This paper investigates changes in special needs funding eligibility and resource allocation methods in Australia’s largest state, New South Wales, over a 20 year period. Policy changes are mapped against student enrolment trends, which are then discussed with senior public servants working within the NSW Department of Education and Communities. Participant narratives indicate deep structural barriers to inclusion that cannot be addressed through the prism of general/special education. Despite the need for collaboration and rhetoric about ‘every student’ and ‘every school’, disability programs are left to operate in relative isolation, largely divorced from major changes taking place in curriculum, assessment and workforce directorates. As a result, students who experience difficulty in schools and with learning remain peripheral to the main game; even though their number is said to be increasing. External drivers that are designed to lift academic achievement in response to economic shifts have intensified the pressure on systems to perform, concentrating focus on the students who can most help them do it. Those who cannot contribute to the achievement of high academic performance appear to have been forgotten, aside from questions over costs and whose responsibility it is to educate students with disability.