社区黑料

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 社区黑料 Newsletter

While intended as a universal benefit, educational support for disabled children is significantly segregated by class, according to a paper released in January. The decade-spanning analysis of state and federal data found that wealthy families were twice as likely as poorer ones to be granted accommodations under the federal law .

A similar split was present in the vast architecture of special education offered through Individualized Education Programs 鈥� though in that case, the dynamic was reversed, with IEP recipients much more likely to come from low-income families than well-off ones.

Nick Ainsworth, a doctoral student at the University of California, Irvine, and lead author, said his interest in the topic was stoked during the COVID era, when evaluations for special education fell dramatically in schools around the country. While studying trends leading up to the pandemic, however, he and his colleagues noticed how differently rich and poor households access the federal government鈥檚 two biggest sources of disability services.

鈥淲e looked across the income distribution and started to see these large differences,鈥� Ainsworth said. 鈥淲e had some hypotheses about what that would look like with respect to 504 plans, but we did not expect to see those differences favoring high-income students.”

Those findings may have come as a surprise to the research team, but they validate long-held suspicions among education observers that 504-mandated aid 鈥� considered less comprehensive than those provided by IEPs, but subject to fewer legal requirements 鈥� are directed disproportionately toward the affluent. 

In 2019, a pair of investigations by and revealed that school districts with higher average incomes enrolled conspicuously larger numbers of students with 504 plans. Eligible pupils are typically given extra time to complete assignments and tests, raising concerns that some parents exploited the program to gain unneeded academic perks for their kids.

Such cynicism is perhaps inevitable amid the furious competition waged for top scores and coveted admissions slots. And the jostling for position doesn鈥檛 even relent with the arrival of college acceptance letters: at America鈥檚 most prestigious universities now say they experience conditions like anxiety and ADHD, which can confer special accommodations. But experts say it is unclear whether the system is being gamed, or if its design simply leaves needier children underserved. 

Ainsworth and his colleagues created the study by gathering academic records for millions of Oregon students between the 2008鈥�09 and 2018鈥�19 school years, then over the same period. The combined data allowed them to see not only which students were classified as needing IEP vs. 504 services, but which specific disability they reported.

In all, one-quarter of the most disadvantaged students had an IEP, a portion more than three times greater than that of the very wealthiest students. Meanwhile, nearly twice as many students from families near the top of the income scale were assigned a 504 plan than those near the bottom (2.9 percent vs. 1.5 percent).

Paul Morgan, a professor at the University of Albany whose work focuses on disability classification, said those patterns reflected important distinctions in how the two offerings are used. 

IEPs provide specialized instruction geared toward each student鈥檚 learning goals, sometimes including placement outside general education classrooms. By contrast, 504 plans only require schools to make the requisite modification to give students equal access to learning opportunities. Their looser eligibility standards may allow parents with the resources and wherewithal to access support on behalf of children who aren鈥檛 obvious candidates for IEPs, Morgan remarked.

鈥淭hese are benefits that don’t come with a lot of costs. Your child is typically not leaving the classroom,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey might be seen as beneficial without much downside in terms of tradeoffs.鈥�

The laws鈥� tradeoffs

To a large degree, the tradeoffs families face when choosing between an IEP and a 504 plan are shaped by the laws governing each policy. Differences in those statutes mean that many don鈥檛 perceive a choice at all. 

IEPs were created by the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, which lists 鈥� from deaf-blindness to traumatic brain injury 鈥� that make children eligible for special education. Congress disburses annual grants to states ( in FY 2025) that pay for the provisions included in each student鈥檚 IEP. 

The calculation is different with 504 plans, which are not attached to any federal funding. Under the eponymous Section 504 of the , the plans establish students鈥� rights to reasonable accommodations for a much broader array of conditions. Yet in the absence of a federal subsidy, the assistance provided usually takes the form of cost-free interventions like extra testing time, preferential classroom seating, and even reduced homework burdens.

Schools are to find and evaluate children who may be disabled, but in practice, many are never referred for services. Christopher Cleveland, an assistant professor of education at Brown University and one of Ainsworth鈥檚 coauthors, said the incentives for schools to initiate the 504 process are 鈥減robably less clear.鈥�

鈥淢any school leaders feel that they’re in a high-pressure situation to figure out the resources of special education versus local, in-state dollars,鈥� Cleveland added. 鈥淲hereas the 504 plan decisions seem like they’re more subject to advocacy on the part of families.鈥�

The parents best equipped to wrangle the needed paperwork and prod school staffers toward a resolution are those with sufficient time, mental bandwidth, and experience dealing with bureaucracies. Since the outcome of 504 evaluations can hinge on diagnoses for disorders like social anxiety or attention deficit, it also helps to be able to afford the kind of expensive neuropsychological evaluations that insurance doesn鈥檛 always cover.

Miriam Nunberg is a former attorney for the Department of Education鈥檚 Office of Civil Rights who now works as in New York City. She said parents are obliged to be proactive in seeking accommodations, especially for high achievers whose performance at school tends to conceal learning difficulties. For guidance, they can turn to a cottage industry of lawyers, professional advocates, tutors, and clinical evaluators.

While each of them bill at healthy rates, the expense could be unavoidable in New York. As in many other jurisdictions, disability evaluations conducted through the school district have in the past due to staffing shortages.

鈥淲hen kids are pulling As and Bs, school staff generally aren’t referring them to assessments, whether for 504s or IEPs,鈥� Nunberg said. 鈥淪o it really has to come from the family 鈥� and that’s where you need to have the ability to educate yourself, or hire someone to help you with it.鈥�

Help on the SAT

Still, the mere fact that financially comfortable families are well positioned to hire that help doesn鈥檛 reveal anything about their motives. 

Ben Lovett, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University鈥檚 Teachers College, said he thought the 鈥渧aluable鈥� study鈥檚 finding that poorer students are likelier to be assigned IEPs was plausible because poverty and disability . On the other hand, he wrote in an email, the overrepresentation of 504s at the high end of the income scale was 鈥渉arder to understand.鈥�

Some combination of three factors had to explain what was going on, Lovett continued: Either moneyed parents are pushing schools to issue 504 plans that are not educationally necessary; their children are particularly susceptible to conditions, such as mood or anxiety disorders, that aren鈥檛 usually addressed through special education; or the families of the neediest learners are more challenged than others in navigating the system. 

鈥淥nly additional research that audits 504 plans and investigates the evidence of disability for each student can really determine the degree to which these three factors explain the disparities,鈥� he wrote.

One suggestive detail is that the socioeconomic divide estimated in Ainsworth鈥檚 paper actually grew slightly as students entered middle and high school, when academic demands escalate. The lure of extra time on college exams could be a powerful inducement to grab any available edge.

A , published in March by Princeton doctoral candidate Tiffany Liu, discovered a measurable uptick in 504 plan enrollments in 2017 after the College Board began a policy of automatically honoring test takers鈥� school-based accommodations when they took the SAT. The increase was sharpest in wealthier schools.

Nunberg agreed that the elevated academic stakes of high school likely motivated some parents to have their sons and daughters evaluated for disabilities 鈥� especially after seeing them underperform on, or become anxious about, tests like the PSAT. But while conceding that some parents in New York always search for unwarranted advantages, she argued that it was more common to encounter intelligent kids juggling real problems of focus and executive function.

鈥淲hat I see much more often are kids who are brilliant and have a lot of pressure put on them by their parents, or themselves, or the system at large, and who are literally staying up all night to achieve high grades,鈥� she lamented.

The University of Albany鈥檚 Morgan said he believed there was substantial unmet need for disability services in K鈥�12 schools. What鈥檚 more, he concluded, it was 鈥渘ot unreasonable鈥� to think that people would use the methods at their disposal to push their offspring to the top of the pile.

鈥淚 imagine there is abuse or manipulation of the system, including by parents who view it as a way for their child to get additional support. Especially for some selective colleges, things have gotten so extremely cutthroat that you’d want to give your kid any benefit you could.鈥�

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 社区黑料鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.