The 1997-1998 school year will be a crucial time for diligent pro-active efforts on the part of leading Special Education professionals. The Canadian tax-paying public wants to ensure that dollars are spent carefully, and also spent wisely. Understanding the various costs, both social and economic, associated with the delivery of Special Education programs can be very complicated. If educators do not take the lead in explaining the merits of these programs in concrete terms, there are others who will be only too happy to demonstrate the problems in the system.
Recent events in the United States have brought these issues to the fore, and Special Education has, perhaps for the first time, become a mainstream media topic. Educators who have often toiled in relative obscurity now find themselves in the public eye. The response on the part of the education community has ranged widely, and the "facts" of Special Education have proved elusive. Critics from outside the realm of education have been getting involved in the debate, and have put Special Education programs and proponents on the defensive.
In particular, an article appearing in the February 10th edition of Forbes Magazine, entitled "The Special Education Scandal", provided numerous examples of costly and dubious educational practices, and evoked strong reactions on all sides (Gubernick and Conlin, 66-70). This excerpt illustrates the tone of the article:
Today so-called special education is costing taxpayers about $60 billion a year - the split is roughly $3 billion from the federal government, $57 billion from states and local districts. Of every dollar spent on education in the U.S., 20 cents goes to these programs. Per pupil, about twice as much is spent on the 5 million special education students than on the 52 million regular students.These students impose an additional burden: Once a child is labeled as needing special education, regardless of whether for visual disabilities or "behavioral disorders", he can't be expelled by the public school system, no matter how disruptive his behavior.
