Should special ed and 504 families pay more?

[Hyperion]

Outside of some districts paying an enormous sum of cash to continue athletic traditions, one of the main budgetary issues for public education is specialized instruction: 504, IEPs, IDEA, special ed, etc. With the introduction and push for inclusion classes, even more time and resources are being spent on trying to catch up the slowest or most disruptive children at the expense of the regular or brightest kids. Special education is causing an alarming budget crisis in education, escalating out of control at an incomparable rate. http://csef.air.org/publications/relate ... RRISH.HTML

Since the 1970s, public money allocated to general education increased to 70% while special education received a 120% increase. Enrollment is also up since the implementation of federal and state legislation that recognizes depression, ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, etc. as disabilities.

Firstly, I want to say that inclusion classes are almost always a failure. I'm fine with including students who are 1 or even 2 grade levels behind, but beyond that you basically are lowering the class to the lowest denominator. That is unfair to the other children.

I also get wayyy too many accommodations to do anything about the majority of them. I really only look at allergies and then move on. I'll pay attention to the special ed kids because I was never trained in how to deal with kids with down's syndrome and autism, but that's about it. Teachers feel extremely overworked nowadays because of the paperwork and needless CYA steps involved in special education. In my regular classes about half of the students have IEPS, special ed paperwork, or something similar. You really think I can keep track of all of this? Or that I can invent 20 different types of assignments?

This sounds terrible, but it's just observation: special ed is out of control. I agree it was abysmal 30 years ago, and as a nation we outperform every other educational system in this regard (the Japanese are starting to model their special ed programs around ours, for example), but it's simply too expensive. For small issues like ADD, ADHD, and minor educational disabilities, the issue should be between the special ed program and the parents/student 99% of the time. General ed teachers aren't trained and already just ignore it. Get rid of the stupid paperwork. Grade adjustments that are already outside of teacher control already exist. Why not make the issue much simpler, have these students perform to the teacher's expectations, and then address it afterwards with an hour of discussion/proof than going through motions for an hour a week?

Also, abolish inclusion classes unless the kid is 1-2 levels behind at most. I'm fortunate to have avoided this mess. I've only had pre-AP and regular (1-2 special needs). EVERY SINGLE TEACHER - including those who have worked as professional engineers or opened up their own successful restaurants - have told me that inclusion classes are the worst hell on earth. Even worse than credit recovery. One of my mentors worked 70 hours a week as a CEO of a local business firm. He said it was easier doing that than planning for an inclusion class. You have the government breathing down your back all of the time. You have to dumb it down without calling it anything negative, and then somehow get the students to pass the standardized tests. Perhaps allow inclusion in elective classes where the workload is less.

And this doesn't sound popular at all, but the families need to pay more money. The taxpayer is subsidizing these children at much greater expense with less rewards. In general education classes, you have 1 teacher for every 25-30 students - even in preAP and some AP classes. For special ed, you have about 1 teacher or aide per 3 students. That's expensive as hell. The standards are being lowered for your child, and he/she is receiving more assistance. The very least these families can do is put more money down. If the family can't afford it, then run fundraisers like the rest of us. Special ed is guaranteed money above all else.

[exploited]

No, special ed families should not pay more.

You can either pay now or pay later. The benefit of having special ed kids even mildly socialized and educated drastically outweighs the cost of taking care of them later.

[cool_chick]

Can those in special ed opt to go to regular classes? If not, then no, they should not pay more.

[Hyperion]

[exploited]

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[exploited]

I think you should be paid more, and I think funding for education overall should be drastically higher.

What else do you want me to say.