That's a losing strategy, given that special education spending has grown from 4 percent to 21 percent of total school spending between 1970 and 2005. (educationnext.org)
The overall Medicaid budget not only increased faster, but at some point in the last few years surpassed total school spending for the first time in New York history. (empirecenter.org)
Indeed, one concern over the efficacy of court - induced reforms is that local districts may reduce their own contribution to the schools in response to increases in state aid, thereby undermining efforts to increase total school spending. (educationnext.org)