Institutionalized inequality — VOICES for REASON

Under a 1975 U.S. law, school districts which fail to provide a “free and appropriate education” for students with disabilities can be (and have been) sued by parents for reimbursement of the cost of schooling those students privately. A new Supreme Court ruling will now allow parents to seek reimbursement for private school education even if their special needs child has never attended public school.

The ruling is significant not for the specific, narrow legal issue that it resolved, but because it brings back to light the perverse double standard inherent in the law guaranteeing such reimbursement. Namely, why are students without disabilities not afforded the opportunity for an “appropriate” education as well?

Part of the issue in the court case was whether state schools can cater to children with disabilities — but there’s a real question whether these schools can adequately educate the millions of children without disabilities. Horror stories abound, from miserable test scores to dumbed-down and tendentious curricula to gun violence and drug use to hundreds of “teachers” being paid to do nothing. (If you’d like an appalling example, read this editorial summarizing one week of criminal incidents at Philadelphia public schools.) The alternatives for most parents are few. More often than not, they’re stuck sending their children to the neighborhood public school — for lack of a better option.

A fundamental principle of law is that all citizens are equal before it. Now, consider what the law says to each set of parents trying to educate their children:

To the parents of children with disabilities, the law says: “If the public schools in your area are unfit to educate your child, send your child to a private institution. Your child is entitled to it.  Don’t worry about the cost.”

To the parents of other children, the law says: “If the public schools in your area are unfit to educate your child, tough. Send your child to superior private school if you want, but don’t expect a cent back for the taxes you’ve paid to the school district.”

ARI’s position is that education should be entirely private, free from state control; that there is no right to schooling which must be provided at another’s expense. But you don’t have to hold that there should be a separation of state and schools to see the injustice in this legal inequality.

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Image: flickr CC attribution/macwagen