This data is REALLY hard to get. For me to do it, I had to go line by line through the budget.

For example, all the classroom aids are typically assigned as teaching costs. But the reality is that they are assigned to individual students with IEPs (individual education plans), ergo, they should be categorized as special ed.

Same thing in pulling out transportation. Or tuition to other districts. Admin dealing with special ed grants and recordkeeping. It goes on and on...

It IS hard to get, and that's why the former school board member's estimate is valuable.

The benefits to disability accommodation are primarily non-monetary, which is why market forces do an awful job of providing them.

Education and social services are one of the areas where we really shouldn't be leaning that hard on ROI. The return is a well taken care of populace. Yes, it may cost, but we pay that cost because we're not assholes.

I would argue that ROI is extremely important in education. It's just that the "return" on our investment is not purely financial. Producing students who will be competent to effectively participate in and wisely run the society of tomorrow is a large part of the return that we seek. So, to that extent it may be that high special needs costs are worth it if they demonstrably help students become self-sufficient instead of dependent wards of the state. I can't say for sure that they are worth it, I'm saying that the mere fact that they're expensive doesn't mean they aren't cost-effective in the greater sense.

Those are still returns, just not monetary ones. You can get plenty of buy in that educational outcomes are good in themselves, but schools fail at that basic metric.

On the other hand, as a way to provide social services to underprivileged children they are pretty decent. But that's not what they're advertised as (school isn't known as an acronym for Social Care and Health Out Of a Location), and people end up pissed.

Are you saying "whatever it costs, it doesn't matter"? Because I can't agree with that. Nor is it good public policy to just be "not assholes."

The absolute dollar amount does matter, and it has nothing to do with being assholes or not. There are different ways to meet children's needs and spending an infinite amount of money is just not sustainable.