End Special Education for Severely Disabled

In this country we have laws that are in place regarding education, all children of school age must attend school. This can be accomplished in different ways, but the most typical is the PUBLIC school system, since it is "free". As a PUBLIC school system, this means it is funded by TAXPAYER money. We all pay for public education, regardless of who is being educated, or to what extent. Schools are funded based on enrollment. A school with 10 kids doesn't have the same need as a school with 1000, right?! Schools also receive something called SPECIAL EDUCATION FUNDING from our federal government which is a % of enrollment of special education child count, which is also taxpayer money. By accepting these special education dollars, the schools are legally obligated to educate these special education students in accordance with the law. If a school district doesn't have an appropriate classroom for a special education child, but there is a another school the child could go to that specializes in that type of student, the school can send the child there, if the parents agree. Now, the public tax dollars that are for that child will go with that child to that school. Now, we are at the root of the problem.......$$$$$$!!!!!! The number of schools that will actually use this option are minimal, and they avoid it as best they can. This a very under utilized option....why....the $$$$$.

I understand your point....should schools divert money from regular education or highly capable education to pay for special education education, especially those students who have such a small capacity for learning? I agree, no they should not, but the reverse is also true, money for special education students shouldn't be diverted to pay for another school program because that "investment" will yield a higher return. Any type of self contained classroom or alternative learning environment equates to higher costs. Not all self contained classrooms with more staff and less students contain severely mentally and physically handicapped children. Most schools districts have or the contract with another school district that does, have classrooms for emotionally distrubed (or behavior program)students. These students may or may not be at grade level, but these are the students who are agressive and a danger/or disruption in the regular classroom. Should these students also be excluded from an education because statistically speaking, they probulary end up in jail at some point and they could be educated there? Then the monies could come out of that fund at that point, or just by pass that and send them to a school funded by the correction institute portion of funding by the department of education?

So, why should the public school system educate anything but the best and brightest. Because it is run by taxpayer money. The public school system has no right to decide who they will and will not educate. As a matter of fact as taxpayers, we need to expect more from our schools, especially when it comes to special education students. Of course there are students whom are unable to learn much, however, to the degree they can be independant is the degree to which we , as taxpayers, don't have to support them. If a severly mentally and physically handicapped child can at the least learn to feed themselves, so what if it takes 5+ years to learn it. Look at the math....that is at least 20 years of not having to pay someone to feed them!!!

The Public Education K-12 System costs can't be compared to a medicare day program for a cost anylasis. Teachers/aides are paid in accordance to a contract negotiated for them by their local union. Day program caregivers are typically private employees who work for a company contracted to provide services for the disabled and don't have retirement/medical/vacation pay.

To me, this article is heartbreaking. To think that someone could really believe that children with disabilities shouldn't get the special education classes and services they need is sick. As the older sister of an autistic child and an aspiring special education teacher, I have seen first hand the major leaps of independence that special education children can make. Before my little sister was put into special ed classes, she could not verbalize, she could not communicate in any way. In the short seven years she has been in classes she can now speak, play with people, and often she will even make eye contact. She initiates conversations with people and she's not so afraid of everything.

In my opinion, yes the public education system should bear the financial "burden" of putting children in special education classes. Here is my question for you: Do you have a special needs child? Where do you get off deciding that they don't need the help? You don't understand the challenges that special needs children face, and the help that they get from their classes.

My older sister is autistic, she was never put into special needs classes. You know what she does now? Nothing! She sits around and does nothing because she wasn't taught how to communicate with people. Just going out to dinner scares the shit out of her because she cannot talk to people. My little sister though... We can take her out. Sure, she's noisey but she'll tel lthe waiter what she wants and she enjoys it. My older sister went through all of her life in normal classes and she gained no independence from it and if you ask her now, three years after she's graduated: she remembers nothing she learned. My little sister though, she's more independent than she was when she was younger. She does math! She remembers the math that she learned two years ago and can still apply it to life.

I suggest you really do some research before deciding that special education classes should be eliminated. The fact that you say that asking the public education systems to take on this "burden" it sickens me. Teaching special needs children to be independent is not a burden. Special needs children... They are gifts from God and you will learn so much by just taking the time to sit down and help them. They teach you more than you could ever learn by just living in the everyday world.

You are wrong when you say special education programs are specialized daycares. My little sister was kicked out of multiple day cares because they could not handle her autism . She would have absolutely no independence if our school district didn't have special education programs. The advances my sister has made in her education are amazing, and the advances her classmates have made are also amazing. Another thing, if there were no special education programs these children would never have social interaction. Parents like mine cannot afford to send their child to daycare everyday. Do you know how much it causes to send an autistic child to daycare? Here it costs about the same as sending a newborn to daycare. That's around $650 a month. My mother doesn't have that kind of money. Would you want to spend 650 dollars for your child to go somewhere where they learn absolutely NOTHING rather than pay a few taxes for them to go to school and actually learn and gain independence.

You disgust me. When you spend everyday with an austistic child and you see the amazing advances they make then you can tell me that you think special education programs should be eliminated. Until then, you know nothing. Do as much research as you want but until you experience it first hand you will never understand how helpful special education programs are.

The schools can be commended on the fine job they usually do in finding ways to reach the disabled - no matter the proposed forecast for how the child will be able to function later in life. The problems have arisen since we, as a society, have insisted that the schools fulfill the role of a God - and make perfect what may never be perfect. That is what has caused expenses to drastically increase at a rate that is not sustainable. A society can be judged by how it handles the least of these among it. To do as you say is to condemn our society as one completely lacking, while also condemning those who we should be lifting up as inalienably valuable - to the best of our ability. We should not be simply giving them a disability check and leaving them at home. They still have something to teach us.

Let me tell you about a "student" in my district. She's 20 and has been in very expensive special education "classes" for 17 years now. The district has to pay for one more year, and then Medicaid takes over.

She can't sit up. She can't roll over. She can't hold her head up. She can't pick up a toy. She can't press a button. She can't hold her bottle. (She can suck the milk out of it if you hold it for her.)

She can't talk. (She sometimes makes very small sounds, like a newborn.) She doesn't focus her eyes on an object for more than five seconds. She responds to lights and noises, but she doesn't recognize faces or voices. She sometimes moves her arms a little, but never with any apparent purpose.

After multiple specialists and thousands of dollars spent on tests, the experts have concluded that no matter what the school does, she will never get any better.

And yet we send her to "school", with an "education" plan, at a cost of more than $30,000 a year, instead of to our city's adult daycare program, which would cost the taxpayer a little more than half that amount. Or even to a plain old daycare center, where she would be very much at home in the baby room, which is already set up with bottles and diapers. (She weighs about 60 pounds.)

This adult student needs love and care, but does not need to be in school. Right now, American schools are legally required to provide special education services even if the child is actually in the hospital, in a deep coma! (Unless the parents agree that it is inappropriate.) This needs to change. We need to be able to say that when it's truly hopeless (something affecting less than 1 child in 1,000), then the solution is daycare, paid for by the Department of Health and Human Services, not "school".

My concerns with this article are that WHO decides which children have potential and which ones will never benefit from education . If you are talking about ending education for kids with severe mr/cp that are tube fed, completely physically handicapped, etc- then you are talking about a very small percentage of children, who at least in my district, get very little in the way of services or education. The vast majority of special ed students fall somewhere in the middle and there are no clear boundries or indications that might tell us how they will do in the future. In fact, all research points to more intensive educational programs creating better outcomes for people with disabilities. And all outcomes are not the same- there are different levels of independent living- ranging from institution to complete independence but many many points on that continuum that are less expensive for the govt as a person is moved toward more independence. For example you can have 4 disabled young men, who bag groceries and take a bus, sharing a house with one part time live in caretaker. This is less expensive than 1:1 care. I want you to understand that there are not just TWO outcomes for people with disabilities.

You say "I think additional criteria must be added to include likelihood of independence. If a student is unlikely to achieve independence or if the likelihood is known to be zero, then I believe it is time to say enough and put these kids under SSI disability and stop the draw on limited education funds."
My question to you is WHO decides this? Because I don't know of anyone qualified to make this decision. You cannot take a 7 year old child and tell me what kind of potential they have. It would make no sense to have a govt'l agency (whether that be the schools or disability) make these decisions when they will clearly pick the option that saves them the most money in the here and now.

I am not offended by your idea. I just think it's illogical and does not work. You can't decide who is too disabled to benefit from public education. No one can. My son has severe autism and is nonverbal but he is very smart and can learn very rapidly if taught. But he won't learn if not taught. This is the case for a lot of children with autism- they are extremely smart and have a lot of potential. I'm personally ashamed of the times where I underestimated him. We tried for years to teach him to read, thought we were failing. As it turns out, once given technology to show us what he knows, he could read and type. This is not uncommon. There is no way you could have guessed at age 5 that my boy could do the things he now does. Have you not seen stories in the news like this? Google Jeremy Sicile-Kira or Carly Fleischmann. These are not my kids but they are very similar to many young adult people with autism. I wonder what if they had not been given a chance.

Though it is a sad reality, there is not enough money to provide everyone a fulfilling and specialized education . Once we accept that fact, I think the moral choice is to provide this ideal experience to as many people as possible. Anything short of that would be a disservice to the children you are harming by not achieving full efficiency of resources.

As a consequence, the author makes a good point that the marginal productivity of special education is different for different children. We should focus our resources on those with the highest marginal productivity, which probably excludes those children with the most severe disabilities.

It's easy to let your emotions cloud the issue, but remember that every time you let that happen, you may be achieving a less than efficient result, and thus inadvertently harming someone.

I really liked this article.

It's not eugenic. It doesn't advocate keeping mentally challenged kids from an education . It advocates 2 things:

1. That mentally challenged kids are put in a normal classroom instead of a special education classroom.

What's wrong with this? This is what many talented and gifted students have to do when budget cuts are made. Why are they less important than the mentally challenged students that get to stay in their specialized classrooms? Their education is a much better return on investment as well.

2. The burden of providing special education should not be on public schools.

This doesn't mean special ed kids will not get an education. It just means they will receive elsewhere where it is more financially efficient like by parents, a daycare, or a specialized facility.

Author, don't feel bad for writing this article. I understand you. Everyone else is overreacting and not thinking about what you actually said. They're just being angered by the surface of the article but not looking deeper to what it actually means.

As the father of an extreme disabled and chronically ill child I agree with the idea of the above article wholeheartedly but there are two problems here.
1. This quote; "Special education in this instance is very expensive and has very little return on investment of public dollars." One of the most atrocious choice of words ever written concerning disabled children. Return? How do you measure that? Because, if this isn't too touchy-feely for you, the monumental worth that comes from being in contact with and contributing to the care of a severely disabled child forms some of the very base values that a society worth living in is based upon.
2. The idea is that specialized forms of education do not belong as part of the public system. This is absolutely correct imo. But the consequence is that new funds will have to be made available to accomodate, even in approximation, the true needs of those severe and extremely disabled children. Those funds will have to come in part, of course, from the public school funding.
Either way, the real problems, of accepting and properly caring for severely disabled children, in home or in community living centers, remains unacknowledged by those in the media skimming superficially over devastating issues, like the writer of this piece.