Special Education Seems to Be Overwhelmed - Discussion

Right now, our schools are overloaded and the classrooms are filling up. Teachers have been laid off and serious budget cuts have been made which will indeed adversely affect this generation of children in their education. That's not very funny, but it is the reality and anyone that works for school district that still has a job that is, realizes this.

Even tougher is special education, and there seems to be a great rift and divide on how money should be spent between special education, and regular classroom education. After all special education often requires one-on-one teacher or teacher's aide assistance. Another problem is the ever-increasing number of children who have been diagnosed with developmental disabilities. The numbers have grown so strong that it is very much impacting school budgets.

There was an interesting article recently in U.S. Health News Online found in the Health Day Section titled "U.S. Study Finds 1 in 6 Kids Now Have a Developmental Disability, Perhaps Due to Better Diagnosis" by Jenifer Goodwin Health Day Reporter - published on May 23, 2011. The article stated that the disorders included such things as: "autism, learning disorders or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

The article also made mention of the apparent drastic increases "1997-1999, about 12.8 percent of kids were diagnosed with a developmental disability, up to 15 percent in 2006-2008 - or an additional 1.8 million U.S. children. Driven by rising rates of autism and ADHD, experts say."

Okay so, I have some comments to add here today. Are all these kids really having developmental disabilities? And what about when we went to school, there were a number of kids that had behavioral issues, and they perhaps were not properly diagnosed, but due to the Discipline factor they were brought into compliance, and the teaching went on, and most all those kids did graduate, and they did so in regular classrooms.

If we are going to be honest with ourselves, and provide an appropriate education for every child, then we need to come to terms with what normality is. What is the definition of a normal child? With so many developmental documented challenges and so many psychologists who are making diagnoses, how can we be sure if any of this is correct. The schools of yesteryear seem to do okay, and one has to ask if there really is a difference, if the problem really is growing.