ent in our classroom mainstreamed over from the special education department. This student exhibited all the signs of ADHD, including constant fidgeting, inability to concentrate on the main lecture of the class for too long, and made constant interruptions throughout the class, making it nearly impossible for the educator to teach and distracting the students. Studies based on government data show that about 43 percent of learning-disabled children leave school without diplomas and that an enormous number of them end up in jail soon afterward. Fewer than 2 percent of them go on to four-year colleges, as compared with about 28 percent of visually impaired students and 15 percent of deaf ones (http://www.ed.gov/). The myth of mildness has led to many questionable assumptions, among them the idea that learning-disabled children can be successfully educated in regular classes as long as they are allowed occasional trips to a specialist. But a child who leaves class several times a week for special reading instruction will miss math, science or whatever else is offered while he is away. Depending on the number of absences, the missing lessons could loom large in the child's education. Add in travel time and the ordinary shock of dislocation, and the school day evaporates. In addition, school administrators watching their budgets are notoriously stingy with expensive special services, no matter how emphatically teachers or clinicians recommend them. As those services become optional, they will be withheld.Jay Diskey, spokesman for the House Committee on Education and the Work Force, says providing special-education students with nursing care will cost schools about $15,000 a year for each disabled student. This is contrastive to the average public school expenditure per pupil of (1995-1996 unadjusted dollars): $6,459 (http://edreform.com/pubs/edstats.htm#EXPENDITURES). One of the strongest arguments against mainstreaming special childre...
