(3) Do American children with disabilities have a moral right to inclusion in K–12 regular education classes and school activities?
(a) If so, then (i) why?, (ii) does this moral right have limits?, (iii) if so, then what is their nature and moral justification?
(b) If American children with disabilities do not have a moral right to K–12 regular education inclusion, then why not?
(4) Are the IDEA’s procedural safeguards regarding school discipline of children with disabilities morally justified? If so, why? If not, why not?
(5) Are the IDEA’s due process review procedures morally justified?
(a) If so, then (i) why? and (ii) what is the basic moral responsibility of a special education due process hearing officer?
(b) If not, then why not?
(6) What are the basic moral responsibilities relative to K–12 special education of American children with disabilities of (a) lawmakers, (b) K–12 public school educators, and (c) parents of children with disabilities?
One cannot set aside the above six questions on the ground that they concern abstract, theoretical matters of interest only to philosophers of education and moral philosophers. To the contrary, all six questions require clear and, to the extent possible, precise answers if one construes the dispute between the severe critics and the advocates as, at bottom, about moral issues.
Costly expenditures for the K–12 public education of a given child with a disability are morally justified if (a) they are essential for providing the kind of K–12 education to which the child has a moral right and (b) such expenditures do not prevent other students (both nondisabled and children with disabilities) from receiving the kind of K–12 education to which they have a moral right.
Doubts about the educational effectiveness of particular instructional methods in special education (e.g., inclusion of children with disabilities in regular education classrooms) raise morally relevant concerns only if the effectiveness in doubt relates to attainment of goals entailed by the moral right of children with disabilities to receive an appropriate K–12 education. The IDEA’s extensive limitations and restrictions upon school discipline of children with disabilities are morally unjustified only if not essential for upholding the children’s moral right to receive an appropriate K–12 education.
If the procedural safeguards of the IDEA have resulted in divisiveness, such is morally objectionable only if it could have been avoided in a morally justified way. Such divisiveness would not be morally objectionable if it resulted unavoidably from parents’ efforts to claim the moral rights of their children with disabilities to receive an appropriate K–12 education. The respective moral responsibilities of lawmakers, K–12 public school educators, and parents of children with disabilities apropos the children’s K–12 education encompass diverse kinds of effort—which are all essential for providing the kind of education to which these children have a moral right.
None of the issues in dispute between the severe critics and the advocates is easily separable from the six basic moral questions identified above concerning special education in American K–12 public schools. Nonetheless, both the severe critics and the advocates seldom address the questions explicitly (or even implicitly), and rarely at the level of depth required.
Severe critics, for example, frequently dismiss assertions of the advocates that key entitlements under the IDEA are indispensable for giving legal effect to the moral rights of children with disabilities concerning K–12 public education. They view these assertions as badly misplaced civil libertarian rhetoric. In the same vein, however, advocates often brush aside the concerns of the severe critics about expense, unfairness, educational ineffectiveness, and divisiveness as failures to take seriously the moral right of children with disabilities to receive an appropriate K–12 education.
Characteristically absent on either side is an adequate analysis of the six basic moral questions identified above. Each side would need to set forth such an analysis in order to justify its thoroughgoing rejection of the other side’s stance.
However, the absence does not appear to stem entirely or even primarily from either obstinate refusal or failure to consider, in the heat of impassioned disagreement, the basic moral questions. A serious effort to address these questions leads quickly to complex and philosophically deep issues; these involve interpretive controversy over understanding and application of such concepts as happiness/unhappiness, justice, human dignity, and freedom relative to education of children with disabilities.
Ordinarily, neither diverse professionals in special education nor parents of children with disabilities and their advocates are well attuned to these issues, so despite their moral centrality the issues hover in the background unaddressed. The chapters that follow, summarized briefly below, thus deal with the basic moral questions for special education in American K–12 public schools in a focused, sustained, and philosophically informed way.
Overview of Chapters 2 through 7
Chapter 2 has two principal components. First, it sets forth an analysis of an appropriate K–12 education which applies to a group referred to in the chapter as “Group A.” Group A consists of the following members: (1) all American children who are nondisabled and (2) all American children who are eligible for special education under the IDEA definition of a “child with a disability,” except for children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities (referred to in chapter 2 as “Group B”).
Under this analysis an appropriate K–12 education for children in Group A has two prongs. It must be reasonably calculated to help children acquire knowledge and develop abilities required (1) to exercise rights, fulfill responsibilities, and exemplify ideals of membership in the American democratic body politic and (2) to have a reasonable chance for success in seeking the basic human good of self-fulfillment.
The second principal component of chapter 2 is an account that seeks to justify the conclusion that children in Group A have a moral right to receive an appropriate K–12 education, understood in terms of the above two-pronged analysis. The account consists of four arguments for this conclusion, each proceeding from the standpoint of a different major philosophical theory; each major theory differs from the other three in the concept it takes as central to the idea of social justice. The four theories, paired with the respective concepts they take as central to the idea of social justice, are as follows:
1. utilitarianism—happiness and avoidance of unhappiness;
2. Rawlsian Justice as fairness—fairness;
3. capabilities account of social justice—human dignity; and
4. moderate libertarianism—liberty (freedom).
All four of the arguments developed are highly plausible. That is to say, each argument could be found persuasive by a large group of reasonable and thoughtful persons. A persuasive argument need not establish its conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, it sets forth considerations that call for careful reflection; this shifts the burden of persuasion to the other side of the issue by requiring a thoughtful, considered response.
To summarize, the application of different major philosophical theories of social justice, with differing conceptual cores, produces an overlapping consensus. Such consensus, accordingly, provides a persuasive justification of the judgment that American children in Group A have a moral right to receive an appropriate K–12 education, understood in terms of the two-pronged analysis.
Chapter 3 first sets forth an analysis of an appropriate K–12 education for children in Group B—that is, for children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities. According to that analysis, a K–12 education for a child with a severe or profound intellectual disability condition is appropriate if and only if it is reasonably calculated to foster significant development of central human capabilities relevant in the child’s case, given the particular aspects of his/her disability condition.
Chapter 3 then develops a justification of the judgment that all