Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In the United States, nearly 1 in 3 students ages 12–18 report being bullied during the school year and children with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be bullied than their peers without disabilities. Students with intellectual disabilities also face challenges with isolation, are less likely to participate in a regular education environment. These challenges may lead to negative social and academic outcomes. Special Olympics is a global inclusion movement using sport, health, education and leadership programs every day around the world (implemented in over 170 countries) to end discrimination against and empower people with intellectual disabilities. Special Olympics’ Unified Strategy for schools, which includes Unified Sports, inclusive clubs, and whole school engagement, addresses many of the challenges faced by students with disabilities in schools today. Schools that implement this strategy (Unified Champion Schools) create communities where students with disabilities feel welcome and are routinely included in all school activities, opportunities and functions. As of 2014, over 3,000 elementary, middle and high schools across 45 states are employing the Unified Strategy. In this study, we investigated the relationship between being a Unified Champion School and school level graduation rate using a difference-in-differences (DID) design and propensity score matching technique to select comparison schools. We found that the UCS model increased school level graduation rate by around 0.5 percentage points (significant at 0.05). UCS model also increased the likelihood of student with disabilities graduation rate passing 80% by 3 percentage points (significant at 0.05).