Why some special ed programs are a waste of money

I recently ran across this article about special education programs in the United States. The article follows Donovan Forde, a 20-year-old man who suffered traumatic brain injury as a baby and is now mentally disabled. Donovan has spent the last fifteen years in public school, learning practical skills and basic academic subjects that would be easy for a first-grader.

At a time when his peers are enrolled in college or earning money at jobs, Donovan, a handsome 20-year-old with a sliver of a mustache, is still in public school, being taught the most basic of facts. His vocabulary for this science unit, which lasted about two weeks, was three words: seeds, fruit and juice.

I don't want to comment on special education programs generally, but in Donovan's case...what is the freaking point? How is Donovan ever going to appreciate knowing the word for "fruit"? How will that help him live a comfortable life? Moreover, his mother attests that, in the fifteen years Donovan has spent in school, he has made almost no progress (aside from acquiring better social skills). Actually, she would prefer that the school concentrate on Donovan's practical challenges (like his tendency to hit himself) or on his physical therapy lessons. But Rebecca Bravo, the principle of Donovan's school, says that severely disabled people like him need more.

Ms. Bravo does not want to go back to the days when students like Donovan were given only art and music instruction, along with a narrow focus on practical skills.

“For too long, that’s where we kept them, in art and music, and we didn’t give them some of the other things they needed,” she said.

There are very compelling reasons why we haven't tried to teach severely disabled people stuff like science and math. Because it's pointless. Even if you can get them to grasp a few basic ideas, like apples grow from seeds and 4 plus 4 makes 8, how are they going to use that information? They're never going to need to balance a checkbook or irrigate a field. Far from preserving human dignity (or whatever else this sort of education is supposed to accomplish), these educators are wasting their time and Donovan's. He could be spending his days listening to music (he likes to sing) and maybe learning how to feed himself. Those activities are not demeaning, they're appropriate for his abilities.

Finally, look how much programs like this cost.

In 2009, the cost per student was $58,877, more than triple the citywide average of $17,696.

With that much money, we could send a disadvantaged student to college at no cost. We could improve the quality of our grade school programs so kids who aren't disabled have a chance to learn and contribute something to the world. We could do a lot of things that will actually accomplish something. This program is a misguided attempt to provide a "normal" educational experience to someone who simply won't appreciate it.

Ex-gay homophobe says stupid stuff. (Surprised?)

Adam Hood, an ex-gay man turned Christian, calls homosexuality an abomination, a tragedy, and even "the most wicked sin" (at 3:20). Forget genocide, infanticide, slavery, and rape! No, one man sticking it up another man's butt (because male-on-male buttfucking is the only homosexual practice!) is God's Number One No-No.



Yeah, I totally believe he's straight now. That shiny gold scarf and dinky little goatee scream I Love Pussy. Dang, if I knew straight men were so fabulous, I would have never fallen into the depravity and sickness of homosexual behavior!

It's not us they should be mad at. Get mad at the Word of God!

No. No, you do not get to pass off the responsibility here. You decide to believe that a centuries-old text is the infallible word of God. You decide to interpret it to say that homosexuals are perverted degenerates who deserve Hell. Most importantly, you vote for elected officials who oppose the rights of normal, decent people to get married, hold steady jobs, and have children. I am mad at you.

You're not going to help anybody by sugar-coating the sin. No, you've got to leave them with the weight of the guilt and the shame, even if it makes them hate you temporarily.

I understand that you are ashamed and disgusted by yourself. And that's very tragic. But that does not make it okay to make other people feel the same way about themselves. There's a reason why LGBT youth are almost 10 times as likely to attempt suicide as non-LGBT youth*, and it's because people like you make them think they're dirty, disgusting freaks. Fuck you.

So many men who are lost in homosexuality--I say "lost" because they are straight up lost--they haven't had fathers in the household or they were abused sexually by a father or an uncle or some man...there are many other reasons, but a lot of it has to do with being fatherless.

See? Homosexuality is all about lonely, misguided mama's boys buttfucking each other. I'm almost envious of how completely invisible lesbians are to homophobic asswipes like Adam, but I suspect that part of it has to do with the misogyny inherent in such a patriarchial religion. We all know that lesbians are just straight women who can't find a decent Christian man to lead them in the right direction. If we make all the gay men into straight, god-loving folks, then vulnerable young women won't have to seek comfort in the arms of other girls!

A man's seed is not meant to eat crap and die....God didn't want that to go in that direction. That's the most filthy way for the sperm to go. It's literally filthy, it's disgusting, it's even dangerous. It's so dirty that it causes diseases and can harm you, physically.

Adam is right, poop is kind of gross. That's why we have enemas. And condoms. And besides, men can have other types of sex with each other. This is exactly why arguments against homosexuality fail: there is not one argument leveled against homosexuality that applies to all and only homosexuals. Have a problem with sodomy? Straight people do it too. Have a problem with disease? STDs are not limited to gay men (and lesbians have lower rates of infection than anyone!). Have a problem with non-reproductive sex? Go after infertile people. Ban condoms. Have a problem with sex outside of marriage? Let gay people marry.

Fundamentalists like Adam and this dumbass are trying to argue that homosexuality is wrong in and of itself. But in order to defend that claim, you either have to find a practice that is unique to homosexuals (and practiced by all of them), or you have to stop pretending to offer rational arguments, throw up your hands, and say God says so. One or the other, folks.

(via Unreasonable Faith)

*Figure obtained from this study found in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Humanitarianism and the Value of a Life

In moral theory, a positive duty is a one that obliges you to act while a negative duty obliges you not to act. For example, saving a baby from drowning might be a positive duty, and not drowning the baby yourself might be a negative duty. If you accept the claim that we all have positive duties toward other people (a claim that many libertarians at least partly deny), then you might wonder what exactly those duties entail. Peter Singer addresses this issue in a New York Times article: "What Should a Billionaire Give--and What Should You?"

Singer examines the philanthropic work of billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett (both of whom have made substantial contributions to charity) and poses the question: have they done enough? Gates, according to Singer, has donated close to 30 billion dollars to aid efforts and Buffett has given over 40 billion. These are obviously huge sums of money, but look at what they have left: Gates is valued at 53 billion dollars*, and Buffett at 47 billion*. Gates could give away an additional 52 billion dollars, and still live very comfortably for the rest of his life. Should he?

You might take a "fair-share" approach and say that Gates and Buffett have fulfilled their part of the world's obligation to the poor. I think there is a lot of appeal to this approach. Gates has given approximately 48% of his net worth to charity, and Buffett has donated a whopping 78% of his net worth**. How many of us can criticize that without being hypocritical? (Not me!)

However, I cannot help but agree with Singer's condemnation of the "fair-share" approach. He argues that, if we can easily save or better another life at a minimal cost to ourselves, then it is morally correct to do so, regardless of how much we've done in the past. After all, we would condemn anyone who would allow a baby to drown in a puddle just because they've already saved a lot of other babies.

There are some pretty serious consequences attached to this position. Consider Zell Kravinsky, who is an exemplary adherent to this version of utilitarianism. In 2002, Kravinsky donated one of his kidneys to a complete stranger. (He specified that the recipient should be a low-income black person as people in this demographic have a very hard time obtaining transplants.) This probably seems very extreme to most people. In fact, two hospitals turned down his request--presumably because they thought he was crazy. His wife nearly divorced him for the same reason. But is he crazy? Kravinsky points out that the chance he would die during the procedure was about 1 in 4000. He believed that, under those circumstances, "[withholding] a kidney from someone who would otherwise die means valuing one’s own life at 4,000 times that of a stranger".

Most Americans will assert that every human life is of equal value. If you truly believe that, shouldn't you keep giving until you're in the same position as those you're helping? At the very least, shouldn't you give until you have just enough money and belongings to have a minimally decent life? If you don't believe that, where do you draw the line?

How much is a human life worth to you, really?

*Figures obtained from Wikipedia.
**According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.