke

J.-S.

(2009). Mostly harmless econometrics: An empiricist’s companion. Princeton University Press.

Cole

C. M.

Waldron

Majd

(2004). Academic progress of students across inclusive and traditional settings. Mental Retardation, 42(2), 136–144. https://doi.org/10.1352/0047-6765(2004)42<136:APOSAI>2.0.CO;2

Cole

S. M.

Murphy

H. R.

Frisby

M. B.

Grossi

T. A.

Bolte

H. R.

(2021). The relationship of special education placement and student academic outcomes. The Journal of Special Education, 54(4), 217–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022466920925033

Dunn

L. M.

(1968). Special education for the mildly retarded—Is much of it justifiable? Exceptional Children, 35(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440296803500101

Epler

P. L.

Ross

(2015). Models for effective service delivery in special education programs. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7397-7.ch001

Epler

P. L.

Ross

(2019). Special education service delivery models around the globe. In Information Resources Management Association (Ed.), Pre-service and in-service teacher education: Concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications (pp. 599–621). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-7305-0.ch029

Every Student Succeeds Act ESSA, 20 U.S.C. § 6301 (2015).

Fletcher

(2010). Spillover effects of inclusion of classmates with emotional problems on test scores in early elementary school. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 29(1), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.20479

10.

Friend

(2015). Welcome to co-teaching 2.0. Educational Leadership, 73(4), 16–22.

11.

Friend

Cook

Hurley-Chamberlain

Shamberger

(2010). Co-teaching: An illustration of the complexity of collaboration in special education. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 20(1), 9–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/10474410903535380

12.

Gilmour

A. F.

(2018). Has inclusion gone too far? Weighing its effects on students with disabilities, their peers, and teachers. Education Next, 18(4), 8–16.

13.

Gilmour

A. F.

Fuchs

Wehby

J. H.

(2019). Are students with disabilities accessing the curriculum? A meta-analysis of the reading achievement gap between students with and without disabilities. Exceptional Children, 85(3), 329–346. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014402918795830

14.

Gottfried

M. A.

(2014). Classmates with disabilities and students’ noncognitive outcomes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(1), 20–43. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373713493130

15.

Gottfried

M. A.

Egalite

Kirksey

J. J.

(2016). Does the presence of a classmate with emotional/behavioral disabilities link to other students’ absences in kindergarten? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 36, 506–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2016.02.002

16.

Gottfried

M. A.

Stiefel

Schwartz

A. E.

Hopkins

(2019). Showing up: Disparities in chronic absenteeism between students with and without disabilities in traditional public schools. Teachers College Record, 121(8), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811912100808

17.

Guryan

(2004). Desegregation and Black dropout rates. American Economic Review, 94(4), 919–943. https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828042002679

18.

Hanushek

E. A.

Kain

J. F.

Rivkin

S. G.

(2002). Inferring program effects for special populations: Does special education raise achievement for students with disabilities? Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(4), 584–599. https://doi.org/10.1162/003465302760556431

19.

Indiana Department of Education. (2021a). Elementary and middle level subjects and descriptions 2021–2022. https://www.in.gov/doe/students/indiana-academic-standards

20.

Indiana Department of Education. (2021b). High school college and career readiness course titles and descriptions 2021–2022. https://www.in.gov/doe/students/indiana-academic-standards

21.

Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq. (2004). https://sites.ed.gov/idea/

22.

Jones

Winters

M. A.

(2024). Are two teachers better than one? The effect of coteaching on students with and without disabilities. Journal of Human Resources, 59(4), 1180–1206. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.0420-10834R3

23.

Kaler

Markham-Anderson

Jones

(2024). Service delivery models and outcomes for students with disabilities. Remedial and Special Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325241268747

24.

Karin

Evelien

Mieke

Katja

(2012). Don’t pull me out!? Preliminary findings of a systematic review of qualitative evidence on experiences of pupils with special educational needs in inclusive education. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 69, 1709–1713. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.118

25.

Lombardi

Doren

Gau

J. M.

Lindstrom

L. E.

(2013). The influence of instructional settings in reading and math on postsecondary participation. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 24(3), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1044207312468766

26.

Malhotra

K. P.

(2024). Whose idea is this? An examination of the effectiveness of inclusive education. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737241257951

27.

Murawski

W. W.

Swanson

H. L.

(2001). A meta-analysis of co-teaching research: Where are the data? Remedial and Special Education, 22(5), 258–267. https://doi.org/10.1177/074193250102200501

28.

Naqvi

(2024). Stata package “sankey” (Version 1.81). https://github.com/asjadnaqvi/stata-sankey

29.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2023a). Percentage distribution of school-age students served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B, by educational environment and type of disability: Selected years, Fall 1989 through Fall 2021. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_204.60.asp

30.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2023b). Students with disabilities. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg

31.

O’Hagan

K. G.

Stiefel

Schwartz

A. E.

(2024). The academic effects of moving to middle school on students with disabilities relative to their general education peers. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.3102/016237372412299

32.

Rea

P. J.

McLaughlin

V. L.

Walther-Thomas

(2002). Outcomes for students with learning disabilities in inclusive and pullout programs. Exceptional Children, 68(2), 203–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290206800204

33.

Ruijs

N. M.

Peetsma

T. T.

(2009). Effects of inclusion on students with and without special educational needs reviewed. Educational Research Review, 4(2), 67–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2009.02.002

34.

Sallin

(2021). Estimating returns to special education: Combining machine learning and text analysis to address confounding. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2110.08807

35.

Schifter

L. A.

(2016). Using survival analysis to understand graduation of students with disabilities. Exceptional Children, 82(4), 479–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014402915619418

36.

Solis

Vaughn

Swanson

Mcculley

(2012). Collaborative models of instruction: The empirical foundations of inclusion and co-teaching. Psychology in the Schools, 49(5), 498–510. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.21606

37.

Theobald

R. J.

Goldhaber

D. D.

Gratz

T. M.

Holden

K. L.

(2019). Career and technical education, inclusion, and postsecondary outcomes for students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 52(2), 109–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219418775121

38.

Zigmond

(2003). Where should students with disabilities receive special education services? Is one place better than another? The Journal of Special Education, 37(3), 193–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224669030370030901

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

2.26 MB