I'll take a break from screening film clips to link to a really awful case described on Kristina Chew's blog and on the Darn Tootin guy's blog.

Which reminds me of something I've been mulling over. I've always been a kind of straddle-the-fence, try-to-see-everyone's-POV person, which has its good and bad sides. I end up feeling kind of mealy-mouthed at times, or like a primo equivocator. Anyway, I had a conversation with someone I disagreed with about special education. This is not the parent of a special needs student; in general, her focus is on differentiation, and why isn't more being done for the smart kids? And having two smart kids, one of whose needs isn't being met, I get some of that focus too. Essentially, the conversation came down to her feeling that if you criticize spec ed at all, you end up coming across as heartless, racist, etc. And as usual I get that, too, b/c I'm always trying to look at both sides.

But here's the thing: there's some kind of moral mandate, yes? To expend more for those with disabilities, and my reasoning has always been 1) you pay more now and you have a more productive citizenry later, so it is shortsighted NOT to frontload services; 2) like women and minorities, disabled people were an oppressed group, denied opportunity, so they need certain protections your average person typically doesn't get. Neither of which really gets at the moral obligation--which is what? We have an extra obligation to protect those most vulnerable? That those most vulnerable require added protection and training, and since we have this obligation we therefore have to spend more? Something like that.

This may sound puerile, but I like to understand why I'm justified in feeling that yes, there is an increased obligation, esp. b/c in my town, people of manifest kindness and goodwill are really looking hard at budgets and asking hard questions. And I dislike presenting children with disabilities as the honorees at the pity party. Of course we should give the kid money! Look how pathetic!

And while I'll fight to the death if I think my kid needs a particular service, there's always a side of me that worries about what it's costing and who's going without (what creative ways will the district find to avoid spendy items like home hours of ABA? Or individualized parent training?).

At which point I usually stop this line of thought and "go global" and start thinking about federal unfunded mandates, the filthy insurance industry, etc., random mandates that get added on (like NYS requiring high schools to provide calculators to everyone). But really, given the way things are right now, I do think there's increasing pressure to justify--and a special education attorney of my acquaintance, one of the good guys, notes that districts are increasingly unwilling to settle with parents, that the climate has changed b/c parents now have burden of proof in impartial hearings.

Too rambly, prolly.