Do public schools try to classify children "Special Ed" and make it hard to mainstream them, in order to maintain funding?

My daughter just turned 3 and i feel she does not speak as well as she should. I am getting her an audio eval, privately paying through my health insurance, just to rule out hearing loss. I know if i get her speech eval they will want to do that anyway. I have contacted the Committee on Preschool Special Education in my district in order to start the process of getting her a speech eval and speech therapy if she does in fact need it.

I got her a speech eval one year ago, when she was 2. The results were that she is at or above her age level in everything, and she was very smart. The evaluator gave me some tips to get her to talk more. I used the tips and she did make big improvements. She still does not speak as well as others her age, which may or may not be due to us “giving” her the words and not making her say full sentences. I am also aware that children all develope at different rates, and in all ways she is a very intelligent, observant girl.

Regardless, someone at work told me the school districts like to classify children “Special Ed” in order to get more funding from the federal government and in order to hire more Special Ed teachers. She told me once they classify children “Special Ed” it’s hard to unclassify them.

I am having a vision of my child being labelled “Special Ed” and ending up in remedial classes, and being pushed into a classification just to benefit the school. If she needs it, then of course she should have it, she should have whatever she needs, and there is no shame in it. However, I know the school districts do like to get funding through whatever means they can, especially now that budgets are tight.

Have you heard stories about school districts doing this? Do you know anything about this process and this issue?