education student. The total spending on regular and special education services to students with disabilities amounted to $77.3 billion, or an average of $12,474 per student. An additional one-billion dollars was expended on students with disabilities for other special needs programs (e.g., Title I, English language learners, or gifted and talented students), bringing the per-student amount to $12,639. The total spending to educate students with disabilities, including regular education and special education, represents 21.4% of the $360.6 billion total spending on elementary and secondary education in the United States. The additional expenditure to educate the average student with a disability is estimated to be $5,918 per student. This is the difference between the total expenditure per student eligible for special education services ($12,474) and the total expenditure per regular education student ($6,556). Based on 1999-2000 school-year data, the total expenditure to educate the average student with disabilities is an estimated 1.90 times that expended to educate the typical regular education student with no special needs. State funding systems According to a CSEF Report on State Special Education Finance Systems, on the average, states provide about 45 percent and local districts about 46 percent of the support for special education programs, with the remaining 9 percent provided through federal IDEA funding. States use a variety of methods of allocating funds to school districts. Under a weighted special education funding system, (used by about 34% of the states), state special education aid is allocated on a per student basis. Under the weighted funding system, the amount of aid provided to local districts is based on the funding "weight" associated with each special education student, enabling districts serving students with greater needs to receive more money than districts whose students require fewer services. Under a flat grant system, (used in only one state) funding is based on a fixed funding amount per student. Other states provide a flat grant based on the count of all students in a district, rather than on the number of special education students. Advocates for this system argue that it takes away the incentive to over-identify students for special education. However, the range of special education eligible students in various districts is so broad, that the flat grant based system creates significant disparities in the local effort required. There are other funding systems in use. Under a resource-based system, funding is based on an allocation of specific education