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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (230492)	8/31/2013 12:09:32 PM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 542946

Thanks. I was not aware of the extend to which educational spending is devoted to special needs. Special needs education should definitely be funded by the federal government. After all, the laws that impose these requirement were passed by federal legislators. This also explains why poor districts like DC have such huge spending per student: they probably have a much larger percentage of special needs students.

To: epicure who wrote (230492)	8/31/2013 12:24:55 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542946

Terrific point about the costs of special education programs, particularly when comparisons are made about the costs of public education now as compared to, say, the 60s. I agree with all your points save for the reluctant support of such. I think it's one of the better things we've done in public education since the 60s. As for the "baby sitting" point, our local special education programs include students that range from mildly but visibly compromised to seriously compromised. One might call working with the latter "baby sitting" but the teachers who do that work, very difficult work, can, quickly and easily, tell remarkable stories of improvements. I recognize it's very much in their interest to do so. But I've spent enough time with them to know they would be extremely unlikely to fudge. The big story in public education for, say the last fifty years or so, in my view is the funneling of money away from maintaining it, let alone improving it, to tax breaks for the very wealthy. Which is one of the main sources for the growing inequality.