Special Education/Programs for the "Mentally Challenged", Useful or useless? Options

[MissHygienic]

There has been an ongoing debate about whether or not to levy taxes to properly fund public schools. I already know of a few under-funded school districts who forced teachers to work double shifts, and many schools were not able to provide paper, pens, or pencils because no one paid enough taxes.

With that said, what is your opinion on special education that is funded by the state? Public schools are already having a hard enough time. Should people waste more time and money on people with irreconcilable disabilities, or do you believe that all people should have education, whether or not they make use of it?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

[kryogenix]

Our highschool was like some kind of magnet school for down's syndrome kids. Retarded kids from all over the county and even from 2 or 3 hours away would come to our school for special education. We'd all try our best to be sensitive and nice to them, but they were generally a nuisance and mostly everyone would at least joke around about them behind their backs.

Every morning I'd have to walk down the long hallway to gym. And it'd be full of garbage. Papers and plastic bottles. All kinds of shit strewn around the hallway. For the entire year, I'd be pissed because I'd have to wade through a pile of trash to get through the hallway. And the worst part was the janitors would always just be sitting around.

Then I found out the reason why there was garbage was they were training the retarded kids to be janitors. I didn't believe it at first, but then it was confirmed when the teacher took the recycling bin and just started emptying it into the hallway. And then the retarded kids were called.

Made me go WTF.