Who Exits Special Education Back to General Education? Exploring Predictors of Declassification

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs collects information from all states on the education of students with disabilities, including the number of students that exit special education and transfer back to general education. Yet, little is known about students that are declassified. In this study, we used data from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center (NCERDC) to explore predictors of exiting special education back to general education based on data from 388,017 students with disabilities across 11 consecutive school years. Using linear probability models, we found that students with emotional disturbance (ED) were more likely than those without ED to be declassified. Follow-up moderator analyses also found that Black students with ED were more likely to be declassified. Implications and future research directions are discussed.