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.

[bat19]

This is going to make me sound like an a-hole, but in my personal world I would make it so the mentally retarded (below a certain level which we would have to establish) would be mercifully killed at birth in order to save them from a horrible existence as well as saving the parents from a life of misery. These may sound like strong words but no person wants a retarded child. Retardation from birth should be seen as a still-birth because the child shouldn't have to live anyways. I've known many retarded children, many of whom didn't live long anyways, and not once did I see the sparkle of humanity that movies and lifetime dramas have made us believe exists. All I've seen is a frustrated individual without the necessary means to understand that frustration and a parent whose soul has been torn because all their energy has been put into a person who they can never truly understand or relate to.
Aside from the psychological problems, there are many retarded people with physical deformities which they cannot adjust to and which create a fear in normal people (lets stop beating around the bush, retarded people with deformities and birth defects are scary). Im sure that 1 out of the 3 people who've actually read this will become selfrighteous and most likely bring up some sob story about their retarded brother and how he has accomplished so much, yet that brother probably wouldnt be able to recite the same tale of heroism. I dont know, it sucks but we shouldnt have to put these people through the pain and torment of a life they can never really live.