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Eric Oxford, Ed.D. writes and speaks about the special education workforce: how staff workload is measured, why providers leave, and what that means for districts and students. He can talk on the record, help you find the federal data for your state, and suggest other people worth calling.
About Eric
Eric Oxford, Ed.D., spent ten years as a special education director in Massachusetts districts north of Boston, most recently as Director of Student Services for Ipswich Public Schools. He is co-founder of The Inclusive Practice and PULSE, author of the white paper The Measurement Gap, and runs the Special Education Observatory, a free public site of federal special education data for every state.
His 2020 doctoral research found that administrators strongly supported inclusion and could not consistently deliver it, and it pointed to staff capacity as the reason. Today he works with districts, regional agencies and collaboratives on measuring staff workload and building staffing plans that last, and he coaches new and experienced special education leaders.
Short bio for an introduction: Eric Oxford, Ed.D., is a former special education director and the author of The Measurement Gap, a white paper on how schools measure the work of the people who serve students with disabilities.
Topics Eric can speak to
Staffing shortages
Why special education roles go unfilled, what a vacancy costs, and where the work goes while a position stays empty.
Caseload and workload
Why counting students undercounts the job, and how districts can measure the hours providers actually work.
State and district data
What federal IDEA data shows for your state and how it compares with the nation.
Budgets and school boards
How special education costs show up in a budget, and how leaders build a staffing case a board can follow.
New requirements
New state and federal duties, such as added Section 504 requirements, and who in a district ends up doing the work.
Keeping good people
Burnout and retention among special educators, related service providers and paraprofessionals, and what leaders can do this year.
Story ideas with data
The same law in very different states
Across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the share of school-age students with IEPs ranges from 11.1 percent in Hawaii to 21.5 percent in New York (IDEA Section 618 child count and NCES Common Core of Data, 2024-25). Eric can pull your state's figures, set them beside the national ones and talk through what may drive the difference.
The work that never makes the schedule
Provider schedules show sessions with students. Meetings, evaluations, IEP writing and family calls often happen at lunch and after hours. Eric can explain how districts measure that time and how it connects to turnover.
What turnover costs a district
When a teacher leaves a district unexpectedly, replacing them costs an estimated $12,000 to $25,000 depending on the size of the district. When a district can't staff a program and a student is placed out of district, tuition can run well over $100,000 a year (The Measurement Gap in Six Minutes, 2026).
Sources and downloads
Every figure Eric uses names its source. These are free and open, with no sign-up.
Special Education Observatory
Federal special education data for every state, with sources.
Explore the ObservatoryThe six-minute lesson
A short captioned overview of the four stages districts move through in measuring staff workload.
Watch the lessonMedia requests
Tell us what you're working on and when you need it. Eric can talk by phone, video or email, and he'll say plainly if a question is outside what he knows.