It's said without (much) judgement. In the abstract, it seems exactly right to spend on it.

But the reality is it a) very expensive and b) very disruptive. As some siblings mention, you will often have a class with 3-4 adults, only one of which is a teacher. And then several students who (through no fault of their own) can barely hold it together. For the 90% of kids in class, this is not helpful. And distributing it amongst many classes vs a more centralized special ed delivery system compounds the cost.

We have aggressively used the school system as a distribution point of social services. Again, this seems logical. But this takes focus away from what the main intent is for the school system.

There are pros and cons to this approach. I don't exactly know the answer, but instead of blaming administrators or teachers, we should be looking at what else we are asking schools to do besides educate. I know personally that the principals and superintendents spent less than 20% of their time thinking about how to make education better for the 90%.

I do think that the special ed model is completely broken. I think public schools overspend on special ed, and a lot of that funding is about getting special ed kids into the same classrooms as other kids and reducing the disruptions that they cause.

Instead, all students would be better served (and served more efficiently) if schools would admit that people learn at different rates, and segregated the children based on that. The disruptive special ed kids, who are often years behind, should have very small classes with other kids of the same level and lots of attention from teachers. Conversely, the kids who are good at math or reading should be put in accelerated classes.

Unfortunately, this kind of separation makes parents unhappy: they want their kids to all be in the "super special" classes despite the fact that on average, their kids are average. Parents are the ones who vote for school board, so school boards are unlikely to do anything that makes parents unhappy.

I think you are assuming special ed kids are academically slower and I have to push back on that. Special Ed encompasses students of all types. Some are mentally handicap, some have physical disabilities. One of my friends was wheelchair bound and had to leave class 5 minutes before the bell in order not to get stuck in the hallway. Others have respiratory issues that require classrooms with special equipment, special buses, etc. And then you have the deaf and blind students, hardly slower than anyone else, but they still require additional help that has nothing to do with being disruptive. Most of them weren't disruptive, just students trying to get a solid education like everyone else, and as guaranteed by the Supreme Court.

My understanding is that special ed money is distributed according to a power law: most kids classified as "special ed" actually need very little help (and very little money), and don't disrupt things for other students. I had a friend in my middle school Latin classes who was blind, and while he needed special written materials and some private tutoring, he didn't need any other help. The same is true of people with dyslexia, people who are wheelchair-bound, etc. They need some accommodations, but they are not where most of the money is spent.

Conversely, the kids who do need tons of resources are usually kids with severe mental or developmental disabilities. These kids usually have a 1:1 aide telling them what to do and trying to help them either understand the lesson or work through a totally different lesson (which also must be a humiliating experience - I would never want that for my child). I have seen both of these cases in public schools. These kids would certainly be better served by having a teacher who can pay attention to their needs instead of a teacher who can't and an aide who tries to keep up.

I think your response reveals how accustomed you have become to the luxury of having plentiful resources. You ask how it is good for anyone to not spend substantially more on students with special needs, but in many of the poorer countries of the world this attitude would be baffling. In many cases these students will never be able to contribute enough to society to recover what was invested in them. Hard choices have to be made that cause sadness, but unfortunately that's the way it is. If your country becomes less anomalously wealthy in the future, you may also have to make such decisions.

The article was about the US. My response is about the US. I believe in a more just American society that takes care of the most vulnerable, not just those that contribute the most.

Speculation: Maybe they aren't funded from a distinct resource pool and are instead assumed to be a percentage of the whole that is too small to care about. However over the years the number or cost of providing service has gone up to the point where the current expectations are an undue burden on the rest of the group. If that is the case then the funding should be split off at the source into it's own portion and receive clearer representation in funding deciding bodies.