Now, I am all for special education for children with disabilities. I attended school at a time when such children were either put into special schools or thrown in with the general student population to sink or swim on their own. It was a terrible inequity. It finally was addressed in the 1970s with a law designed to correct such discrimination by giving these children the civil right to an equal opportunity to learn. The law covered children from birth to age 22, guaranteeing them the right to a free and appropriate public education. It is the ambiguous word appropriate written into the law that is creating a crisis for the California schools, according to Nanette Asimov, staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle.
The article cited a situation of one California schools child with a disability. The assigned public middle school offered special college prep classes, daily help from a special education expert, a laptop computer, extra time for tests, the opportunity to temporarily leave class if the childs had an anxiety attack, and a special advocate to smooth over any problems with teachers.
The parents hired a special consultant instead, who found...