But this precludes grouping children by disability or teaching needs, which would likely be far more effective and inexpensive, though it would stigmatize disabled students by separating them from their peers.

We have never allowed him to use his diagnosis as an excuse or a crutch. We’ve never talked down to him. He had to go in on Saturday for 3 stitches in his upper lip because he stepped on a friend’s old dog and she was hurt and reacted by nipping (he was bent over at the time he stepped on her). I told him what was happening using all the “adult” words. That his lip stopped bleeding because the blood coagulated, or clotted, that the intern was in to debride the wound with sterile water. That the water wouldn’t hurt because it was just water. That his lip was bleeding again because the debriding washed away the clot. The kid’s nearly eleven, but has the vocabulary of a kid in high school (the vocabulary a kid in high school is supposed to have).

I also have a daughter with special needs. She has a developmental delay, moderate hearing impairment, epilepsy, and a few years ago she was also diagnosed with lupus. She doesn’t speak well. She loves to color and watch Barney and the Transformers movies (she loves Sam and Bumblebee). She can’t be mainstreamed and I’ve never thought she should be. I did take advantage of the small amount of Speech, Occupational, and Physical therapy the school district provided because the insurance wouldn’t cover her because she wouldn’t “improve” because of the therapies. Not like a person with a sprained ankle could “improve” after therapy. They didn’t want an open-end on her therapies.

I do believe that there are many who use their diagnoses as a crutch. As a way to not do too much to help their child at home. That’s sad.

* It feeds the “disability” industry, which is becoming vast and sprawling and includes doctors, counselors, treaters of one kind or another, “special” educators, pill makers, the list goes on.

* The parents and kids are happy to have a fancy-sounding explanation for problems.

* Administrators and teachers are relieved of having to actually get results out of the kid.

* There’s never any questioning whether someone actually HAS these disabilities, or whether they count as legitimate TO BEGIN WITH. The dubious ones include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, “bipolar”, depression and anxiety, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, etc. Anyone can be diagnosed with any of these as easily as getting a credit card.

It’s a big lot of nonsense, but I don’t see it going anywhere but up.

Let’s consider that there are two classes of kids with disabilities:

(1) Those whose disabilities are either minor or just nonsense. For example, most ADHD kids are perfectly normal boys who do not need drugged; they need active recess time, plus parental patience and discipline. However, the current climate makes it acceptable to deal with a difficult child by getting a medical diagnosis. “Mainstreaming” is irrelevant, because these kids are all part of the spectrum of normal kids.

(2) Kids with real and significant disabilities, physical or mental. These are the kids who will never be able perform at a normal level. Re “mainstreaming”: these kids have no place in a normal classroom, because their necessary accommodations severely distract from the education of the rest of the kids; the needs of the majority must take precedence.

We can address all of these problems together, very simply: stop mainstreaming. Place all kids diagnosed with any sort of disability into a slower-paced, special-ed class. The truly disabled kids get the accommodation they need. Normal kids get educated without this distraction. Instead of an incentive to have your kid diagnosed with a disability, suddenly parents have an incentive to have their kid classified as normal.

This not only solves essentially all of the problems discussed; in addition, it would mark a very welcome shift in the general mentality of parents. Each child is a special snowflake to its parents, but en masse they are just a bunch of normal kids.

Were resources unlimited, there would be no need to make choices. Limited resources mean choices, sometimes hard choices. Being generous is a fine thing, but only so long as it can be afforded.