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Put a few of those into any system and the average cost increases to levels that leave people scratching their heads with "Wait...how can possibly cost $10k per student in a classroom?" In the case of your wife's school, and any school really, it doesn't cost more than about 5k per student - but some students cost way, way more than 5k

Up until two weeks ago I was the chair of the Teaching assistance team. Earlier this year I had to send a child for a full evaluation because "Mommy dearest" kept claiming that he was ADD and Learning disabled at the same time. The child is actually L.A.Z.Y.

This required a full psychological, physiological, and Social evaluation. Interviews with the parents, siblings, and everyone else residing in the house.

Total cost $5000.00 to find out that the student is perfectly normal and is just unmotivated.

Well, your post points up the biggest problem with govt education, and the reason I oppose public education at its foundation. I know there are good teachers like you, and parents who have been priced out of good private education in the same way people of lesser means are priced out of good, low-cost health care, and affordable food.

With the govt involved in education, our children's schools become labs for radical social engineering. Every bad idea gets forced FIRST on our children by the courts through the schools. ANd then govt bureaucrats get to try to solve problems on a macro scale that can only realistically/fairly be handled at the personal, micro level.

I hate govt education, not because I don't respect good teachers like you, but because it is a bad idea at its most basic level.

I don't know this for sure but is it not also true that if and when a child is diagnosed with a disability, that child becomes eligible for monthly checks from Uncle Sugar---either SSI or SS Disability?

One thing that happens to public schools is that they are substantially more regulated than private schools and that those regulations cause substantial costs from school budgets without being truly educational costs?

Likewise, human nature (fallen human nature) leads people to blame everyone but themselves for what goes wrong with their own kids. While teachers in any kind of school have substantial responsibility for the academic success of the children they teach, the parents have the first teaching responsibility.

It is easier (all too easy) for the parent to just blame the teacher, blame failure of the student on some disability like ADD, etc., rather than turn off the TV, put down that beer, get off the telephone and participate actively in seeing to it that the homework gets done and that the student actually understands the work. The parent is the first tutor of the child. If necessary, the parent should hire a tutor in specific subjects.