Critics of New York City public school management now have a weapon: after a year of effort, the nation's largest school district has released 41 volumes of financial information.

In particular, some observers find the amounts spent on special education for learning disabled or otherwise handicapped students to be out of all proportion to other expenditures. The information should inform the debate about a system criticized for low achievement and high dropout levels.

• In the 1995-95 school year, the city's school budget totaled $8.84 billion -- covering 1,059,642 students.
• Average spending per pupil was $7,717.

• But average spending for full-time special education students -- one in every nine -- was $21,291, for a total of $2 billion or 23 percent of the entire budget.

• Average spending per pupil was $16 for librarians and library books and $2,965 for teachers' salaries and benefits.

Analysts say that expenditure levels vary widely from school to school. Also, school accounting methods often are antiquated and many districts feel little incentive to open up their books completely. An educational adviser to New York's mayor complained that, "Nobody could figure out where the money was going."