Special education programs allow schools to help students with varying degrees of learning disabilities to attain varying degrees of academic success. These can be anywhere from certificates of completion, where students with severe cognitive handicaps learn basic skills to help them function in jobs and in their personal lives, to full diplomas and potential postsecondary educational careers for students that have minor learning disabilities that interfere with great academic potential.
The other upshot of special education programs is that they bring school districts into line with federal law. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), schools are required by law to provide the necessary assistance to students that need it. In technical terms, the school is required to develop an individualized educational program to assist students that need additional educational assistance. These plans require the school to have individuals trained in special education. Schools that fail to provide such a special education program risk a lawsuit.
The downside of this requirement for special education programs, from the district's perspective, is the need to employ special education specialists. These can vary from resource specialists, who are trained to assist high functioning individuals cope with learning disabilities, to specialists trained in educating severely emotionally disturbed students as well as those trained in educating students with severe cognitive handicaps. These are all professionals who receive the standard training in education as well as additional training for their specialties, and they expect to be paid accordingly.
All this extra staff translates into additional costs that districts are federally mandated to bear. Schools can also find themselves receiving lower performance scores from standardized testing, which some special education students are required to take. Even if these students have learning disabilities that cause them to struggle with standardized exams that are designed for students without learning disabilities, their scores are still included in the school's overall score. This can cause lower school-wide scores and potentially trigger financial consequences for the district.