Inadequately Funded and Understaffed – What The 2017 Middle School Study Tells Us about Florida’s Commitment to ESE Students

I saw this image today.

While much has been said about the national teacher shortage, the lack of support staff is equally concerning – especially for our highest needs children.

In 2017, the Florida Legislature, concerned about the dramatic NAEP score regression between 4th and 8th, passed legislation calling for a “comprehensive study of states with high-performing students in grades 6 through 8 in reading and mathematics, based on the states’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.” The results of that study were presented to Florida’s leadership in December 2017 and then… crickets.  You can read about it here.

Two of the most interesting findings in the resultant report (to me, at least) involved 1.) Florida’s at-risk populations, whose math scores were significantly worse than similar populations in the high performing states, and 2.) Florida’s relative lack of support staff.

For example, Florida has a similar percentage of students (15 percent) eligible for individual educational plans (students with disabilities) as the comparison states, but these students in Florida performed worse on the 8th grade Math portion of the NAEP relative to three comparison states.

The report also highlighted Florida’s relative lack of support staff. When compared to the high performing states, there were significant differences in the average number of students per support services staff and librarians, with Florida having 2-3 TIMES more students per support staff. 

The report made NO mention of education funding and did NOT compare differences in per pupil funding. In 2017, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont were in the top ten states for per pupil spending (ranging from $16K – $19K/pupil). Florida’s per pupil spending, at just over $9K, ranked 44th in the nation. This definitely could explain the lack of support staff…

Now, apparently, along with the teacher shortage, the lack of support staff has worsened and the funding has not improved.

Students with disabilities are funded in several ways. First, they receive federal funding through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), passed in 1970. The IDEA is a law that makes available a “free appropriate public education” to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children. When the IDEA was originally passed, the federal government agreed to pay 40% of the cost for educating these children, with state and local governments picking up the rest. The federal government has NEVER funded 40%, current funding is around 15%.

In Florida, since 2000, funding for students with disabilities is in-part funded as a categorical [the Exceptional Student Education (ESE) Guaranteed Allocation] in the state’s funding formula [the Florida Education Funding Program ( FEFP)]. Since that time, funding the ESE Guaranteed Allocation not kept up with either inflation or student population growth.

Here are the numbers for the math fans out there. I have adjusted the numbers for inflation using an Inflation Calculator, which Calculates the equivalent value of the U.S. dollar in any year to 2023. You can learn more about the FEFP here.

When it comes to ESE funding, it is important to understand that, within the FEFP, all students are not funded equally.  The total student population is called the Unweighted Full Time Equivalent or Unweighted FTE. This simply refers to the number of students. The Weighted FTE is calculated from the number of students and their special needs. The Weighted FTE is higher than the total student count (Unweighted FTE or UFTE) because it accounts for both the number of students AND their needs.

In the 2000-2001 FEFP:

• Student Population (FTE or Full Time Equivalent) = 2,388,755.80
• Weighted FTE (WFTE)= 2,597,316.59
• Base Student Allocation (BSA) = $3,416.73
• BSA adjusted for inflation =$6,006.15
• ESE Guaranteed Allocation (ESE-GA) = $938,682,328
• ESE-GA adjusted for inflation = $1,650,075,913.83
• ESE-GA/FTE = $393 (inflation adjusted = $690.84)
• ESE-GA/WFTE = $361 (inflation adjusted = $634.59)

2017-18 FEFP (when the Middle School Study was ordered):

• Student Population (FTE or Full Time Equivalent) = 2,829,107.39
• Weighted FTE = $3,077,667.93
• Base Student Allocation (BSA) =$4,203.95
• BSA adjusted for inflation = $5,126.18
• ESE Guaranteed Allocation (ESE-GA) = $1,060,770,374
• ESE-GA adjusted for inflation = $1,293,472,782.75
• ESE-GA/FTE = $375 (inflation adjusted = $457.26)
• ESE-GA/WFTE = $344 (inflation adjusted = $419.46)

2022-23 FEFP:

• Student Population (FTE or Full Time Equivalent) = 2,983,464.64
• Weighted FTE (WFTE)= 3,277,687.35
• Base Student Allocation (BSA) = $4,587.40
• ESE Guaranteed Allocation (ESE-GA) = $1,094,851,200
• ESE-GA/FTE = $367
• ESE-GA/WFTE = $334

Today, in 2022-23, when compared to 2000:

• Florida now has 25% more students (FTE) than in 2000
• When adjusted for inflation, the Base Student Allocation is 24% less than that in 2000.
• When adjusted for inflation, the ESE-GA is 34% less than that in 2000.
• Florida is spending 6.6% less on ESE/FTE (inflation adjusted = 47% less )
• Florida is spending 7.5% less on ESE/WFTE (inflation adjusted= 47% less)

This would be a good time to remind everyone that, according to Article IX Section 1 of the Florida Constitution, it is “a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education…” For students with disabilities, the state appears to have failed that duty.

• In Math, our 8th grade ESE students significantly underperform those in states such as Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New Jersey.
• While our student populations have increased by 25% since 2000, ESE student funding has remained relatively flat and, when adjusted for inflation, the per students allocations have decreased dramatically, year after year.
• When adjusted for inflation, Florida now spends 47% less/student for its ESE Guaranteed Allocation.
• Florida schools are understaffed with the support staff needed to provide a high quality education to our ESE students. The current staffing crisis makes things even worse.

What HAS the Florida Legislature been doing? Funding private school vouchers and Education Savings Accounts for qualified ESE students. When a family accepts one of these vouchers they must sign away their child’s civil/IDEA rights to a Free and Appropriate Education.

A little more math:

In Florida, the ESE population is about 15% of the student population, currently that is about 450,000 students. Only about 40,000 students have taken advantage of the state’s vouchers (Since 2021, Gardiner ESAs and McKay tuition vouchers have been combined into a single FES-UA ESA program). The rest are being served by overworked, understaffed public schools who see their relative funding diminishing year after year.