Scrutiny for special ed: Its necessity can’t mean blank check (MA)

More than one in six Massachusetts students are in special education, one of the highest percentages in the country and a level on par with the numbers the state had at its peak before reforms were put in place in 2000.

But while there was a pitched battle about a decade ago when lawmakers moved to rein in costs and enact standards on special education that are more in line with those of the rest of country, nary a word is heard these days about examining the $2 billion special education price tag.

There is scant evidence the $2 billion is paying dividends. Students with disabilities, particularly in low-income and urban districts, are losing ground academically and the rising cost of the special education mandate is crowding out funding for regular education. Yet special ed has become both a third-rail subject for those who dare broach it and the elephant in the room no one wants to acknowledge.

David P. Driscoll, the state’s former education commissioner, thinks the current “deafening silence” about special education is as big an issue as the cost. He said all the debate a decade ago was “much ado about nothing.” All it did was stop people from talking about special education; it didn’t change a thing, he says.

At the time, Massachusetts law, unlike federal statute and the laws in 49 other states, guaranteed “maximum feasible benefits” to children with special needs. That higher standard was the focus of the fight during the fiscal 2001 budget debates, with legislative leaders ultimately adopting the federal “free appropriate public education” standard to try to curb what many claimed was excessive spending on special education.

IMHO schools should not be allowed to deem kids special ed, that should be done by someone who has more interest in the child than someone who wants the school to get more money. Special ed is very expensive and takes away money that should be better used for the other students.

I know a special ed teacher who tells me about how she feels more like a babysitter than a teacher. She has students in HS that are pretty much only capable of spnning on the floor and her time has to be equally alloted between her students. She has students that can and do learn but because so much of her time is given to the hopeless not much can get done.

Statistically, about 17% of the population has an IQ of 85 or lower. To at least the brigher among us, someone with an IQ of 85 is noticeably slow. Though it certainly is not fashionable to say so, a big portion of the “special education” population come from this lower IQ group. The fact that as much as half of the minority population falls into this group makes reasoned discussion of the problem essentially impossible.

Roughly the same percentage of our population has an IQ of 115 or higher. An IQ in the neighborhood of 115 or above is generally considered the minimum required to fully grasp, for example, college alegebra, or other subject matter which is highly analytic or dependent upon application of logic. An IQ of about 115 is also generally considered about the threshold for success in a business middle management position.

An IQ of 85 or lower is why McDonalds has pictures of burgers and fries on the various cash register keys. In this range, a high school diploma is more likely to be a certificate of attendance than any mastery of a curriculum.

When the American economy was dominated by jobs in agriculture and manufacturing, this did not matter nearly as much. But America’s competitive success in the information age and global economy totally depends on the contributions of those with higher IQ’s.

America’s education community persists in the delusion that given enough money, it can cure stupid. Perhaps this is because today the average IQ of students majoring in education is well below that seen for more intellectually demanding majors because there certainly is no supporting data. And perhaps the decline in the quality of American public education can be attributed to the fact that in 1950 teaching was one of the very few socially acceptable occupations for a college educated woman with an IQ of 135. Today the very bright woman is far more likely to be a doctor or lawyer than in the elementary classroom.

While it would indeed be nice to cure stupid and I do not wish to imply that dollars spent on special needs education are totally without favorable impact, the big bang for buck for the country comes from educating the smarter children better and the big competitive losses come from not doing so. Educating our brightest children exceptionally well is astoundingly important.

At the same time, America is much closer to a meritocracy than it was in 1950. And in this meritocracy it is the smart that are getting richer and the stupid that are getting poorer. John Edwards’ two Americas are today largely a widening economic distinction between smart and not so smart. The single most important undiscussed political question in America is what does it owe its stupid and how does it deliver that. But if Massachusetts thinks the welfare state will be funded by the stupid, they are sadly wrong.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.