Learning Disabilities

Introduction

More than 2 million youngsters in the United States have a learning disability - a condition that makes it hard for someone of otherwise normal intelligence to read, write, speak or work with numbers. Federal law requires local school systems to provide all children with disabilities a “free appropriate public education.” But special education costs more than twice as much per student as regular education. Many school policy-makers have called for teaching almost all students with disabilities in regular classrooms. Advocacy groups for people with learning disabilities, however, say “full inclusion” has reduced the services that youngsters with learning disorders need to succeed. The debate has intensified with a new Supreme Court decision that makes it easier to force school systems to pay for private ...