Discrimination in the public education system

Wow, I really haven't kept up with this thing. School, work, and everything else has just taken way too much time. I wouldn't even be up writing this if I had anything else to do; I had my wisdom teeth out last week, and it's causing more pain right now than it did on the second day. It literally just started tonight too. Weird. At least I have my Percocet, right?

Anyway, I have an issue I've wanted to write about for months.

I'm gonna give a fair warning on this one; this is not a feel good article. The problem I'm writing about is not exactly "politically correct." Also, keep in mind, the numbers only apply to Oklahoma, but the same problem with similar numbers apply to all the states.

How does discrimination affect the direction of funds in the state school system?

Here's a fun fact you probably didn't know:
30% of Oklahoma's education funding goes to less than 5% of the students. Why is this?

Now, if this were any other issue, it would have been stopped immediately. If it were discrimination based on race, gender, a student's financial standing, or a student's grades, it wouldn't have lasted a second without some sort of lawsuit from the ACLU. So, what could it be?

This discrimination is based on IQ.

Now, before you draw any conclusions, you should know that the naturally gifted do not receive any more funding than the average. So, that leaves one group.

The special needs students in Oklahoma receive 30% of the funding. How is that remotely justifiable?

Now, before you say or think anything, I'm not saying they don't have a right to school. I'm not saying they aren't human beings. I'm not advocating eugenics.

In order to come to any logical conclusion, we have to take a step back and look at the whole picture. From there, we can answer some vital questions.
What is the purpose of school?
What skill sets do special needs children acquire in public schooling?
Why are we allocating so much of our resources to this one group?

The widely accepted purpose for public schooling is to provide an affordable means for children to acquire the skill sets they need for adult life. I think that's fairly reasonable.

What skill sets do special needs children acquire in schools? Absolutely none. There isn't much of an educational environment in a special needs class. It's more or less just a place they go for socializing. I mean, sure, they do learn things, but how many of these things are pertinent to everyday life outside of school?

Why do we allocate so much of our resources to this group? I don't really know. What gains do we get from it? What is the return on investment? We teach most children so they can become functioning members of society, meaning people that work and contribute to the economy. If we aren't teaching special needs children to contribute, why are they getting so much of the school's funding?

Now for the question: What do I suppose we should do?

As I said before, I'm not for eugenics. I don't believe that pushing someone out of society is really going to help us enough to forget the moral implications, but I don't believe in giving alms either.

We should cut the funding for special needs children down to where it is exactly proportional to the rest of the students. Everyone should have an equal chance (at least from the state's perspective) in a public school from a financial standpoint, right?

And we wonder why schools are underfunded...