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Consultants urge smoothing ESA and rethinking special‑education funding to reduce cliffs and better match need
Summary
Consultants told the Senate Education Committee that ESA tiers create funding 'cliffs' and recommended smoothing and reweighting ESA, collapsing ESA categoricals, and exploring a move from census‑based special‑education funding to a multi‑weighted, student‑level model.
Consultants asked the Senate Education Committee to consider structural changes to targeted funding that they said would reduce instability and better align dollars to student need.
On ESA (the state mechanism that provides per‑pupil resources for economically disadvantaged students), presenters warned that tier thresholds create abrupt funding cliffs that can double district ESA dollars with a small percentage change in counts. To address that risk, they proposed smoothing the tiers, retargeting resources so all economically…
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