Parents don’t always get the opportunity to chose where their kids are placed. If there is a special ed class, or school, for their kids, that’s great. If not, they have to take what’s available. And, here in California, they aren’t allowed to simply keep their kids out of the school system, or try home-schooling them. The schools desperately want special needs kids. They get more money from the state for them. What they don’t want is to actually try and help them overcome their disabilities—an attitude strongly encouraged by our failing medical system (the doctor’s not here today, but we’ve got a WONDERFUL nurse practitioner to help you!), and the welfare state, which is intent not on really helping the disabled, but in helping them “adjust” to their condition, so they can continue to have a large clientele.
My brother, by the way, was treated quite cruelly by some of his teachers, and he was above-average in intelligence, not disabled, not a problem kid. I’ve seen teachers absolutely dote on mean, disruptive, bullying kids. So the problem isn’t with the kids, or special ed (though it does have problems). I think the problem is that our society, as a whole has been getting meaner, and more authoritarian since the 60′s (don’t give me any of that “Summer of Love” jive), and the adults are far less able to cope with anything outside of themselves.
Adults today are encouraged to focus mainly on themselves, the lines between childhood and adulthood are constantly being blurred; as in the Middle Ages, kids are often treated like miniature adults, while adults seem to want to be teenagers all their lives. These days, kids are considered more as nuisances, than the upcoming generation.
Don’t even get me started on the subject of the awful boot camps teenagers have been sent to—and where some of them died—to “cure” them of drug abuse, listening to rock music, disrepecting their elders, etc.
