Why so much special education? And minimum wage bunk

By CHRIS POWELL

Connecticut is facing another expensive anomaly. The state’s Hearst newspapers report that while public school enrollment has fallen substantially since 2006, from 578,500 to 498,000 students, a decline of 14%, students receiving “special education” — students who have intellectual and physical disabilities — have increased by 39%, from 68,500 to 95,000.

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According to the Hearst report, the percentage the increase in Connecticut’s special education population is larger than the increase in most states.

Special education requires schools to develop individual education plans for each student and usually to provide additional services on top of that. Since special-ed students are found disproportionately in the schools of poorer municipalities, and since state government only partially reimburses special-ed costs, the burden on those schools and municipalities is heavy and drives up local property taxes.  

What’s going on?

Authorities on special education surmise that it’s a matter of more advanced diagnosis — that health conditions that would not have been noticed years ago are now being diagnosed and susceptible to treatment. Such has been the case with other ailments over the years.

But the extreme disparity between the decline in public school enrollment and the increase in special education diagnosis — enrollment down 14% and special education cases up 39% in 20 years — suggests that something else is at work as well.

Child neglect and abuse and chronic student absenteeism also have worsened substantially in Connecticut in recent decades, disproportionately in the same places where special education cases have increased — the impoverished cities and inner suburbs. Correlation is not necessarily causation, but where households are poor, children live with only one parent, and parenting is weak — common conditions in the cities and inner suburbs — physical and mental impairments may not be as readily noticed and treatment not as readily sought. 

So it is fair to suspect that the explosion in special education costs is part of the price society is paying for welfare policy’s destruction of the family.

At least Governor Lamont now concedes that it might be best for state government to assume all municipal costs of special education. That would be an excellent form of progressive tax relief, if the savings on the municipal level weren’t just quickly diverted to increased compensation for unionized municipal employees. 

Even so, how extreme must the increase in special education expenses get before state government formally asks itself, as through a legislative investigation: Where are all the troubled and handicapped children coming from?

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Connecticut U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy seem to think they have the solution for the country’s worsening poverty. Their Living Wage for All Act would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour for large employers by 2032 and for all others by 2039.

Business people and others who inhabit the real world can only wince at this.

For Blumenthal and Murphy don’t propose to regulate the other expenses of business, expenses that bear on what businesses can afford to pay their employees. Nor can Blumenthal and Murphy guarantee that any employee will produce $25 an hour in value for his employer. The legislation has been ridiculed as a vast government subsidy to the robot design and manufacturing industry.

But there may not be much reason to take the legislation seriously. Blumenthal and Murphy may be just striking another pose to ingratiate themselves with the political left. For since the national debt keeps rising fast and there is no political will to curb it, the debt will keep being paid with the tax called inflation, and so by 2032 and especially by 2039 even $25 per hour may be a poverty wage.

Indeed, the best thing government could do for the working class would be to stop inflation.

The silly premise of the Blumenthal-Murphy legislation is the premise of the slogan that often appears on union picket line signs: “One job should be enough.” Yes, that would be nice. But any one job? Then what would be the incentive to increase one’s work skills after high school?

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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)

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