Special Education’s Value: Dignity, Not Dollars and Cents

When evaluating a major purchase, you may ask, what is the payoff? What is the return on investment? These are valid questions when considering a new car or a stock purchase. Those same types of questions are now being posed about special education at school board meetings in Orange County and elsewhere: Will little Mary, who has autism, ever contribute enough to justify the amount of money it takes to give her a meaningful education?

Unfortunately, some involved in this debate bring a very narrow and elitist perspective of “return on investment” to the discussion. In the process, “normal” children and gifted children are being pitted against those with disabilities, as if there were the choice to be made. It would be wise to put the arguments into perspective.

As tempting as it may be to reduce special education to a financial-return-on-investment issue, it cannot be done. Instead, this is an issue that turns on equality, human dignity and an appreciation of the human spirit. Our discussions about special education test our commitment to principles that are at the heart of our national identity: seeing value in each person and potential in every life.

The United States is fundamentally different from many other nations in its founding principles--honoring the sanctity of the individual--and in its tradition of public education, free and available to all. These ideals are rooted in a view of mankind that acknowledges human potential to be an awesome and often unknowable quantity. We betray these values and we discredit our humanity when we allow a strictly economic analysis of “return on investment” in education to prevail.

Furthermore, such a trade-off is legislatively and judicially prohibited. Every American child is entitled to a seat in the classroom, notwithstanding how that child, as a grown-up, ultimately uses that education. We educate all children, without regard to predictions about which ones will make great scientific discoveries and which ones will contribute more modestly to society.

Our community, and indeed all of human history, is peopled with women and men who were categorized early on as having little potential--and later shattered conventional wisdom. Helen Keller was considered a lost cause when she was a child. My personal experience of more than 30 years serving people with developmental disabilities bears witness to the folly of prejudging outcomes. To this day, I continue to be humbled as children and adults I work with exceed even my expectations of their capacities.

It is, indeed, “worth it” to provide each child with substantive educational opportunities. Everyone does deserve a chance. Moreover, federal law supports what our conscience tells us: Children with special needs, like other children, are entitled to a free and appropriate education. This is a crucial distinction between our system and totalitarian regimes that judge children on their “suitability” for academics, sports, professions or labor--doling out educational opportunities based on some bureaucrat’s estimation of their abilities.

Such systems have collapsed, and the principles upon which they were based have fallen into disrepute elsewhere in the world. How ironic that a frighteningly similar brand of return on investment in human beings appears to be gaining momentum among some in our own community.

Yes, we need a rational debate about funding mechanisms, and there should be a fair division of financial responsibility among various levels of government. We should, for example, demand that the federal government make good on its 30-year-old promise to pay a full 40% of special education costs. However, it would be disgraceful to use a lack of federal dollars as a pretext for gutting special education.

Agreed, we must be creative in devising cost-effective methods of delivering education services, preserving flexibility to meet a wide variety of children’s needs.

Granted, we are right to insist on accountability to ensure that the methods employed are actually making good on our societal commitment.

But let us not confuse these implementation issues with the core principle that is at stake. And let us not hold children--disabled, “normal” or gifted--hostage to reimbursement issues. These children are watching and listening as we attempt to resolve this conflict. Let us be role models, not of soulless determinism but of human dignity and equality.

I urge policymakers to renew their commitment to all of Orange County’s children. Only with that consensus can there be honorable debate about education. And if we truly value education as much as the polls say we do, we will make the right choices and no child will be shortchanged.